Warner's DVD2Blu trade-up program gets bigger, cheaper (maybe)
By Richard Lawler 
posted May 7th 2010 9:44AM
posted May 7th 2010 9:44AM
RESPONDING TO THE REMARKABLE GROWTH OF BLU-RAY™ HARDWARE WARNER BROS. HOME ENTERTAINMENT GROUP EXPANDS ITS DVD TO BLU-RAY UPGRADE PROGRAM
90 of Warner Home Video's Titles Now Available to Upgrade starting at $4.95 Including "Gran Torino," "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride" and "Freddy Vs. Jason"
Burbank, Calif., May 6, 2010 – Responding to the extraordinary growth of Blu-ray set-top hardware, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group has expanded its "DVD2Blu" upgrade program. Starting today, consumers can select from 90 of Warner Home Video's most popular titles to upgrade that include the action-packed "Under Siege" and "Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut" as well as classics from the 1980s including "Risky Business" and "The Lost Boys."
According to recently published figures by the Digital Entertainment Group, sales of Blu-ray hardware for the first quarter of 2010 increased by 125 percent over the same period in 2009. The DVD2Blu program will serve as a great way for new Blu-ray owners to jump start their Blu-ray Disc collections.
Launched in 2009, DVD2Blu.com is a site that allows consumers to upgrade the movies they already own on DVD to Blu-ray Disc™, the absolute best in 1080p high definition picture and sound. The process to upgrade is simple. Consumers select the titles they want to upgrade on DVD2Blu.com, mail in their standard DVDs with pre-paid postage and a short time later receive copies of the same film on Blu-ray Disc. Titles such as "V for Vendetta," "Deliverance" and "Ocean's Eleven" can be upgraded for as little as $4.95 plus shipping and handling charges. For a complete list of titles visit DVD2Blu.com.
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group is proud to be an environmentally friendly company and will recycle all DVDs mailed for upgrade. The discs will be processed and used for future plastic packaging.
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DVD 2 Blu - Eligible Titles Cost (plus shipping)
1 The Aviator $4.95
2 Training Day $4.95
3 Constantine $4.95
4 Swordfish $4.95
5 Taking Lives $4.95
6 Rumor Has It $4.95
7 Last Samurai $4.95
8 National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation $4.95
9 Wedding Crashers Uncorked (Unrated) $4.95
10 The Fugitive $4.95
11 Blazing Saddles $4.95
12 Dumb and Dumber (Unrated) $4.95
13 2001: A Space Odyssey $4.95
14 The Shining: Special Edition $4.95
15 The Wedding Singer: Totally Awesome Edition $4.95
16 American History X $4.95
17 The Perfect Storm $4.95
18 The Lost Boys $4.95
19 Beetlejuice $4.95
20 A Clockwork Orange: Special Edition $4.95
21 Any Given Sunday (Director's Cut) $4.95
22 Harold and Kumar Go To the White Castle $4.95
23 Eraser $4.95
24 History of Violence $4.95
25 Dark City, Director's Cut $4.95
26 Superman II: Richard Donner Cut $4.95
27 Deliverance $4.95
28 Final Destination $4.95
29 Collateral Damage $4.95
30 Risky Business $4.95
31 Dirty Dozen $4.95
32 The Searchers $4.95
33 Gods and Generals $4.95
34 An American in Paris $4.95
35 Rio Bravo $4.95
36 Michael Clayton $4.95
37 Scanner Darkly $4.95
38 Alexander Revisited $4.95
39 Bucket List, The $4.95
40 Wyatt Earp $4.95
41 Journey to the Center of Earth (2008) $4.95
42 Pride and Glory $4.95
43 Bullitt $4.95
44 Blow $4.95
45 Above The Law $4.95
46 John Q $4.95
47 Tango & Cash $4.95
48 Shoot 'Em Up $4.95
49 Mask, The $4.95
50 V For Vendetta $4.95
51 Blood Diamond $4.95
52 Gran Torino $4.95
53 Ocean's Eleven (2001) $4.95
54 Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines $4.95
55 Tim Burton's Corpse Bride $4.95
56 Freddy vs. Jason (BD) $4.95
57 Syriana $4.95
58 Get Smart (Blu-Ray) $4.95
59 Music and Lyrics $4.95
60 Beerfest (Unrated) $4.95
61 Firewall $4.95
62 Brave One, The $4.95
63 Reaping, The $4.95
64 Eyes Wide Shut: Special Edition $4.95
65 Wild Bunch, The $4.95
66 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang $4.95
67 Battle of the Bulge $4.95
68 Cowboys, The $4.95
69 Troy $4.95
70 True Romance $4.95
71 Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves Extended Cut $4.95
72 Assassination of Jesse James $4.95
73 Superman Returns $6.95
74 10,000 B.C. $6.95
75 Ocean's Thirteen $6.95
76 Speed Racer $6.95
77 Elf $6.95
78 Christmas Story, A $6.95
79 Full Metal Jacket $6.95
80 Pan's Labyrinth $6.95
81 The Golden Compass $6.95
82 Rush Hour 3 $6.95
83 We Are Marshall $6.95
84 Body of Lies $6.95
85 The Orphanage $6.95
86 Million Dollar Baby $6.95
87 The Departed $6.95
Not free but better, where do I sign up?
