LG to launch dual Blu-ray and HD DVD player at CES

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 04 January 2007 16:24

Your IT - Entertainment

LG announced they were working on a dual Blu-ray/HD DVD player last March, and less than 12 months later, they promise to release the unit in ‘early 2007’ after launching it at CES next week. Finally someone has the sense to launch a dual format player – but what will this do for sales of already expensive existing single format next generation players?

The next-generation wars started in earnest in 2006 with the respective launches and retail availability of standalone Blu-ray and HD DVD players from companies like Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, Toshiba and others. We also saw the availability of the PS3 and the HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360.

For anyone that wanted to show off HD quality movies on the latest next-generation player to their family and friends for Christmas 2006, the opportunity was there, provided you could easily afford it.

But the mass consumer market isn’t about the early adopter who is willing to put up with initial bugs and can afford the price premium that always exists with the latest technology on launch and for a short while after its release.

When you have two competing formats taking over from a single DVD format that consumers had become well accustomed to for well over half a decade, there was always the potential for a replay of the trouble the world’s consumers faced when forced to choose between Betamax and VHS.

But 2007 will signal the reduction of prices for Blu-ray and HD DVD players, not only thanks to normal price erosion thanks to competition and the laws of supply and demand, but thanks to LG’s new dual Blu-ray and HD DVD player.

There’s scant information available on the new player, with only a promise to launch it in early 2007. There’s no pricing available yet, although we assume that as first generation product, it will be expensive too.

Yet the emergence of such a product would instantly cause anyone thinking of buying a standalone player to pause until they have more information about LG’s unit. Of course, how many people are expected to buy a player in January after paying for Christmas is a good question, with the likely answer being ‘not many’. Anyway that wanted high-def and could afford would have easily been able to buy it in December.

But for the rest of us that don’t have unlimited bank balances, few people are truly rushing out to buy next-gen players. Prices are simply too expensive, the units on offer won’t actually record high-definition TV shows and movies now on offer by free-to-air and cable channels, and the knowledge that updated versions are always on the way along with a series of firmware updates making people think twice before spending their hard earned cash.

Please read on to page 2 for the conclusion...