Blu-ray LG BH100

Gizmodo Review

Jan 24 2007

First Review: LG BH100 Hybrid Blu-Ray/HD-DVD Player (Verdict: Format War Still Blazing)

We got the LG BH100 in the mail yesterday. It does what claims to do — be the very first high definition disc player that is compatible with both Blu-ray and HD-DVD. But don’t wave the white flag in the format war quite yet. Our first grope reveals a few flaws that keep me from recommending this player as the ultimate peace keeper in the HD format war.
Right off, I’ll tell you that the rumors that the HD-DVD compatibility is half-assed are absolutely true. One of HD-DVD’s strongest points is its interactive menus and video features, like the ones we wrote about in our Fast and the Furious HD-DVD review. This player didn’t support the menus on this movie, and some of the special features, like being able to repaint a race car in the movie, were only found when I manually skipped to the chapter. Even then, the only thing you can depend on is that the movie will play. Which may be enough for many, but not enough for those who want the most from both formats.
Secondly, I could not get the player to engage its 1080p mode via HDMI with the Sony XBR3 I’m testing. 1080i was all she would do.
But beyond that, she did play both discs. And the boot times were in the 30-40 second range for both HD formats. That’s a step in the right direction compared to many of the 1st gen disc players that took about a minute. Strangely, the boot times were around 30 seconds for DVDs, too. A little long, but this is still the only way to get both formats in your home with one piece of gear. (Until those dual format discs pick up.)
Generally, if a player like this works, its quality is good enough for 95 percent of the population. But with a price tag of 1200 bucks, before tax and shipping, I had to test the player’s visual qualities. Without an adequate HD synthetic benchmark, I used the tried and true HQV test DVD that gives quantitative scores for a DVD player’s video processor quality with clips that aggravate jaggies, noise, moire, and frame rate cadence. The disc is the equivalent to Marine Boot Camp, so when the player scored a 55 out of 130, I wasn’t too dissapointed, but I was not impressed, either. By reference, the XBox DVD player scored a 40. So, the LG is “OK”.
This is a weird thing to bring up for a set top box review, but did you notice how gorgeous the case is? the matte-finished aluminum top proudly displays compatibility logos, and 5 buttons, for power, eject, play/pause, stop and menu that with softly glowing halos. On the front, there is merely the disc tray, the monochrome LCD and the glowing LG logo. It’s basically the cleanest set top box I’ve ever seen. There is a flaw in this design: With the buttons on top, you’re forced to put the BH100 in the top of a shelf, or be stuck using the remote. Seems fine. But like the PS3 and its rounded top, the BH100’s design seems to scream to be at the top of your AV stack. Either way, if Chen were here, he’d try to stick it in his pants.
Extras: The player came with a bunch of crappy RCA and component cables, a nice universal remote,and a polish cloth. But no HDMI cable, the jerks.

Would I buy this? I’d can’t recommend it if you’re a videophile, or already have an XBox or PS3 to use as a player. Remember, the cost of the box is actually more than one of those cheaper 2nd gen Blu-Ray players + an HD-DVD player. And you’re not getting the full shazaam when it comes to the HD-DVD interactivity. So, I’d personally pass, unless you have a very strong aversion to having two HD disc boxes instead of one. Just wait. There’ll be more of these. –BRIAN LAM

Sound and Vision

by Al Griffin • Photos by Tony Cordoza • April 2007

Maybe it’s me, but lately it seems like there’s been a glut of World War II-related movies hitting the screen. Clint Eastwood alone cranked out two in the past year, and he’s 77! A key theme in many of these flicks is that war closely resembles hell. If that’s the case, then the same must apply (on a less crucial scale, of course) to video format wars. Having to buy two separate, expensive machines just to take advantage of the full range of high-definition disc releases — if that situation isn’t hell, then it’s certainly hellish.

