LG Super Multi Blue drive reviewed

LAST JANUARY LG announced at CES in Las Vegas a dual format Blu-ray and HD DVD stand-alone player, not all that surprising that they announced at the exact same time an internal optical drive for the PC with the same ability. This hails from their storage partnership with Hitachi, who were somewhat left off the announcement and minus a credit.

The drive, also wittily known as Super Multi Blue - rolling off the tongue easier than GGW-H10N, can also write to and rewrite the appropriate Blu-ray disks.

The drive itself fits snugly into a 5¼-inch drive bay and backed by a glorious S-ATA based connector, expected when you think about the amount of data being shifted through the system. Although the unit it's not strictly replacing, but is the natural successor to was only IDE based, oddly enough. The retail box is packaged with a Verbatim Blu-ray rewritable disc and a SATA power connector to the four pin molex convertor - both a pleasant surprise.

GGW-H10N

When it comes to the Blu-ray side, the GGW-H10N can write to both single-layer 25GB and the maximum 50GB double-layer Blu-ray discs. Supposedly 9 hours of high-definition video or 23 hours of standard definition video - so say LG.

The drive boasts 4x recording to Blu-ray, the fastest on the market, alas, no media of this nature was available at the time of testing - so we'll just have to take LGs word for that. From our research Panasonic appear to be the only ones soon to be producing 4x Blu-ray media, although we're sure others will follow.

The drives ships with Cyberlink suite of software, including PowerDVD for high definition playback and PowerProducer for disc creation. Not the most popular software in the market for burning discs, so a surprising choice there.

There's a nifty tool accompanying the CyberLink suite, one of the features that stood out and is worthy of a mention. The CyberLink Advisor tool runs checks on the system for the ability to handle the playback of both Blu-ray and HD DVD.

CyberLink Advisor Blu-ray Results

CyberLink Advisor HD DVD Results

As you can see, the Advisor gave green lights on all fronts.

Many other formats can be used, what is more notable factor is what it cannot use.

There's a distinct absence of HD DVD accessible media from the drive, meaning that anything burned to a writable HD DVD disc cannot be read by the GGW-H10N. Down to the nitty gritty, the actual testing and benchmarking of the GGW-H10N.

The data below is from the specification sheet accompanying the drive. From which we'll be testing the most significant claims pertaining to this drive.

GGW-H10N Specifications
Write
BD-R(SL) 4x CLV
BD-R(DL)/BD-RE(SL/DL) 2x CLV
DVD-R 2x, 4x CLV, 8x ZCLV
DVD-R(DL) 4x CLV
DVD-RW 2x, 4x, 6x ZCLV
DVD+R 2.4x, 4x CLV, 8x ZCLV
DVD+R( DL) 2.4x , 4x CLV
DVD+RW 2.4x, 4x CLV, 6x, 8x ZCLV

(High Speed DVD+RW: 6x, 8x ZCLV)
CD-R 16x CLV
CD-RW 16x CLV (High Speed 10x)

Read
BD-ROM(SL) 4x CAV.
BD-ROM(DL) 3.2x CAV.
BD-R(SL) 4x CAV.
BD-R(DL)/BD-RE(SL/DL) 3.2x CAV.
HD DVD-ROM(SL) 3x max
HD DVD-ROM(DL) 3x max
DVD-R/RW/ROM(SL/DL) 12x / 8x / 12x / 8x max.
DVD-R DL 6x max.
DVD-Video(CSS Compliant Disc) 6x max. (Single/Dual layer)
DVD+R/+RW 12x / 8x max.
DVD+R DL 6x max.
CD-R/RW/ROM 32x / 24x / 32x max.
CD-DA (DAE) 24x max.

Neros CD-DVD Speed Benchmarking test was done with the Blu-ray movie - Mission Impossible III. Read speeds were found to be adequate as seen in the image and living up to the 4x reader claim. Played back was also fine, but that relies more on the systems other hardware components being of substance. The benchmark of the HD DVD film - The Bourne Supremacy was also fine. The film played well too, as we've said before the hardware behind it speaks volumes.

Writing speeds with the Verbatim were constant at a solid 2x - showing a good start for the latest drive from LG. With 45 minutes to burn 25GB of data, a good overall time we think.

First thing you'll notice is the speed and then the time the test took - please ignore both. A previous system was initially used in this test, where the results were three rather expensive and let's not forget high-capacity coasters. On the new ChillBlast system, we didn't check a box in the settings option. You can imagine how long/ how many days were consumed by the 50GB tests. We were reluctant to pursue this any further as basically life is too short, we hope you don't mind.

In Short
Why decide, why choose, why have to put up with one and not the other - especially when the industry as a whole hasn't decided either. There's no need anymore, since clearly those people at LG have their minds in the right place and have released a drive with both the ability of Blu-ray and HD DVD playback all in one. All that along with being able to burn Blu-ray, both in 25GB and 50GB styles - what more would you want? How about the kitchen sink?

The Good
Writes to Blu-ray discs, plays Blu-ray and HD DVD films.

The Bad
Highly spec'd PC is required, lack of HD DVD writable usability.

The Ugly
Price - it's a bit costly, but expected to a degree.

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