LG's Blu-ray/HD-DVD Player Favors Blu-ray

Everyone's been raving about LG's new Super Multi Blue player since it partially offers a solution to the format war between Blu-ray and HD-DVD. But here's the thing: The machine favors Blu-ray. Yes, it plays HD-DVDs and even loads them up in less than 20 seconds, but unfortunately that's all it does with that particular format.

In other words, you'll get movie playback, but you won't get any of the highly touted HD-DVD interactive features. So forget accessing content like the pop-up-video-style director commentary and other in-movie features that come with Universal's U-Control and Warner Brothers' IME (In Movie Experience). Now, these interactive features aren't all that compelling—yet—but they're one of the main selling points besides improved picture quality that separate HD-DVDs from regular DVDs.

The LG player will play all of the next-gen extras on Blu-ray discs, however (stuff like the equally uncompelling Blu Wizard technology).

That said, the main reason I continue to lust after either Blu-ray or HD-DVD discs is the HD-quality resolution—I just need it to feed my HDTV—so anything that lets me do just that and save space on my media rack is welcome, but it all feels a little like Virtual Windows, dontcha think?

How about you: Are you ready to just play all the HD movies currently available, or do you want the interactive features, too?&