Samsung's Combo HD DVD/Blu-ray Player?

LG was the first to publicly announce it would manufacture a universal player capable of displaying both HD DVD and Blu-ray content, and now on the eve of launching the BD-P1000, the first Blu-ray player to go on sale in the United States, Samsung said yesterday that it's also working on a combination Blu-ray and HD DVD drive. Kim Du-Hyon, an assistant manager at Samsung's product planning division told reporters that the company is confident the Blu-ray format will prevail over HD DVD, but indicated the company would be willing to hedge its bets if HD DVD proves to be more popular than anticipated:

"We don't have a plan to make an HD DVD-only player but are considering a universal player. We are preparing HD DVD [support] now and if we launch a universal player it will be the end of this year or early next year."

According to insiders, LG and Samsung are not the only companies thinking about manufacturing a combination player. Looks like this is going to be similar to the DVD+R/DVD-R conundrum, where both ended up occupying space in most DVD burners. That's the best reason yet to wait before buying into any of these two overpriced and underperforming HD disc formats. – Charlie White More »

Rumor: LG Planning to Release Dual Blu-ray/HD DVD Player

An internal memo allegedly from LG s U.S. sales VP Bob Perry says the company is planning to ship a disk player compatible with both Blu-ray and HD DVD in the late summer or early fall. In the memo, Perry also said LG s BD199 Blu-ray player, which we saw the company demonstrating at CES in January, won't ship as planned this spring because of uncertainty in this early stage of the market for prerecorded high-definition optical disks. LG is one of those companies that swings both ways with the new HD disks; it signed up with the HD DVD team as well as the Blu-ray group. More »