With both Sony and Toshiba busy promoting their own next generation DVD formats, the real surprise at CES came from LG who were showing a production-ready, hybrid player capable of reproducing content from both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. A sizeable part of the huge booth was dedicated to show the LG BH100 playing movies of both formats. According to LG's representatives on the floor, the company plans to go out to the market with the player in the coming weeks (officially 1Q/07) with the product selling for $1199.
The price could be considered on the high-end but of course as of this moment no other manufacturer has announced a similar hybrid player. Features-wise you get the works with full HD resolution (1920x1080p), Interactive function (based on BD-J only, more on this later), HDMI out, and multiple A/V format support.
As a side note, just a day after the unveiling of the BH100, some controversy has raised on its HD DVD support part. Reportedly, LG does not offer support for HDi, which is HD DVD's version for an interactive menu system. The DVD Forum could require this for HD DVD certification, and as such LG could potentially be unable to promote its player dual playback functionality without DVD Forum's blessing.