With so many factors affecting the purchase of High Definition and traditional DVD's it is difficult to identify the reasons for fluctuations in sales. What has certainly emerged over the last few months however is that High Definition DVD sales have been disappointing.

Having won the well documented HD DVD format war by March 2008, Sony's victorious Blu-ray format witnessed impressive sales of 3.8 m titles in the US for the first quarter of 2008. The figures have disappointed industry insiders though because they have not got close to making up the shortfall from flagging standard def DVD's. Wholesale DVD revenue has actually dropped from $25 billion in 2006 to a forecast $21 billion for 2008.

There are a number of contributing factors pointing towards the decline of traditional DVD sales and the unspectacular rise of Blu-ray. New technologies such as movies on demand from cable/satellite operators and the possibility of downloading movies via the internet are giving consumers more alternatives for watching films.

Market research has revealed a lack of interest in the Blu-ray format with many consumers citing the expense of Blu-ray players as a bar to entry. Many of us it seems are happy with are traditional DVD's played on a large flat screen (often through 'upscaling DVD players). Blu-ray titles are deemed too expensive, and although the quality of the format is recognized, the price we are prepared to pay for this quality is, at the moment, just too great.

It is now up to the Blu-ray player manufacturers and big Hollywood studios to make the new high definition format a more attractive proposition for consumers.

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