LG's New, Cheaper Combo HD Deck: Still $1K

The new Blu-ray/HD DVD combo player from LG adds the interactive HD DVD features lacking in its predecessor. But at a hair below $1,000, it's still way too expensive.

Gizmodo reports that the BH200 ($999, due to arrive next month) will come with HDi support (good for pop-up commentaries by actors and directors, plus other assorted HD DVD goodies)—a feature that was conspicuously missing from the BH100, LG's first stab at an HD combo deck. You'll also find support for Blu-ray's new picture-in-picture and networking abilities, along with 1080p upscaling for standard DVDs, an Ethernet port, support for lossless audio formats like DTS-HD (the press release doesn't mention Dolby TrueHD—I'll have to follow-up on that one), and 1080p video over HDMI at up to 60 frames per second.

All very nice, but then there's that price tag: $999, about $50 cheaper than Samsung's competing combo HD player, but still more than a 60GB PlayStation 3 with a built-in Blu-ray player and a $300 Toshiba HD DVD deck. Of course, the good news is that Samsung may decide to drop the price of its $1,049 BD-UP5000 player in light of the LG BH200, so maybe we'll see a little combo HD player price war. No complaints here.

Related:
LG Intros $999 BH200 Super Blu Combo HD Player [Gizmodo]