A bomb was dropped on the HD optical format war late last week.  In a memo to LG dealers from the companies VP of CE Sales, Bob Perry who gave the best evidence yet that the ongoing format war between HD DVD and Blu-Ray is all but over.  Apparently, LG won’t ship the BD199 LG’s Blu-Ray player they were going to spring on the public just before summer of this year.  Instead next fall they’ll release a player that will playback both HD DVD and Blu-Ray.  That such a player can even be considered is revolutionary, Samsung North America addressed this very issue in January.  In a C-Net interview Peter Weedfald, VP of Marketing basically said Samsung would if they could.

It’s a strong impetus that a wait-and-see approach is usually wisest when it comes to new technology.  Why buy a new Blu-Ray player when they hit the market next month when there is even a possibility that a player can do both? 

Is it possible this information was inadvertently spilled early?  Or is there nothing behind it and LG knowingly planted a rumor that might hurt competitors Blu-Ray player releases? 

The memo also stated that two LCoS rear projection TVs wouldn’t be released at all due to a “parts procurement problem”.  The models 71SA1D and 62SA1D were set to be released this year.  It looks like LG is sacrificing LCoS to solidify its efforts to dominate the world Plasma market.