Sub $150 HD DVD on the Horizon?

The format wars continue their escalation as Venturer Electronics looks to release a new HD DVD player than promises to be the lowest priced player yet. High-Def Digest predicts that the price will be in the sub-$150 range! Venturer Electronics has only said that it will carry "one of the lowest [retail prices] among entry-level HD DVD players." The SHD7000 will output 1080i over HDMI and will support Dobly True HD (no mention of DTS-HD). The unit will upconvert standard DVD's and also sports an Ethernet connection. Networking ability will allow users to access bonus features from movie studio web servers and unlock special prerecorded content on some HD DVD discs. Oh yeah, it'll play CD's too.

While many people might view the 1080i (interlaced rather than 1080p - progressive) output as some sort of deficiency, the fact is that 1080i/60Hz has ALL the frame information of 1080p/24Hz. As long as the display does a reasonably good job of reconstructing the image from the 1080i signal, there should be no appreciable difference between this player and other 1080p native players. 1080i isn't "half" resolution despite what spits out of the rumor mill. It seems that manufacturers are finally starting to come to the conclusion that the only way to sell a high def player to the general consumer is to either add features or make it the same (or similar) price as a DVD player. Perhaps the high def formats might make it mainstream after all and not be relegated to a niche like SACD and DVD-A's... but don't bet on it.