You didn't think Acer's recent deal with the Blu-ray camp was an exclusive arrangement did you? No sir-e, not if this product sheet is to be believed. Though the details are hard to make out, those Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD logos make it pretty clear that the Aspire line-up of multimedia desktops are about to go both ways. The desktop will feature what Acer calls "Blu-ray Universal" which reads Blu-ray and HD DVD discs while burning DVDs and CDs. Sounds like an LG Super Multi Blue player to us. It's all said to be going down on October 1st, in Australia anyway. Do your best to make out the full specs in the images below.


[Thanks, Adam P.]

Even at this stage in the game, there aren't many drives out there sporting both logos, but LG's HL-DT-ST BD-RE GGW-H10N 1.01 drive -- better known as the Super Multi Blue to the layperson -- has the Blu-ray and HD DVD logos sitting up front in perfect harmony. Announced at this year's CES, the drive can playback Blu-ray, DVD and HD DVD media, along with 4x recording and even rewriting of Blu-ray Discs. Now that the drive is finally out, CDRinfo has a ridiculously extensive review that really puts the $1,200 lens menagerie through its paces. In all, the dual playback makes this one a winner, and the Blu-ray, DVD and CD recordings turned out quite well to boot. The error correction for CD and DVDs is a bit lacking, but we're guessing anyone willing to fork over this much cash for a drive -- or crazy enough to read this whole review -- has bigger fish to fry.

[Thanks, Macris A]

We've known that LG has had an internal Blu ray burner / HD DVD player combo drive in the works for some time now, but the company has just now let loose the first pics of the format-agnostic device, as well as presumably final release date, in anticipation of its official unveiling at CeBIT. Of course, being an internal drive, there isn't a heckuva lot to see, but those side by side logos should be more than enough to impress anyone looking closely enough. Equally impressive is the price, with the drive, dubbed the GGW-H10N "Super Multi Blue," set to demand a hefty $1,200 when it rolls out in May. While the release date's been changed slightly, the drives specs don't appear to have been, with the same 4x recording speed for Blu ray discs, and write speeds between 6x and 10x for the usual line-up of DVD formats.

[Via Wired Blogs: Gadget Lab]

LG is all over the dual-format optical game this next week. In addition to the HD DVD + Blu-ray combo player they just announced, they also touting a new Super Multi Blue dual-format drive for PCs. Not only will the GGW-H10N playback your Blu-ray Disc, DVD, CD, and HD DVD media, it'll also record -- yes record -- up to 50GB of data to dual-layer BD-R/BD-RE media. You also get 4x recording to 25GB single-layer BD-R discs -- doubling the industry's standard rate. The drive is also the first to support "SecurDisc" technology co-developed with Nero. That gives you the ability to secure your burns with password encryption, digital signature, checksum integrity checker for sharing data securely and with peace of mind. Expect the new drive to ship before March in the US for about $1,200 -- a worthwhile, convenience premium when compared to purchasing a $760 dual-layer Blu-ray burner and $199 Xbox 360 HD DVD drive (and all appropriately applied magic) separately. No pictures yet (that's their older, Blu-ray burner pictured) but will slap one up as soon LG sees fit to release them.

LG's been all over the place in the next gen optical disc battles. Today they bring the Blu-ray love in a big way with the introduction of BD media and three consumer level devices: The XPION x600 series PCs, the GBW-H10N Blu-ray burner we've seen before, and a mysterious living room player lacking any deets at all. LG tidied up the GBW-H10N branding by slapping on the "Super Multi Blue" moniker and dropping 'em in their new XPION X600 series desktops. LG, who apparently missed the design memo from Redmond, chose to dress the desktop in drab, and feature Intel's 64-bit, 3.4GHz dual-core Pentium D945 proc, a 320GB disk, 1GB DDR2 memory and nVIDIA's HDCP-enabled GeForce 7900GT graphics cards with 256MB of onboard memory. So yeah, no matter what those media player ISVs decide, these boxes will pump full 1080p HD vid off commercial BDs. Look out for the Super Multi Blue drive and X600 series PCs to drop first in Korea, Germany and France with their Blu-ray media and player scheduled for release sometime before the end of the year.

[Via Akihabara News]