If, like me, you’re not too thrilled about the current format war, you’ll be happy to know about the LG BH100 Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD player, a $1,200 combo model that can handle both formats. The company calls its unique, peacemaking machine Super Multi Blue. Sensing consumer desire for such a product, LG set out to make it real by creating a dual-lens/dual-diode disc drive with red and blue lasers. One of the BH100’s lenses is used for HD DVD and standard DVD, which have data embedded at similar depths on the disc. The other one, meanwhile, is used for Blu-ray Discs, which pack data close to the disc surface and thus require a lens with a different focal point. As far as the player’s dual laser mechanisms go, blue is used for both high-definition disc formats, and red for standard DVDs. LG also worked closely with chip-maker Broadcom to develop a custom solution that could seamlessly switch between the HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc formats in a player with a single disc drive.
But before you nod out in a blissful blue haze over the prospect of having to buy only one high-def disc player, there’s something else you should know about the BH100: It hasn’t been sanctioned as a full-fledged HD DVD player by the DVD Forum. To earn that status, a player needs to provide HDi interactivity — features like picture-in-picture for onscreen video commentaries, as well as the ability to download additional content over the Internet. LG’s Super BH100 not only lacks those features, it won’t even display the menu screens from HD DVDs! (No such limitations apply to its handling of Blu-ray Discs, however.)

A few other BH100 peculiarities need to be addressed up front. Although the player can extract 1080p-format signals from both HD DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, it delivers them in that resolution only at 24- and 30-Hz frame rates. Basically, this means that if your HDTV can’t accept a 1080p signal with a 24- or 30-Hz refresh rate over an HDMI connection (many can’t), then the 1080p option won’t be accessible in the BH100’s setup menu and you’ll be limited to 1080i or 720p high-def output. And though the player’s HDMI connection worked fine with an Anthem AVM 50 preamp that I used for testing, LG has confirmed that the initial run of BH100s had problems passing signals via HDMI to Denon and Pioneer A/V receivers (an issue that’s reportedly been fixed for the current production run; LG is also planning a firmware upgrade for units already in the field).

If you’re starting to think that the BH100 is quirky, then hold on, because things get even weirder on the audio side. The machine’s support for lossless Dolby TrueHD soundtracks is limited to two-channel analog output only, and it downmixes six-channel uncompressed PCM soundtracks on Blu-ray Discs to stereo for delivery over its HDMI 1.2 connection. Also, the BH100 isn’t capable of playing regular audio CDs (an irritating trait that it shares with the Pioneer Elite Blu-ray player reviewed on page 60). Finally, although it was widely reported at the recent CES that the BH100 would be the first high-def disc player capable of decoding lossless DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks, LG has since confirmed that it decodes only the standard “core” 5.1-channel DTS soundtrack on discs. Clearly, the BH100 comes up short of being the high-def disc panacea we’ve all been waiting for.

Considering its limitations, perhaps it’s fitting that the all-black BH100 has a nondescript look. The front panel is occupied by a disc tray, an LED display, and a large, white, non-dimmable LG logo. A set of control buttons for power, play/pause, stop, disc tray open/close, and video output resolution is located on the machine’s top surface, but there are no buttons for disc or menu navigation, chapter skip, or scan. Outputs on the back panel include HDMI and component-video connections, both optical and coaxial digital audio, and six-channel analog audio. There’s also a modular connector with the label “Service.” Although this jack looks like something you can use to plug the player into a home network, it’s used strictly for repair diagnostics by LG-certified techs.

While LG’s remote control for the BH100 lacks a backlit keypad, its button layout is straightforward and clean. Hitting the Display button calls up an onscreen graphic that lists information such as current title and chapter, elapsed time, and soundtrack format. And a button near the bottom labeled Resolution lets you change the player’s video output format. There are also a number of colored buttons designated for use with Blu-ray Disc Java functions, but I didn’t find any discs that made use of them.

SETUP
To test the BH100, I hooked it up to my system using the player’s digital HDMI jack as well as its analog six-channel audio outputs. Entering the Display submenu from the setup screen, I chose the 1080p resolution option (the TV that I used accepts 1080p/ 24-format signals, so the LG’s limitations there weren’t an issue). I also checked out the player’s video performance using its component-video outputs, but, as with other high-def disc players, resolution for both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc playback maxes out at 1080i when you use that connection.
The BH100’s audio setup menu proved to be somewhat confusing. An SPDIF option lets you select either bitstream or PCM output for the BH100’s digital audio jacks, and the player’s user manual recommends PCM for setups where two-channel audio is preferred — no ambiguity there. But then the manual goes on to suggest that in order to hear DTS-HD audio, you need to first select PCM from the player’s SPDIF menu option. After following LG’s advice, I only managed to hear stereo audio coming from both the player’s coaxial digital and HDMI outputs when listening to discs with DTS-HD master Audio soundtracks. Switching back to the Bitstream option returned things to the multichannel realm, but, as LG later confirmed, what I was hearing was the core 5.1-channel DTS soundtrack, and not DTS-HD Master Audio, via all outputs.

