Venturer's SHD7000 will be priced at $199, according to a company representative, which would make it the cheapest stand-alone HD DVD player available today.
To date, Toshiba has the offered lowest priced stand-alone player, its entry level HD-A2 $299 model.
A statement from Venturer, whose North American headquarters is in Markham, Ontario, touts the player “to be one of the lowest among entry-level HD DVD players.”
The SHD7000 features 1080i video output, Ethernet connectivity and advanced audio technology Dolby TrueHD. In addition to HD DVD and CD playback, the model also upscales standard-definition DVDs to near high-def quality through an HDMI connection. The player will be distributed nationally to retailers.
For months, HD DVD backers have said that Chinese manufacturers would soon start producing ultra low-price players, likely impacting the format war. Venturer represents the first such company to potentially get the ball rolling.
Atrus @ 2007-08-30 10:18:12
I have a very hard time buying something that I know comes from China. According the U.S. Census Bureau in 1985 we had a -6.0 trade imbalance with China. In 2007, the trade imbalance is a whopping -117,501. Source http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c5700.html#questions Problem is they have their paws into everything - our cars, our electronics, the clothes we wear, the toys our children play with, and most disturbing based on recent news reports - the foods we eat. Price of milk gone up at your local store? Demand and pricing here in the states is up because developing countries like China are buying it up in staggering volumes. Like your vitamin C, 90% of all Vitamin C now comes from Chine and is unregulated, not inspected, and put in just about everything that's fortified. Ya know those $90 Nike's you see the basketball players marketing, they cost as little as $3.50 a pair to make in China. Sad thing is the greed of corporate America has cost our middle class tens of thousands of jobs that are now being performed by what amounts to Chinese slave labor. One would think that we here at home would see a reduction in the cost of things we buy, not really, while the corporations report ever increasing profit margins. Knowingly buy something from China, sorry. I'll pay extra for Made in America wherever I can find it.
