The hybrid high definition DVD player built by Korean LG Electronics that has emerged rather rapidly since the Consumer Electronics Show, has hit US stores and for the most part sold out, despite receiving very poor reviews.
The tone of those reviews is largely that this is a Blu-ray DVD player with HD DVD capabilities retrofitted and reviewers have complained that this system bypasses the DVD menus and goes straight to playing video, on HD DVD formatted disks. But it does actually play both formats.
There has been a trickle of these devices reported into US major stores including Best Buy, Circuit City and CompUSA, and it still costs $1,200 and it is still selling out all that LG can manage to deliver.
To be honest, at Faultline we thought that the high definition DVD war would be over, in Blu-ray’s favor before a hybrid could be brought to market, at it would have been but for Microsoft’s support of HD DVD, but the high price of the Blu-ray players has slowed down its acceptance and made economic room for the hybrid, perhaps temporarily, perhaps indefinitely.
Either way none of the consumer electronics manufacturers will be able to allow LG too much of a head start in this hybrid market, and we can expect more and more devices, both hybrid and separately from each camp, and the war is on already to drive down prices on these devices to make them mainstream. LG has not yet said how many of the devices it has shipped.