Other options available from the Audio menu include 48- or 96-kHz sampling frequency and 5.1-channel speaker output when using the player’s six-channel analog audio connection. The 5.1 speaker setting enables you to set large or small speaker size and turn on test signals when using the analog audio output, but there’s no option for speaker distance.

PERFORMANCE
Since the BH100 plays regular DVDs along with HD DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, I started out by spinning some old-school discs on it. The LG did a fine job upconverting the 480i-format DVD video to 1080i HDTV (the resolution limit for upconverted DVD sources on the BH100). Pictures looked clean and solid, although the TV I was using also contributed quite a bit here by deinterlacing the 1080i signal for its native 1080p screen. One issue that I did notice was a spot of chroma upsampling error — an artifact that mostly shows up as darker horizontal lines in bright red areas. But instances of the problem were few and far between.

If you pick up a BH100 to use mainly as a Blu-ray Disc player, you’re going to be a happy camper, because BD picture quality on the machine is excellent. As I watched the Ridley Scott epic Kingdom of Heaven, the player delivered an abundance of fine detail. In wide shots of Jerusalem seen from the hilltop vantage of Balian (Orlando Bloom), the gobs of detail visible in the background lent the vista an impressive sense of depth. And close-up shots were characterized by even greater three-dimensional realism. When I watched a scene set in an outdoor spice market, for example, the intricate play of light and shadow on the customers’ robes was clearly revealed, as were the powdery texture and deep hues of the orange and yellow spice mounds. The player’s picture also held up extremely well when I used a component-video connection.

Despite the player’s HD DVD format limitations, those discs also looked great on the BH100. After viewing a few benchmark picture-quality discs such as Happy Gilmore and Four Brothers, I had no hesitation giving the LG an HD DVD thumbs-up for its image. While it’s kind of absurd that you don’t get to view these discs’ menus, hitting the Menu or Pop Up button on the player’s remote calls up a generic navigation bar (see below) that lets you select from a numbered sequence of titles or scenes. And the same display can also be used to select between soundtrack formats and subtitles as you would from an HD DVD’s own menu. Of course, while this nav bar does allow you to get around the disc, the lack of images or detail prevents you from knowing what part of the film or extras section you’re navigating to. That’s a very different — and disappointing — experience after you’ve cruised through the elegant HD DVD pop-up menus that other players provide access to.

Sound is a big — and, to judge from the various Blu-ray Disc players I’ve tested, unpredictable — part of the high-def disc experience. Though I wasn’t able to experience 5.1 Dolby TrueHD from the handful of HD DVDs I have that feature the format (or DTS-HD Master Audio on Blu-ray Disc, for that matter), regular Dolby Digital and DTS soundtracks with both high-def disc formats came across as rich and dynamic on the BH100. Watching a scene from Kingdom of Heaven where an army of crusaders on horseback swarms in for battle, the swell of hoofbeats as the animals charged had a dense, realistic presentation, and the soundtrack’s active surround channels delivered a vivid sense of battlefield ambience.

BOTTOM LINE
Ultimately, deciding whether to own the LG BH100 Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD player is likely to depend on whether you’re a glass-half-empty or half-full type of person. If you’re the former, then this player’s limited video and audio output options, HDMI incompatibilities, and inability to play audio CDs or perform basic interactive functions with HD DVDs make it a hard sell. But if you’re the latter, you’ll be rewarded by the BH100’s fine picture with Blu-ray Discs, HD DVDs, and regular DVDs. Not to mention the advantage of using a single machine to watch all three. That convenience alone is a small slice of heaven.

Snapshot
LG’s Super Multi Blue player has its share of quirks, but it also delivers fine video performance with Blu-ray Discs, HD DVDs, and regular DVDs.

Plus
•Great picture quality with Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD
•Clean 1080i video upconversion of regular DVDs
•Plays both Blu-ray Discs and HD DVDs

Minus
•No interactive features or menu display with HD DVDs
•1080p video output incompatible with some HDTVs
•Stereo-only output for Dolby TrueHD and PCM soundtracks
•No audio CD playback

Key Features
•6-source/6-zone system
•Plays both Blu-ray Discs and HD DVDs
•1080p/24 video output
•6-channel analog audio output
•Outputs: HDMI, component-video, and composite-video; coaxial and optical digital audio, 6-channel analog audio
•17 x 3 x 10 in; 9 lb