LG PC Blu-ray/HD-DVD Combo Drive

Editor's Note: This preview is based on early-release hardware and early software. It would be premature to draw any final conclusions from the results presented here. Because this is an interesting and potentially seminal piece of hardware in the battle of high-definition disc formats, we put it through essentially the same process we would for review hardware.

Recently, LG Electronics began shipping the Super Blu Player, a consumer Blu-ray player that can also play back HD-DVD movies, though some advanced HD-DVD interactive features are missing. Now the company is readying the GGW-H10N, a PC drive that can burn Blu-ray, DVD, and CD discs. It also serves as an HD-DVD ROM drive and, with the right software, can play back HD-DVD movies.

VIEW ALL PHOTOS IN GALLERY

The movement towards shipping combo drives has been a slow process, though it's worth remembering that it was several years before drives capable of burning both DVD-R and DVD+R drives hit the market. The stakes are considerably higher in the Blu-ray versus HD-DVD battle, so there's keen interest among consumers in seeing successful combo drives. On the other hand, primary stakeholders in the format wars—Toshiba on the HD-DVD side and Sony on the Blu-ray side—are probably less happy with the idea.

Hewlett-Packard is planning to be the first company to ship systems using LG's combo drive. HP loaned us a prototype PC with an early LG drive installed for us to test. What we found was a drive that's pretty polished as a playback device, but is still a work in progress on the burner side.

The LG drive looks much like any optical drive. Unlike its consumer player cousin, which doesn't sport an official HD-DVD logo, the PC drive bezel has the actual HD-DVD ROM logo emblazoned on it. The GGW-H10N as shipped by HP is a Serial ATA (SATA) device. The drive was installed in an HP prototype PC. Bear in mind here that the PC we tested may not reflect the specs of the final shipping product. The HP test PC was built with a Core 2 Duo E6700, 2GB of DDR2/800 memory, and a 320GB hard drive.

Perhaps the most interesting component, aside from the GGW-H10N optical drive, was the ASUS prototype 8500GT graphics card with HDMI output.

For more details on the LG's GGW-H10N features and performance, get the lowdown on our sister site, Extremetech.com.

More DVD burner reviews:
•   Rosewill USB 3.0 External Slim Aluminum 6x Blu-ray Writer Model RDED-12001
•   Samsung SE-218BB Ultrathin Optical Disc Drive
•   Plextor PlexEasy DVD
•   Lite-On eNAU708
•   Plextor External Blu-ray PX-LB950UE
• more

combo-front

The LG drive burns Blu-ray, DVD+/- R/RW and CD discs; it's also an HD-DVD playback drive. Note the HD-DVD ROM logo.

hp-proto-front

It's a Core 2 Duo E6700 system with LG GGW-H10N and Nvidia GeForce 8600GT graphics.

asus-g86-hdmi

We can see the HDMI port on the ASUS G86 card.

asus-g86

ASUS 8500GT Card, which has HDMI out. The small white connector at the top of the card is the S/PDIF audio pass-through.

combo-rear

The drive we tested is a SATA drive. Note the early serial number.

hd-dvd-movie

HD-DVD movie launching; the movie here is V for Vendetta.

flyboys-blu-ray

The player applications handled either Blu-ray movies or HD-DVD movies. Shown here is the Blu-ray version of Flyboys.

About Our Expert

Loyd Case

loyd_case@ziffdavis.com

Loyd Case came to computing by way of physical chemistry. He began modestly on a DEC PDP-11 by learning the intricacies of the TROFF text formatter while working on his master's thesis. After a brief, painful stint as an analytical chemist, he took over a laboratory network at Lockheed in the early 80's and never looked back. His first "real" computer was an HP 1000 RTE-6/VM system.

In 1988, he figured out that building his own PC was vastly more interesting than buying off-the-shelf systems ad he ditched his aging Compaq portable. The Sony 3.5-inch floppy drive from his first homebrew rig is still running today. Since then, he's done some programming, been a systems engineer for Hewlett-Packard, worked in technical marketing in the workstation biz, and even dabbled in 3-D modeling and Web design during the Web's early years.

Loyd was also bitten by the writing bug at a very early age, and even has dim memories of reading his creative efforts to his third grade class. Later, he wrote for various user group magazines, culminating in a near-career ending incident at his employer when a humor-impaired senior manager took exception at one of his more flippant efforts. In 1994, Loyd took on the task of writing the first roundup of PC graphics cards for Computer Gaming World -- the first ever written specifically for computer gamers. A year later, Mike Weksler, then tech editor at Computer Gaming World, twisted his arm and forced him to start writing CGW's tech column. The gaming world -- and Loyd -- has never quite recovered despite repeated efforts to find a normal job. Now he's busy with the whole fatherhood thing, working hard to turn his two daughters into avid gamers. When he doesn't have his head buried inside a PC, he dabbles in downhill skiing, military history and home theater.

Read the latest from Loyd Case

Read full bio