@smithers
I'm guessing DVD2Blu.com, as is clearly listed in the press release.
@Bandigolo
Well if I could read I wouldn't need to watch the movie version now would I?
@smithers
...wat?
Good if you're from the USA...
@McHurt - totally agree. The chances of this happening in Oz are so slim it's not funny. Most new releases (Avatar the exception) are AU$39 (about US$34 at the moment) which just sucks.
@McHurt
UK Blu's are cheap,
Sad to see such offers so often so lacking (like this time, most likely, US only). the only legal way here is not affordable. i can't rebuy all my dvds for around 40$ each.
this should have been offered right from the start, everywhere. a default choice.
@davepermen I agree. Another offer they should have is replacement DVDs for scratched or unwatchable ones maybe for $1 or something.
Awesome! Looks like I'll be getting all of my Kubrick DVDs turned into Blu-ray.
@ferrell
You sir have good taste. One of the best directors that ever lived.
@Snowdog Good taste is in the eye of the beholder. Kubrick 's work is the artistic equivalent on canvas of throwing a crap load of paint on a canvas, rolling around in it and calling it art because its unusual and unique. And usually the only people to agree with these opinions are snooty folks who think they have good taste in art because its deemed as high art by the critics...who in and of themselves are usually full of crap.
The reality is Kubrick's movies work best if you are high. The one exception is The Shining.
I consider myself a cultured and generally enlightened person who loves to dive into Plato's dialogues. And enjoys Homer, Shakespeare and the like. However Kubrick's crap is, again like trying to interpret paint thrown on a canvas. It wasn't designed to make sense to begin with, and trying to make sense out of nonsense is pointless in and of itself. Now that said. If you enjoy the movies. More power to you. As I said to begin with its personal pref so to each their own. But IMHO his stuff is pretentious to say the least.
@ferrell
Hah! I just came back from seeing 2001 in original 70mm Super Panavision at the cinema. Let's see your lowly digital media beat that!! :P
But yeah, I commend you for your taste in movies :)
@John Doe
Oh God, I won't even start... Well, just one little peep: If you don't like "artsy" movies you don't need to hate on Kubrick (excuse the colloquialism). Go see Barry Lyndon instead.
I still haven't made the jump to Blu-Ray. I'd like to, but in all honesty, it's hard to justify when my DVD player + Panny Plasma look so good already. I'm guessing this DVD2Blu is aimed at people just like me. But it ain't working. Maybe I'm just too cheap LOL.
@Jimi - When I see Blu-Ray demos in Fry's and Bestbuy, the video looks fake somehow. Yesterday, they had the movie, Patton, on. I don't know why, but either the hyper contast, or lighting, or something made the movie look like a soap opera. Maybe the store is mucking up the settings, but if Blu-Ray movies look like that, I'll stay with DVDs. They look fine on my 55" LCD.
@Jimi Did you know that Blu-Ray discs have much better sound than DVDs?
@appsman Chances are they had the 240hz blah blah blah crap turned on. I know exactly what you're talking about. Turns out you're not alone. There are plenty of people (me included) that don't like the look of that particular feature. If you google for "240hz" and "Soap Opera effect" you'll find plenty of articles about it :-)
@poochie Yep. But I figure that my 8 year old consumer grade Sony receiver which only has Dolby Digital (no DTS, not THX certified, etc etc) would be the weakest link in the chain and Blu-Rays would sound the same as my DVDs until I upgrade my receiver. :-)
Good deal. Now I can upgrade some of my Netflix copies.
@Wrecked Em Nope. Go ahead and send them in. I can guarantee you that WB will know the difference between a copy and a genuine disk. And here's hoping they come after you.
@John Doe Props on your sarcasm detection skills.
Silly deal is silly. We already purchased the license to own a copy of the stockreal and view it. Why the fuck would we have to pay anything? The program should be trade up for the bluray movie, but you only pay for shipping/handling unless you want the case and artwork which is a separate good/service.
@Anticrawl because you get an enhanced version. silly guy wants stuff all for free, even while work is involved to create it. so silly guy is silly.
