Product Reviews

With the fight between Blu-ray and HD DVD starting to hot up, Sony's addition of a Blu-ray drive to its next-generation PlayStation 3 console has significantly increased the former's market presence. In response to this Microsoft, which is backing HD DVD, has launched a player that's compatible with its Xbox 360.

But while both Blu-ray drives (like the LG GBW-H10N reviewed opposite) and standalone HD DVD players still cost as much as a second-hand car, just take a look at the price above. It also works perfectly well with a PC. Simply plug it into a USB port and it will be recognised as a DVD drive by Windows XP, or as an HD DVD straight off in Windows Vista.

To

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get it working with HD DVD movies though, XP needs 'modified' drivers (widely available on the internet) and some HD-capable playback software - Vista just needs the latter. Your options here are currently very limited, but we found CyberLink's PowerDVD Ultra fitted the bill nicely in our testing. It's another £50 to bear in mind, but you should be able to get an upgrade if you already own the DVD version and it will also work with Blu-ray drives should you switch allegiance in the future.

Before you get your credit card out though, you'll need to check that both your graphics card and display are HDCP (High Definition Content Protection) compliant, or you'll be stuck using an analogue (VGA) output - which is rather missing the point. You'll also need a reasonably beefy processor - anything dual-core should do the job - and ideally a graphics card with 512MB of RAM.

Also bear in mind that, like every other HD DVD drive on the market right now, this isn't a writer - it's only for watching movies or, conceivably, browsing data HD DVD discs in the future. Plus, the choice of movies isn't huge at the minute and some may not ever come out on the format. But as a cheap way of getting on the HD bandwagon, this is a clear winner.