We've always found ourselves with a "we can make this work" attitude here at Videomaker. This time was no exception. Faced with a bundled suite that didn't meet our expectations, we tried a quick search on the internet for alternative players. We hit pay dirt with the discovery of ArcSoft's TotalMedia Theatre, a disc player app that retails for $90. It plays Blu-ray Disc, HD DVD, AVCHD, DVD, VCD and CD, along with a litany of other formats. We downloaded the trial version to give it a try, and lo and behold, it successfully played the HD DVD, allowing us to access the menu from the beginning and also while we were playing the program. However, the Blu-ray Disc we had still didn't work.

At this point, we decided to simply try burning our own Blu-ray Disc, so we fired up a copy of Adobe Encore CS3. We put together a quick Blu-ray Disc with some HDV footage we had on hand and set it up to burn. It took a bit of time to transcode, but we had a disc moments later. TotalMedia Theatre had no trouble with this disc, which it identified as a BDMV. We were able to navigate through our new disc with no trouble, and the picture was excellent.

We liked LG's hardware a lot, but we're really disappointed with the provided software. The best way to get this drive would probably be to get an OEM version from your favorite mail-order house to save a few bucks versus the retail cost of the drive and use the money you save to buy a better choice in authoring software, as well as playback software (if you want to - unless you already have a set-top Blu-ray Disc player, we suppose).

Supported Discs and Maximum Speeds: DVD+R and DVD-R (16x write, 12x read), DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL (4x write, 8x read), DVD+RW (8x write, 10x read), DVD-RW (6x write, 10x read), DVD-ROM (16x read), CD-ROM (40x read), CD-R (40x read/write), CD-RW (24x write, 40x read), BD-R (6x read/write), BD-R DL (4x write, 4.8x read), BD-RE (2x read/write, single- or dual-layer), BD-ROM (6x read), BD-ROM DL (4.8x read), HD DVD-ROM (3x read, single- or dual-layer)
Interface: SATA
Sustained Maximum Data Transfer Rate: CD: 600KB/sec (40x); DVD: 22.16MB/sec (16x); HD DVD: 109.65Mb/sec (3x); BD: 215.79Mb/sec (6x)
LightScribe: Yes
Buffer Underrun Protection: Yes
Buffer: 4MB
Dimensions: Half-height, 7-1/4" deep

• Solid hardware.
• Easy to connect to computer, if you have an extra SATA connector.
• Easy to keep firmware up-to-date.

• Disappointing software bundle.

A great drive, but a much better value as an OEM, rather than retail, package.

Charles Fulton is Videomaker's Associate Editor.

LG Electronics USA
1000 Sylvan Avenue
Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632
us.lge.com

$400