AU: No doubt that would end up converting to something around $299-$399 out here. Would a player hitting a certain price point tip you over the edge on buying an HD format, regardless of which format it was? Or would you still ‘wait and see’? OR are you already committed one way or the other, even if you haven’t already purchased? -SB

The SHD7000 will play back HD DVDs at 1080i, support Dolby TrueHD have HDMI output. It’s fairly similar in functionality to Toshiba’s low-end DVD player, but since it’s from China, Venturer’s able to cut the price down to the sub-$200 point. It doesn’t qualify for the 5 free HD DVD movies like Toshiba players do, however, so that one still may come out ahead while the deal is still going on (or 8 movies, if you got in the Amazon deal). Calculating $20 per disc, the Toshiba player would actually be only $78 if you factor in the savings on those movies.

If Wal-Mart gets ahold of this by the 2007 holidays, well, it’s going to be hard for Blu-ray to recover. [Venturer]