LG's BH200 HD DVD / Blu-ray player gets reviewed

Although we were able to get the BH200 to pose for a few glamour shots back at CEDIA, the recently released player has just now got around to checking in for a review. According to Home Theater Mag, the BH200 exhibited "stunning" image quality from both Blu-ray and HD DVD titles, and moreover, the video processing (DVD upconversion included) was "as good as any it had seen in a disc player." Unfortunately, the (high) praise essentially ended there. First and foremost, it made little sense to the reviewer to pay such a high premium ($999) for a dual-format unit unless you place a great deal of value on size and convenience. Beyond that, the player really dropped the ball on high-resolution audio playback, as HTM couldn't even get it to output Dolby TrueHD in multichannel form from "any output, at any resolution." Overall, the BH200 turned out to be a mixed bag, and while strict videophiles may find nothing to kvetch about, its inability to handle certain audio codecs was viewed as a "serious shortcoming." Nevertheless, there's much, much more where this came from if you're in the market, so head on over to the read link to catch the full spill.

[Via AVSForum]

[Boscorooty @ Dec 11th 2007 5:03PM]

No TrueHD = No Buy.

Not that I'd buy one at this price anyway, but still, just sayin'...

[reticulate @ Dec 13th 2007 9:04PM]

What's this TrueHD you speak of?

[Matthew Hilario @ Dec 11th 2007 5:27PM]

so basically its a ps3 that doesn't play games?

[Zak @ Dec 11th 2007 5:40PM]

No, PS3s can't play HD-DVDs.

[ashwinmudigonda @ Dec 11th 2007 5:59PM]

It boils down to this

- Plays both formats?
- HQV on board?
- TrueHD and DTS-HD?
- Ethernet port?

As long as a player delivers on these aspects, price, for the market at any given time, should not be an issue.

[Pretol @ Dec 11th 2007 8:42PM]

Time and time again...

Consumer is dumb... Average Joe doesn't even know that there's a war of formats going on. They only know how little money they have in the pocket, and that it's HD, which probably stands for High Density like the floppy disks...

And only some geeks visiting this site care about those specs. You've put the bar way too high.

[OneAboveAll @ Dec 11th 2007 6:14PM]

Still cheaper to get an Toshiba HD-DVD and PS3. $999 is an issue to some people.

[david kamenski @ Dec 11th 2007 6:17PM]

just a want a be for the $ but not making it

[Jake E. @ Dec 11th 2007 7:46PM]

HD-DVD/ Blu-ray combo, for those that go both ways...

[flo21 @ Dec 11th 2007 9:55PM]

Buy a PS3 and an XBOX 360 with an added hd-dvd drive, and you've got a hell of a lot more for less money.

[tamoghno @ Dec 12th 2007 5:21AM]

did you forget its an LG & their customer as too dumb to think about it

[Rory @ Dec 12th 2007 10:37PM]

I have a PS3 and a Tosh HD-DVD and I'm still seriously thinking about getting one of these, because my fiance can't figure out what discs go where even after I've explained it several times.