Still not available in Canada. I wanted to take part of their Red2Blue trade in program but as usual, Canada is left out. On the same continent and they still won't ship. Hawaii they will, but not Canada. Boo-urns!
@Ironhide Delta
We Canadians should all write to them to put a little pressure...
@lap777
If they get a letter from all 7 of you, they're bound to crack ;)
:P Sorry guys..
Sweet! I can now trade up my copy of Deliverance and see Ned Beatty squeal like a pig in HD.
I used their Red2Blu promotion to trade in some HD DVDs. It was a really simple process and very cheap. I'll have to check my DVDs and see if there are any that warrant trading in for a Blu-Ray version.
@mbushnell
Yeah, but that was better because you kept the disk for use with your old player. I need the DVDs for our family roadtrips in the minivan.
@Gipper Rip it before you send it in.
So I did this last night, had 14 movies that qualified and only 2 were $6.95 instead of $4.95 (A Christmas Story and L.A. Confidential). A couple of them I was like, is this really worth upgrading? (Constantine?!) but in the end I pulled the trigger on all of them (what the hell, free shipping). I swapped about 15 HD-DVDs last year through the similar Red2Blue program and everything went really smoothly. And at least this time I can make backup copies of all the DVDs prior to dropping them in the mail, just in case :)
Ummm is it just me or are the only offering this program for movies which are only priced at $10-$15 in the first place on DVD and $15-$20 on Blu-ray, not much of an incentive if you ask me, if I really wanted the Blu-rays of these movies I'd go pick them up new or used and still have my DVDs for my DVD usage.
@3dpenguin well, then it means i pay 5 bucks instead of 20 per disk, which is a gain for me :) and no, i don't care about the dvds anymore. i can still downconvert (i rip everything to home server anyways. but as there is no digital download option existing right now, bluray disks are still the best option)
I have usb modems for WiMax at 8 Mb\s and for 3G at 1,5 Mb\s, ADSL at 2 Mb\s for one apartment, and 100 Mb\s Broadband for another. The point is - I don`t remember last time I used any optical storage media.
Sorry, I'm not giving up DVDs to get discs I can't play on half of my hardware, and that none of my friends can borrow. If I just had to send in proofs of purchase I'd probably do it, but if I have to surrender the discs themselves, forget it.
@deej
I think it's pretty sweet actually, you can buy the movie previously viewed for a couple bucks, upgrade to a blu-ray for a couple more, and it's still cheaper than the cost of the DVD new at best buy.
Curious they don't want the case, now I'll have a bunch of DVD jewel cases I won't need....
how about VHS to BluRay, huh?
I own only a handful of those and would _maybe_ exchange one or two. I mean, I love The Wedding Singer but I didn't buy it for the visuals. Meh.
I have only a couple of those movies in my DVD collection but none that would be worth upgrading to BR. The only BR movies I have in my collection are those where visual quality benefit purchasing it on BR.
It be nice if you explain how this work. I hate to search around and research. Do you have to have receipts for the DVDs to trade in? What's to stop me from going to a garage sale somewhere and getting really cheap dvds and sending in for blurays?
@nxp3 That's why the press release with all the information is right up there. Click the "show" button.
Oh man. I only own one of those movies, and that's because someone gave me Elf.
most of those blu-ray are like $10 anyway, for $5 plus you had to gave them your dvd isn't exatly great deal consider you also had to pay shipping.
Ha. The only DVD that I own on that list is Blazing Saddles, and I don't need to see that in high def with digital surround. Well, maybe I do, just for the "bean" scene.
I only own a few WB DVD's (I never tried to build up a DVD collection), The Matrix, Osmosis Jones, Blade Runner, Unforgiven and none of them are eligible. But thank god they added V for vendetta, at least thats one I can trade for. (I had been planning on getting that on Blu-Ray anyway).
Criterion has been doing something like this for a while now but they want $20 per movie plus $5 S&H.
Question 28
http://www.criterion.com/help
I agree with everyone else who has said something like this should have been available from day 1 and should be for all movies, not just the ones that are probably cheaper in the store after you add S&H.
58 Get Smart (Blu-Ray) $4.95
yay! i can trade my blu-ray copy for a blu-ray!
actually, i was really confused, since i bought the blu-ray version when it first came out. i thought maybe there was a new, better quality version. but alas, there is not. i checked the website and it says dvd. so it's just a typo.
Wow, being able to upgrade some of my original Kubrick collection DVDs is a pretty good value for $4.95 ea. Those DVDs were not very good quality transfers.
@swoon Can almost guarantee you that if they weren't good at the time, probably won't be now. *shrugs*