While Blu-ray Disc units and titles now demand more “shelf space” since the recent demise of HD DVD, two very different retailers are pushing Blu-ray products this month.

The price alone is hardly a shocker, considering the source.

Early holiday sales data from Nielsen VideoScan indicates more than 72 percent of next-gen discs purchased by consumers were the Blu-ray Disc format. It’s unclear exactly what content the “discs” represent, but apparently they include both videogame and motion picture titles.

While Wal-Mart said on its Web site it plans to continue to offer standard DVD titles and players (mostly progressive scan), it will phase out HD-DVD in its 4,000-plus outlets by the summer, and most likely by June.

Both Wal-Mart and a Chinese manufacturer want to make it clear this week that no deal has been inked to ship up to 2 million relatively inexpensive HD DVD players to the world's largest retail chain, despite persistent rumors on the Internet that it was a done deal.

"Black Friday" arrived on Nov. 3 this year for Wal-Mart . That date was last Friday, but it's usually the Friday after Thanksgiving when stores set their holiday prices for the big selling season. In an attempt to get a leg up on the rest of the retail industry this season, Wal-Mart is offering its own price cuts on

Wal-Mart has purchased Fujinon HD Studio and ENG-style lenses to produce hi-def programming at its Bentonville, Ark.-based production studio. Four HA22x7.2ESM HD studio lenses will be affixed to four Ikegami HD studio cameras and one Ikegami handheld HD camera. The four HA17X7.8E ENG-style lenses will be used for field