Combo HD drives are the way forward

LG Electronics, if you recall, launched the Super Multi Blue Player at everyone's favourite Vegas-based nerd-a-thon CES, which could play both HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs. It certainly makes sense to this baffled geek that a universal player should become the norm, much like ABI Research, helping out the confused geeks who simply don't know which camp to side with.

Quoth ABI's Steve Wilson, "We believe that universal players will come to dominate the high-definition DVD player market." There's plans from Samsung to release a universal player soon too, and the mysterious "others" may take the same course of action before long, thinks Steve. The research group has placed forecast sales at 2.4 million players in 2007, all the way up to a hefty 55 million come 2011.

Of course, prices for universal players - let alone single format players - are a tad on the high side at the moment. Steve warns that market growth simply "ain't gonna happen" [not actual words] until the prices drop. He believes that once fully integrated chipsets reach the market, the "bill-of-material" price will begin it's descent into acceptable-ness.

However, Mr. Wilson thinks that universal player prices will drop quickly when newly interested manufacturers bring their universal players to the market: "That US$1200 price would seem to be more about matching Blu-ray player prices than about reflecting the cost of producing a universal player." There's not a single reason universal players should cost more than single-format players, says Wilson. µ