Review: LG BH200 Dual Format Player

All HDTV owners are potentially high-definition disc player owners. However, only a small percentage actually are, and most of those ended up that way by default because they wanted the last Sony video game console. High-definition players have been here since the middle of 2006, so why haven’t more people made the transition?

There are three reasons: The first is price. When HD DVD launched in 2006 at $800 and Blu-Ray at $1,200, many potential customers decided they weren’t in any hurry. That situation has changed with the entry barrier now reduced to $200 for HD DVD and $400 for Blu-ray. The second issue was content. In 2006 there simply weren’t that many compelling movies available in high-definition to make people take the leap. That too has changed as every major movie now comes out in a high-definition format, and usually simultaneous with the standard DVD release. The third and most important reason is the format war. Yes, that again. Having to choose between two incompatible formats has been enough to put a time-out flag on most consumers’ spending.

At the beginning of 2007 LG came out with the BH100 player that was supposed to settle that issue once and for all. It had the unique ability to play back both HD DVD and Blu-ray discs, essentially ending all worry about which format any disc was available in. However, that product was probably a bit premature. While it did indeed play back the movies of both formats, and played them well, it had a major flaw—it wasn’t compatible with the interactive menus and features of HD DVD and so you essentially could watch the movie, but nothing else on the disc. For a viewer who wants to explore all the creative extras packed onto HD DVD discs, this was a real downer. Blu-ray discs, on the other hand, were 100 percent supported. The product was groundbreaking, but not perfect.

Here we are a year later, and LG has brought out the successor to that in the form of the BH200. This player aims to end all incompatibility with HD DVD and be the ultimate high-definition component for movie lovers.

This player differs from the earlier version in a few other ways as well. While the first LG combo player would output its 1080p signal only to TVs that could support a 24Hz signal, this player will send 1080p to any TV that displays 1080p (via HDMI, of course). Strangely, there’s nothing in the menu to let you select 24Hz as an option, but the player automatically detects if the TV is compatible and defaults to that setting. Also, this one plays CDs while the first didn’t.