Warner starts DVD to Blu-ray trade-ups

The problem with being a movie enthusiast and upgrading to Blu-ray is that you're stuck with an entire library of DVDs, but Warner Home Video is now offering incentives to help boost your Blu-ray catalog.

The "DVD2Blu" offer lets you exchange your Warner Bros DVDs, plus a fee, for the same movie in Blu-ray format. Upgrades cost either $7.95 or $9.95 per disc, and you get free shipping (normally $5) on orders of $25 or more. Blu-ray discs arrive in four to five weeks.

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This is essentially the same program as Warner's "Red2Blu" campaign, which launched in April for people stuck with HD-DVDs. That program is still available and costs $5 per disc. But while Red2Blu feels rather benevolent -- it's essentially a bail-out for people who chose the wrong HD format -- DVD2Blu is intended to get you spending more money on HD movies, as Blu-ray discs command a premium over DVD. Earlier this year, Warner tried to push Blu-ray by including a digital file with the disc, but charging DVD buyers extra for the same feature.

Of DVD2Blu's 55 available titles, a lot of them are old or classic films, such as A Clockwork Orange, The Searchers, Risky Business and Blazing Saddles. This may seem counter-intuitive, as you'd think old films can't look better than DVD quality anyway, but film cameras record in a higher resolution than HD cameras, so a restoration could certainly make a film like The Shining lo0k better on Blu-ray.

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It's worth noting that Warner doesn't sell the DVDs that you trade in. The discs are destroyed, which doesn't surprise me given that in August, Warner Home Video sued a company after it was caught selling old DVDs instead of dumping them.

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