Whether you’re Blu-ray haters or fans, or HD DVD haters or fans, one thing that can make us all happy is lower prices for the discs themselves. I’m guessing by holiday shopping season 2008, we’ll see prices that range more in the $20s than in the $30s for discs, but some places are already offering bargains if you want to bulk up your collection of high-def DVDs

Chief among them is Amazon.com, which as Engadget HD has noted, has a sale going on that features up to 50 percent discounted high-def DVDs. That’s for both HD DVD and Blu-ray disc titles (three pages of choices for the former, two pages for the latter), so it’s not just a perceived sinking ship of HD DVDs being tossed aboard.

That means $14.99 for most regularly priced $29.99 discs, and $22.49 for those usually around $40.

We checked out the other usual sales suspects to see if they might be offering anything similar. Seems the Target and Wal-mart web sites average about 33% and 25% off, respectively, for their high-def DVD format stocks, which includes multidisc packages like the Harry Potter, Matrix and Ocean’s movie series.

So even if the rampant speculation that HD DVD is on its way out is true, and you happen to own a player, you can put together a nice collection to always have in high-def goodness. You can probably do better in both formats pricewise later on this year, but these discounts should whet your HD appetite well.

Arlen Schweiger - Editor of Electronic House Magazine

Arlen writes about home technology installations and product news and reviews for electronichouse.com and Electronic House magazine.