It's about time! Toshiba has finally heeded the calls of retailers to start replenishing the supplies of HD-DVD players by shipping new players to an increasingly larger pool of retailers on a weekly basis. Currently available in 3,000 storefronts, the Toshiba HD-DVD players will be sold in more than 5,000 outlets by year end. Toshiba has been steering its HD DVD quantities to those stores with hefty consumer electronics departments.

For the past weeks, retailers including Abt Electronics, Best Buy, and even Amazon.com have been coming up short on HD-DVD player supply, making it even harder to show off and sell HD DVD titles in-store.

Best Buy spokesman Brian Lucas says it best: No one has figured out the best way to do this. It’s hard when there aren’t that many titles and the players are in tight supply. You don’t want to confuse consumers needlessly. If you give everything too much play and there aren’t the players, that’s confusing.

Retailers also feel that HD DVD merchandising is crimped by studios switching street dates and/or providing short notice of official title bows. Stores just can't put too much effort in promoting the HD-DVD players and the titles if the studios themselves can't get their acts together and put more products out in the market.