An Olympics fan shows off the Beijing Games' opening ceremony DVD he bought as the discs went on sale in Shanghai on August 12, 2008. [Shanghai Daily]

DVD sets featuring the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics flew off store shelves across Shanghai on Tuesday, the first day that a recording of the acclaimed production hit the market.

The first batch of 500 DVDs went on sale at Shanghai Book Mall at 10 a.m. Tuesday and sold out before noon.

"The rapid sell-out was way beyond our expectations," said Huang Ping, a book mall manager who oversees audio-visual products.

Priced at 55 yuan (US$8.01), the two-disc set debuted at dozens of bookstores and audio-visual product shops in Shanghai.

Huang said officials at the book mall, the DVD's biggest Shanghai sales point, expected demand would run around 400 to 500 copies and ordered 500.

The surprisingly strong market response pushed the seller to immediately order an extra supply from the product's distributor in Beijing.

A second batch of 300 copies arrived around 3 p.m., amid a group of waiting customers, and these were expected to last only through the evening. Book mall managers said most of the DVD buyers were middle-aged people, with a couple of corporate buyers taking about 10 copies each.

Elva Zhou, a white-collar worker, said she would pick up one copy for her father, an avid collector.

"Since the opening ceremony was so impressive and successful, a DVD can be a good way for us to enjoy the pageant again at any time, and it is also a valuable souvenir," Zhou told Shanghai Daily.

Huang said that a third batch of 500 copies would be available on Wednesday to ensure a continuous market supply.

(CRI August 13, 2008)