Blu-ray delivers DVD knockout

By Aimee Le Cocq

Andy Best, of official Sony retailer Sound & Vision, with a PlayStation 3, which includes a Blu-ray player. (Picture by Peter Frankland, 0538113)

ELECTRICAL shops were not surprised at the news that Blu-ray is set to become the standard in the next-generation DVD format.format.

HD DVD lost out after manufacturer Toshiba decided to cease production following a decision by US film studios to back the other format.

Soundtrack said that it had never stocked Toshiba’s version as the industry used Blu-ray, which was a good indication of the market.

Andy Best, owner of Sound & Vision, official Sony retailer, said that it had sold out of Blu-ray players and PS3s were also out of stock.

‘I tell my customers that HD is a rehash of the DVD player, basically. The storage compatibility is higher than HD, so when you start recording things, it doesn’t hold as much.

‘The feedback we have had from Town customers is that they had a job to buy HD DVDs as most places do Blu-ray.’

Gennaro Castaldo, spokesman for HMV, said that it does sell HD DVD but that there had been a significant increase across the chain in the sale of Blu-ray over the past year.

‘It is now 2-1 in favour of Blu-ray. What’s been driving it is the number of titles available on HD and it has also been helped by the Sony Playstation 3 console, which has the format built in,’ said Mr Castaldo.

‘Warner has also decided to release its films only in Blu-ray. As a film fan, you don’t have to abandon your collection on DVD but can add to it with Blu-ray.

‘At HMV we found it wasn’t appropriate to dictate to our customers, but show them the choices available.’

The sales of Blu-ray have gone up at NSEW, but retail assistant manager Michael Wright put this down partly to the cost of importing it.

‘It’s cheaper to bring in Blu-Ray. We now just stock that format. We were selling HD but only had the one console.’