LG GGC-H20L (Blu-ray/HD DVD Combo Drive)

By Vincent Chang
Category : Optical Storage
Published by Vijay Anand on Saturday, 15th December, 2007
Rating : 4.5 out of 5 stars






Best of Both Worlds

It ain't over till the fat lady sings, or in the case of the ongoing war between the two HD disc formats (Blu-ray and HD DVD), the fat cats (aka studio heads) in Hollywood decides which format to choose over the other. At the moment, both camps seem evenly matched, though with Dreamworks and Paramount signing exclusive deals to defect to the HD DVD camp recently, HD DVD seemed to have seized the advantage. Unfortunately, as this editorial speculates, the conclusion is anything but foregone and this Christmas season may well be the crucial make or break moment for either formats.

Most consumers however have been blissfully ignoring the format war and are going for normal DVDs instead due to their falling prices. That's a predictable response to the uncertainty but not at all good news for the studios or the manufacturers of HD DVD or Blu-ray players. Like previous disputes over media formats, the best solution for consumers is probably an affordable player that can handle both formats equally. That is the solution that some companies like LG and Samsung are racing to produce and today we have a concrete example of that from LG, in the form of an internal hybrid drive that professes to read both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs.

LG is one of the first to reconcile the differences between the two opposing HD camps with this drive that's able to read both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs.

Capable of reading Blu-ray and HD DVD discs, this LG drive however only writes to DVD media so if you're one of those early adopters looking for writing capabilities, the model to look out for is LG's GGW-H10N, which is able to write to Blu-ray discs while also read HD DVD-ROM. In our opinion, Blu-ray or HD DVD writing capability is not as important to most consumers now compared to read support and this expectation is probably followed by price as a close second. Can this LG drive meet these expectations? Get the details after the technical specifications.
LG GGC-H20L Technical Specifications

Performance		Read Speed DVD-ROM Read: 16x, Max DVD-RAM Read: 5x, Max CD-ROM Read: 40x, Max BD-ROM/R (SL) Read: 6x, Max BD-ROM/R (DL) Read: 4.8x, Max BD-RE (SL/DL) Read: 2x, Max HD DVD-ROM (SL) Read: 3x HD DVD-ROM (DL) Read: 3x Write Speed DVD+R Write: 16x DVD+RW Write: 8x DVD+R DL Write: 4x DVD-R Write: 16x DVD-RW Write: 6x DVD-R DL Write: 4x DVD-RAM Write: 5x CD-R Write: 40x CD-RW Write: 24x Access Time: BD-ROM: 180ms HD DVD-ROM: 210ms DVD: 160ms CD: 150ms
Interface		SATA
Buffer Size		4MB
Writing Mode	DVD	Disc-At-Once Incremental Recording Restricted Overwriting Sequential Recording Random Recording
	CD	Track-at-Once Disc-at-Once Session-at-Once Packet Recording (fixed & variable)
Disc Size		DVD/CD: 80 and 120 mm
Supported Formats (Writes)	DVD	DVD+R DL 8.5GB DVD+R 4.7GB DVD+RW 4.7GB DVD-R DL: 8.5GB DVD-R 4.7GB (closed session) DVD-RW 4.7GB (closed session) DVD-RAM DVD-Video
	CD	CD-DA CD-ROM XA (m1, m2f1/m2f2) CD-R CD-RW Bootable CD Photo CD (single & multi-session) Video CD CD-Extra CD-Text
Physical Characteristics		Dimensions (W x H x D) : 146 x 41.3 x 185 mm (w/o bezel) 870g
Firmware Update		Flash memory upgradeable