Ever since the HD disc format war ended on February 19th, Blu-ray manufacturers and retailers have noted the modest the sales of Blu-ray players. Now, the retailers are saying that the limited sales have been due to limited supplies and that new models and ramped up production will hit the shelves in August, according to Video Business on Tuesday.

Panasonic has said that production hasn’t kept paces with demand because the war ended sooner than expected.

"People have been waiting weeks for Sony players, but it should get better later in the summer," said Rick Souder, with Crutchfield, a major home theater mail-order company. "In August, it will be the first time that Blu-ray overtakes [standard DVD] sales for us on a unit basis."

Another reason cited for the increase in demand in the recent success of a national advertising campaign by the broadcasters, in concert wth the NAB, to educate people about the end of analog TV in February 2009. People thinking about a new TV also seem to be thinking about what comes after the DVD.

The upswing in supply has retailers expecting that Blu-ray player sales will soon overtake DVD player unit sales.

"There should be a healthy supply by August and [manufacturers] should be caught up in production," said Matt Duda with Ultimate Electronics. "You’re getting five to eight new [BD] players in the market, and you’ll see Blu-ray catching up with standard DVD."

Ever since the HD disc format war ended, observers have been noting that demand has been low due to high player prices as vendors sought to recover lost profits from the prolonged war. Whether the surge in sales this summer, with prices still well above US$300, will come to pass remains to be seen.