It looks like the price of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Technology will fall sooner than expected, allowing for a wider adoption of the platforms leading to a greater installed user base and hopefully the snowballing of the industry.

Venturer Electronics has announced it plans to release a cut price HD DVD player- named the SHD7000-in the third quarter. The player is speculated to have a retail price of in between $150 to $190. Reports on many tech websites suggest that cheaper HD DVD players may be coming soon, yet Venturer appears to be the first company to formally announce a launch.

The Venturer SHD7000 comes with an Ethernet port and a HDMI port that has potential to output video at 1080i. The SHD7000 also comes with onboard Dolby TrueHD decoding, however it is still unclear whether the model will be able to decode multichannel Dolby TrueHD soundtracks.

The press release states that the SHD7000 will be able to upconvert regular DVDs and play standard audio CDs.

Filed under: Blu Ray News