LG BH-100 multiformat HD player

David Field | Sep 12, 2007 2:50 PM

LG | http://www.lge.com.au

RRP: $1599 (time of review)

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User Rating: No user ratings.

Format war? What format war?

LG has made its player transparent to the HD format war, and we love the concept. But we’re nonetheless worried that it’s been rushed to market.

The video quality is very good, and on par with the other players we’ve seen. The audio front is a different story though; as the BH100 does not support DTS-HD or Dolby Digital Plus. Try and force them and the unit will fall back to a stereo downmix.

The remote uses the same mould as some of LG’s other products, and as such it feels a little cluttered and unintuitive. You may have to hunt for menus, however the basic controls all land under your thumb. Oddly, the chassis mounted buttons (which are touch sensitive, like the 3rd generation iPod) are on the top of the player, not on the front. This means that the player will be at the top of your AV stack.

Although the image quality was good overall, its upscaler struggled with our deinterlacing tests when faced with a DVD test source. None of the interactive features on HD-DVDs will work, and in addition to the lack of TrueHD audio output the BH100 bizarrely – brace yourself – won’t even play back humble CDs. Let alone SACDs or DVD-Audio.

And on top of all this there’s the price to consider. For roughly the same price you can grab a PlayStation 3 with its Blu-ray playback and an Xbox 360 with its additional HD-DVD drive. In addition to covering the HD formats, you also achieve next-gen console nirvana (as you should already own a Wii).

Despite the groundbreaking flexibility the BH100 offers, the player does have a few usability drawbacks. The 40 second startup time is initially the most annoying, but other little incidents held it back for us. It can’t output 1080p over component, which is unfortunate for anyone who already has a quality coaxial cable run in their roof attached to a projector.

It may be a snazzy looking player that’s priced quite well. But it suffers from the same convergence problem that we have seen in so many devices that have come before it. Being the jack of all trades has meant that it doesn’t excel in anything: it’s missing the trimmings you’d want a dedicated unit to have.

If you can overlook these faults, it’s a tempting buy. But if you want the best sound and video, you should really get yourself two dedicated players. Or wait for a newer model from LG.

This article appeared in the August, 2007 issue of PC Authority.