yesterday Blu_ray just signed up a big Chinse foctory making cheap DVD players, so Blu-ray will have sub $200USD players soon as well.

Originally posted by xtago:

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yesterday Blu_ray just signed up a big Chinse foctory making cheap DVD players, so Blu-ray will have sub $200USD players soon as well.

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you mean sony signed up a big chinese factory to make cheap blu-ray players..
well i havnt heard of that..and we'll all know whether these HD DVD player are crap by the holidays

That thing looks like a VCR

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Of course, a lower priced HD DVD player won't provide it's own HD display or replace anyone's movies with new HD versions, assuming they're not movies from Blu-ray only studios.

It also probably won't convince consumers that it's worth their money to invest in the new technology they probably aren't even familiar enough with to pick it out at their local discount store.

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Good comments from vurbal.

The other issue with mass adoption was raised by eatsushi in a similar thread namely disc prices. With the cost of software ranging from $25 (new release non combo) to $35 (new release combo) I doubt if the non-enthusiast will be investing in movies just yet. The market sector that is willing to pay those prices for discs would be looking for the Toshibas and Onkyos.

As vurbal and eatsushi have pointed out mass adoption of HD DVD depends not only on lower player prices. Other factors have to come into play:
>Consumer awareness
>Increased penetration of HDTV displays
>Lower prices of movies (as compared to regular DVD's)

Did I miss anything?

BTW a Walmart exec has denied that they will carry the Venturer. Maybe another Chinese brand is coming specifically for them?

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6473655.html?nid=2705
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=900725

Why is the picture of the prototype, shown at CES back in Jan 2007, the one being used here?

The actual player to go on sale is here -

Originally posted by xtago:

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yesterday Blu_ray just signed up a big Chinse foctory making cheap DVD players, so Blu-ray will have sub $200USD players soon as well.

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- No. This is just plain wrong (again).

Component manufacture is nothing like the same as licencing the design, specs and production to a Chinese manufacturer(s).

They already get components from China (look in the PS3 and see).

Toshiba licenced the HD DVD design back in 2005 then Microsoft signed agreements with Broadcom at the start of this year.

There's nothing "soon" about it......even if they did fully licence the blu-ray design (something they have explicitly said they would not do) it would take a long time to come into production and go on sale.

Looks like there are couple of styles available (but the pic at the top of this thread is definetly not the design being used (that is as I said the original prototype from CES).

We have this from Trustedreviews.com -




and this (IMO fine looking machine) from areadvd.de -

^^ no 1080p??

that looks so ugly.

Originally posted by sukhvail:

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^^ no 1080p??

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- So what, it's an entry level model.

.....and I can't help but think of this the same way as when I see & hear some people who want to pretend that everyone will be bothered about the 'nth degree" in audio when almost no-one has HDMI 1.3a equipment.

It really doesn't amount to much to most and it is missing the point entirely.

Put it like this, if you honestly have a TV genuinely capable of showing you a noticable difference between 1080i and 1080p then it's probably unlikely you'd be going for the low cost entry level player, right?

The majority of HD TVs in homes right now are 720p/1080i so for a hell of a lot of people it makes a lot of sense.

There are plenty of people who would strongly debate that the sort of high quality 1080p TV that might be expected to show a difference really ought not to anyways as it ought to have a decent de-interlacer.
In any event it could only display a progressive image on it's 1920x1080 native resolution!
The difference is minimal, if not actually invisible.

The nice thing about HD DVD is that 'entry level' for HD DVD means $210 right now (for the excellent Toshiba HD A2) and is likly to mean $150 or less for this Venturer.
As opposed to an entry level player (which doesn't even meet their won full 'profile 1.1 spec) @ $500 with Blu-ray and the Sony S300.

Originally posted by BIGnewb:

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that looks so ugly.

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- Well eye of the beholder and all that but I must admit one rectangular black (or white, grey or silver) box looks much like another to me.

Personally I'd say it beats the George Foreman grilling machine look of the PS3 or those ludicrous 2-tone affairs the Blu-ray crowd were using a little while back to try and hide their bloated bulk.
Each to their own tho. ;)

Will it be painted with lead paint?

Looks like a clone of a mini cyberhome-dvd player to me.

this can be a good starter unit for someone looking to get into hd dvd for the first time.

It's very ugly

So, how does this compare with the first gen HD players that have been out for awhile?

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Component manufacture is nothing like the same as licencing the design, specs and production to a Chinese manufacturer(s).

They already get components from China (look in the PS3 and see).

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The news was on here the one about Acer joining up on the Bluray team.

Haula Group, is a large DVD player factory in china, producing cheap DVD players.

They'll probably be very heavy too, with all that lead in them.

Music to my ears.