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QVC gets exclusive on Venturer budget HD DVD player

Venturer Electronics' promised cut-price HD DVD player will finally go on sale on 29 December, but you'll have to switch on your TV to buy one. The SHD7001 will only be sold through the QVC home shopping channel.

Venturer SHD7001
Venturer's SHD7001: buy it for your telly via your telly

Venturer launched the player back in September, pledging to make the machine available to buy by Christmas. The SHD7001 is capable of playing DVDs and HD DVDs at HD resolutions of 720p or 1080i.

For a "limited period", the player will come bundled with HD DVD copies of Hulk and Troy, Venturer said. It also comes with an HDMI cable, though the player provides component-video and composite-video outputs too. There's a 10/100Mb/s Ethernet port on the back for link HD DVDs to online content, and both digital optical and analogue audio outputs.

Venturer SHD7001
'Really, really good' price

Venturer didn't name a price, though back in September it said the SHD7001 would cost less than £200 - £199.99 is our guess. A company spokeswoman said the price would be "really, really good".

Its spec is pretty close to that of Toshiba's original HD-E1 HD DVD player, which is currently retailing for around £200. The Venturer machine is a more slimline model, however.

QVC can be viewed on Sky, Virgin Media and Freeview, but most if not all of its offerings are also available for purchase from its website. When we checked this morning, however, the SHD7001 had yet to appear. ®

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