Finally, the cheap Chinese HD DVD players that we've all been expecting (1 Viewer)

Via http://www.Sirdvd.com

Venturer Electronics today announced the launch of its first HD DVD player for the North American market. Responding to strong consumer demand for high definition video playback devices, Venturer will introduce the SHD7000 that offers the superior HD movie experience as defined by the DVD Forum.

The parent company ALCO Electronics will be exhibiting at
CES:

https://myces.bdmetrics.com/Portal/V...spx?id=3569695

Here's a link to the original press release

http://www.venturer.com/news-details.aspx?id=15

Cant find an MSRP on this thing on any of the news or press releases.

Maybe you guys can help me understand this.

With Toshiba HD DVD players selling at about $200, why
would anyone go for a Chinese player?!

These HD DVD players are not like a cheap DVD player. They
are complex machines that are similar to tiny computers.

What happens when that Chinese player breaks? Where do you
get support?!

For the life of me, I would never take the chance on purchasing
a cheap knock-off player when I can get the real thing for $200.

BTW, I'll be more than happy to visit the Alco Electronics booth
at CES and do some coverage on this player.

Yeah, but you're a home theater nut. You think in terms of upgrading. These players are targeted toward people looking to spend as little as possible - they just got a new HDTV and the budget for an HD media device on top of that is tight, for instance, or their old player busted and they basically just want to replace it.

Look at it this way: A year ago, many of us went with HD-DVD because the same money got us either a BD player or an HD-DVD player and twenty-odd movies. I know plenty of people for whom this stuff isn't a priority, but will apply the same logic: $250 gets you a Toshiba player, or one of these and a handful of movies. (Ignore the mail-in offer; some folks just won't do the math)

I was wondering the same thing (and first thought that perhaps the topic has some irony in it). But hey, perhaps they´ll give these for free!

Someone over at the HighDefDigest forums claims to have sent an e-mail to Venturer and was quoted a $179 (Canadian) MSRP in the company's reply. There is speculation that this player might arrive on US retailer shelves at $149.99

For $50 more I'd rather buy a trusted brand. Besides, HD DVD
players may be selling below $200 this holiday season.

BTW, unfortunately, this company will not be at CEDIA.
Would have loved to have done some coverage.

If it is sold by WalMart, which it most likely is, you return it to WalMart and they either refund your money or give you a new one. It is what the WalMart consumers do all of the time with the Apex DVD players that don't work. WalMart sends it back to the distributor. No problem at all.

Would I buy one? Not a chance. But if we are going to see a critical install base to make these formats succeed, this is the type of product we need. Otherwise, lets toss out of the format in-fighting and live with the fact that we are looking at the next LD whenever we pop a High Def disk in our player's.

BTW, I think you are going to see this player sold in the 150.00 range, a pretty good clip under the Toshiba.

You Are Not A Representative Sample Of The Population.

Jason,

You are right. The mass public will buy anything.

So it's simply true after all!

When I saw the first denials of the contracts already being signed, I believed exactly that: no contracts yet, but the fact being true.

Some people called it all a lie, but indeed it wasn't.


Great solution for a second room. If they last in your home for more than 2 years (which they will undoubtly do, on an average), it's a bargain already.

For many consumers it will be a great chance to go for the new format this X-mas.
Apparently some clever planning has been going on in the industry and retail circles for some months already now.


Cees

I have to admit, I'm interested. Assuming the price is correct this would be an excellent opportunity to step into HD-DVD. My wife loves the High Def picture and I can actually see convincing her to get it for Christmas for me. Boy, this will open the door for a lot of sales for HD-DVD. Not to turn this into a HD-DVD vs. BD thread but I hope the door opens both ways with an equally priced BD player.

This is good news. Price pressure and volume manfacturing will help bring down prices on the "premier" units as well. And when the same thing is announced for Blu Ray, it will bring those units from the stratosphere and into living rooms.

And as manufacturing progresses and prices fall, hopefully combo units will become cheaper and more broadly made. And without an end to this consumer-hostile, dual-format business, the next best solution is affordable combo units.

If there was a combo player for

Never knew the trick at Walmart thanks for the heads up.

Naturally, many of us here would never buy one of these players, especially with the Toshiba's being near the $200 price point. I will personally be looking at the Onkyo in the coming months after deciding to hold off on the Samsung Universal player (I want a BD profile 1.1 compliant player). However, as you all know, we are not the target for these cheap players. One more thing:

We should all keep an open mind here.

The Venturer could turn out to potentially be a sleeper. I'm not saying it will, but I know that Microsoft and Toshiba have been working closely with these Chinese companies to make sure they function properly and reliably. I'm sure the HD-DVD forum well understands that if these players make it to market and produce a high failure rate or fail to impress, then this could be a disaster for HD-DVD. In other words, these players make up the muscle of their startegy to take HD-DVD mainstream. Who knows? one of these Chinese players could turn out to be the next Oppo or even Samsung. We'll just have to wait for reviews and see how they'll eventually perform. I know that it's logical to compare these cheap HD-DVD players with their cheap SD counterparts we've seen flood the market for years, but I really believe that these budget HD players may ultimately end up impressing some of us here.

Same here Ron. The Toshiba low end model (which is a great one) is not much more. It does add another manufacturer for HD DVD but for we enthusiasts I don't think we want to see Venturer anywhere near our coveted audio/video racks.

Wal Mart today has already denied that they will even carry this player. They are sticking to the name brands for hi-def DVD.

I still think they could buy these and put their in house name brand iLo on them

Tim,

I used to say the same thing about Samsung products. I now have a 61" Samsung DLP that I love, samsung VCR, mp3 player, phone and probably some other gadgets that I can't recall. I even bought my Dad a Samsung LCD for X-mas.

Times change...although yeah, maybe not right out of the shute.

Dave