Customer Reviews

LG Electronics GGC-H20L LightScribe Blu-Ray/HD DVD Combo Drive (Black)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Good Things:
1) It reads Blu-Ray and HD DVD discs. Great for a home theater or do-everything PC. HD DVD capability will be attractive to cheapskates who can buy HD movies for a fraction of the cost of Blu-Ray.
2) It does the usual stuff you'd expect, reading and writing DVD (single and dual layer) and CDROM. It rips audio CDs just fine too.
3) It claims to support Lightscribe discs, but I've never tested that. Sharpie markers are cheaper and faster.

Bad Things:
1) The bundled player software is not a full version, so you may need to upgrade or buy a different program. (New versions may not support HD DVD.)
2) The first drive I got was defective... it wouldn't read Blu-Ray or HD DVDs consistently, although it read and wrote DVD just fine. The replacement works great. This is why it lost one star.
3) There can be problems if your TV and computer video card aren't HDCP compliant. Something called AnyDVD may fix that if it's legal where you are. (Cyberlink's "BD Advisor" program can check if your computer is up to the task of playing Blu-Ray content.)
4) It doesn't write Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, but who cares, since you can't afford Blu-Ray blank media yet anyway.
5) The activity LED is too bright if it's in your line of sight when watching movies. I covered it with tape.

[update, August 2011]
It now fails to burn dual-layer DVDs. At first I thought it was just the cheap Memorex ones, but I risked a genuine Singapore Verbatim and that failed in exactly the same way. Single-layer burns are still OK.

A recently discovered Bad Thing: EAC (Exact Audio Copy) rips CDs very slowly when using this drive (and reportedly most other Blu-ray drives). Dbpoweramp runs at full speed.

This is the second drive I have gotten and have been very happy with it. The included software allows playback of both HDDVD and Blu-ray disks. The firmware update is simple with the application disk on-line. I don't think this drive will be available for long.

The LG Bluray ROM is a very good one for the price. I wanted to experiment with Blurays and this was a very affordable option. I haven't noticed anything wrong with the unit so far. I would recommend this unit.

BlueRay! Light scribe! Whats not to like. Works great. Better than my Panasonic home theater Blue Ray player.

I bought this drive for a HTPC. It works well and installed with no problems.

On the down side, the activity light can be distracting. At least it's blue as it reminds me which drive is the blueray drive. ;-)

It doesn't always read at 6x- sometimes it starts out at 3x and works it's way up. I dont know if this happens with other drives.

For a straight forward Bluray/HD-DVD/DVD player in a HTPC you cannot go wrong with this. Coupled with the Asus Xonar HDAV1.3 Slim card, your blu experience will be VERY rewarding! No problems with HDCP playback with this drive... playback of even BD+ is a snap.

It works just like I need it work. It was cheap and works as expected. Not much more for me to say with the other reviews. There are no complaints here.

I like the product, however, there was not any HDDVD codex to play the HDDVD movies that I have. That was very lame, because I had to go and buy extra software which should have been unnecessary considering the player can play all three formats, DVD, HDDVD, and Blu-ray. I firmly believed that the software would be included for all three formats.

It is a good player though.