HP, a leading supplier of personal computer, has announced the world’s first HD DVD ROM (read-only memory) device for personal computers. Even though the device poses some interest to those, looking forward to adding high definition DVD playback capability to their desktop, notebook or media center personal computers (PCs), the price of the device, at least, in the UK does not seem to be truly affordable.

HP’s hd100 external optical drive can read and playback, CDs (up to 14x), DVDs (up to 5x) and HD DVDs (at up to 2.4x speed) and supports various CD and DVD standards. The drive is compatible with USB 2.0 interconnection standard, but still requires an additional power supply unit, which HP provides. HP will also add CyberLink player software to the hd100 external drive.

The supplier advices that users looking forward HD DVD playback should have a powerful dual-core central processing unit, such as AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+, Intel Pentium D 945 or more advanced. The company also recommends users to ensure that their graphics cards is, at least, as powerful as ATI Radeon X1600 or Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT. HP notes that the graphics card and monitor should be HDCP-compliant, even though there is unofficial information that this is not a compulsory requirement for high-resolution HD DVD playback nowadays.

HP has always been a strong backer of the Blu-ray disc standard, however, after its proposals were rejected by the Blu-ray disc association back in 2005, it decided to support HD DVD as well. Currently the company also sells HP Pavilion dv9000t laptop with HD DVD built-in.

Even though the hd100 external drive seems to be good solution for enabling HD DVD playback on the PC, according to a news-story by PCPro web-site, the part is going to retail for £399 (€588, $771) in the UK, which makes it as expensive as Toshiba’s HD-E1 HD DVD player, which is set to retail for €599.