The holiday season doesn’t come without plenty of cheer, eggnog and new technology to dazzle the consumer’s eye.The newest home video format, the high-definition Blu-ray disc, has become a big high-tech buy this holiday season. While the format made its debut on U.S. store shelves more than three years ago, prices have come down significantly from the first player’s $1,000 price tag. Prices have dropped low enough for Walmart to offer a $78 Blu-ray player during its Black Friday sale last week.”I was going to get the Blu-ray player Walmart had on Black Friday, but the line for them was way too long,” said Brittany McCray, sports administration junior. “I was more concerned about getting my 42-inch TV instead.”While more affordable this holiday season, the Blu-ray disc lags far behind DVD sales, with Blu-rays only accounting for 16.8 percent of home video sales last week and only 14.3 percent of sales the previous week, said C.S. Stowbridge, writer for The-Numbers.com, a  leading movie data news Web site.”I bought regular DVDs [on Black Friday] because Blu-ray is still too expensive,” McCray said.But, sales of the high-definition disc have started to pick up steam. Sales numbers from last weekend show Blu-ray sales were up 164 percent from the same week last year, — the best-selling week the format has seen in its history, accounting for $41 million in consumer spending.Total Blu-ray revenues are up 137 percent from this time last year as well, according to Home Media Magazine data.Purchasing a Blu-ray player to pair with an HDTV is high on the list this holiday season and in the future for consumers like McCray.”I have two HDTVs in my apartment, so it would make sense to [buy a Blu-ray player].” McCray said.The falling prices of HDTVs have been the driving force the increase in sales of Blu-ray players and discs, according to Bruce Leichtman, President of Leichtman Research, Inc.  In 2006, HDTVs were found in one of six households, and now the ratio is 50 percent of households, according to Leichtman.Besides lower HDTV prices, money-saving deals and programs have contributed to the consumer desire to switch to Blu-ray. Warner Brothers recently launched a program called DVD2BLU where consumers can send in old DVDs of some movies like “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “2001: A Space Odyssey” and receive the Blu-ray disc of the movie for prices as low as $7.99. – – – -Contact Alex White at [email protected]