With their series of Super Multi Drives, LG has bridged the gap between Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD by giving users the ability to enjoy high-def movies in both formats. Unfortunately, the high price of these drives has put them out of reach for most consumers, especially those that are only looking to play movies. For these people, LG has introduced the GGC-H20L. While lacking the BD writing capabilities found on the GGW-H20L, the GGC-H20L delivers the same performance and features at a more affordable price.
When it came to playing high-def movies, the GGC-H20L handled both formats equally well. While I didn't get a chance to try any BD+ protected titles, the drive played all of the Blu-ray and HD DVD movies I had on hand using the bundled CyberLink software. The GGC-H20L also did fairly well in our transfer rate tests, reading BD-R discs at 6x and both Blu-ray Disc Movies and BD-R DL media at 4.8x. Unfortunately, its speeds were limited to only 2x when reading BD-RE discs.
LG's new drive also has the ability to read and write to all standard DVD formats, including DVD-RAM. The GGC-H20L performed very well when writing to DVD±R discs, taking less than 6 minutes to burn an entire 4.7GB DVD. The drive had no problems holding its own when writing to other types of media. However, the writing quality could have been better with some DVD±R DL discs. Nevertheless, the GGC-H20L was fairly quick when reading DVD's. In our tests, it was able to read single layer DVD-ROM's at 16x and DVD±R media at 12x but slowed to only 8x when reading DVD-Videos.
Reading and writing CD's wasn't a problem for the GGC-H20L either. In our tests, it read all types of CD media at 40x and had some fairly good seek times. This level of performance carried over to our DAE tests, where the drive ripped audio CD's at speeds as high as 40x. As a writer, the GGC-H20L performed as expected. The drive turned in some respectable times thanks to its 40x CD-R and 24x CD-RW writing speeds, and its writing quality was quite good as well.
LG's new Super Multi Blue drive also has its share of features. Along with support for both Blu-ray and HD DVD, the GGC-H20Lhas a 4MB buffer that is backed up by some sort of buffer underrun technology. While the drive only utilizes 2MB of the buffer when writing CD's and DVD's, this system worked flawlessly in our tests. The GGC-H20L also supports HP's LightScribe Direct Disc Labeling system and has the ability to set the book type of DVD+R and DVD+R DL media. Last but not least, LG has included a great software bundle from CyberLink.
LG's new Super Multi Blue drive is available now and can be purchased through some of the online vendors listed on Pricegrabber. Prices vary depending on the seller, but the GGC-H20L can be picked up for less than $250.
| LG GGC-H20L Super Multi Blue |
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| Features: Installation: Performance: |
9 9 8 |
| Overall: | 9 |
Highs:
- Reads single layer BD-ROM's and BD-R media at 6x
- Reads BDMV and BD-R DL media at 4.8x
- Reads HD DVD-ROM's at 3x
- Writes to DVD-R and DVD+R media at 16x
- Writes to DVD+RW media at 8x
- Writes to DVD-RW media at 6x
- Writes to DVD+R DL and DVD-R DL media at 4x
- Reads single layer DVD-ROM's at 16x
- Reads DVD±R media at 12x
- Reads DVD±RW media at 10x
- Reads DVD±R DL media at 8x
- Features 40x CD-R and 24x CD-RW writing speeds
- Includes buffer underrun prevention technology
- 4MB buffer
- Good CD-R and DVD±R writing quality
- Low seek times
- Includes software from CyberLink
- Nice looking design with bright blue LED
- Supports bitsetting for DVD+R and DVD+R DL media
- Reasonably priced
Lows:
- Questionable writing quality with some DVD±R DL media
- Reads BD-RE media at only 2x
- Reads DVD-Videos at only 8x
- Cannot set the book type of DVD+RW media
- Buffer limited to 2MB when writing CD's and DVD's
