Consumer electronics company Helios announced today a low cost DVD player which upscales both regular DVDs and also video files in a variety of formats. The new Helios H2000 is set to appear in August for $99.

The Helios H2000 upscales to 1080i resolution DVDs as well as MPEG-4, XviD, DivX and MPEG-2 via component, HDMI and VGA connectivity. The player can also output an unprocessed 480i/576i video signal and allow a TV or external video scaler to do the upscaling. It even includes support for the VobSub subtitle format in case you like to download and play foreign films.

Support for stereo digital, Dolby Digital and DTS audio is offered in a 5.1 channel setup. The Helios H2000 is also region-free, meaning you can watch all of those bootleg DVDs you purchased in Thailand in high definition - minus the shaky picture from the guy who was in the back row of the movie theatre recording the film on his camcorder.

Helios H2000