Wal-Mart carries $199 Venturer HD DVD player

Venturer today vowed to up-end the typically expensive HD video player market and launched the SHD7000, one of the lowest-cost HD DVD players yet and one of the few inexpensive models beyond Toshiba. The slim device is the first to sell at the $199 mark without a closeout sale or a promo campaign and matches many of the features as Toshiba's HD-A2 and HD-A3: it outputs at a maximum 1080i but supports Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD in 5.1-channel surround, outputs through HDMI, and accepts Ethernet connections for updates or Internet-based special movie features.

The player is so far being carried in the US only by Wal-Mart and is in stock today; Venturer is also bringing the HD DVD reader to the UK as the SHA7001 and will start selling it through the QVC shopping channel from December 29th onwards.