Warner Brothers HD-DVD to Blu-ray Upgrade Program

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.red2blu.com/' target='_blank'>http://www.red2blu.com/</a><br /><br /></div><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1240423958.usr1.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>This is a really smart thing to offer consumers! Warner brothers is allowing consumers to swap their HD-DVD movies for Blu-ray movies, for $4.95 per movie and a $6.95 shipping charge on the whole order. All in all, not bad - I'd certainly pay $5 per movie to get them in Blu-ray format. Unfortunately for me, this offer is only available in the USA - but one of my American Thoughts Media editors may be getting a shipment from me to make the swap happen. It seems also that you only have to send in your DVD sleeve - you can keep the actual discs. I wonder if they do anything with boxed sets? I have Heroes season one on HD-DVD...</p>

[Felix Torres]

Dunno about Hereoes but for the Harry Potter collection the accept the case for the first movie as proff for the full set; so you get to keep the trunk box.

[Chris Gohlke]

Sweet, 11 of my 15 HD DVD's are eligible. Particularly excited that I can trade in the Harry Potter disks, 300, and Batman Begins. Not that I'm complaining, but it seems especially generous since 3 of the movies I can trade are ones that were free when I got my HD DVD player.

[Jason Dunn]

Damn...I was hoping for ALL of my HD-DVDs to be on that list, but Clerks II, Transformers, Miami Vice, Heroes Season 1, and King Kong aren't on that list. Really surprised at the last three - they're all "big budget" movies and I would have thought they would have been released on Blu-ray by now. In fact...waitasecond...Transformers HAS been released on Blu-ray, I know because I bought it last week. Grr. So it looks like I have six to submit to this problem via my US representation.

<checks amazon.ca="">< checks Amazon.ca >

King Kong is also out on Blu-ray. So is Miami Vice. So is Heroes Season 1. Sheesh, so is Clerks II. So the FAQ they have that states if a movie isn't listed for swapping it's because it's not yet released on Blu-ray is a big fat lie. :mad: I appreciate what WB is doing here - it's a good thing - but why the lies I wonder?

EDIT: Umm...I neglected to notice that NONE of those titles I'm complaining about are WB titles. They're all Universal titles, so ignore what I wrote above. :o
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[Chris Gohlke]

Didn't look them all up, but King Kong for example is Universal, not WB. It would be nice if all the studios did this, but the promotion as I read it is by WB for only WB titles.

[Dyvim]

Could this be a cheaper way to get certain Blu-Ray titles? i.e. you buy a WB HD-DVD title at super discount price somewhere, then send in the cover art and $5 to get the Blu-Ray version? Of course it would only work if you weren't in a hurry and if you could still find the HD-DVD versions for sale somewhere.

I have several eligible titles, but still no Blu-Ray player. Do they say how long this offer will be good for?

[Jason Dunn]

Didn't look them all up, but King Kong for example is Universal, not WB. It would be nice if all the studios did this, but the promotion as I read it is by WB for only WB titles.

Doh! You're 100% right, I was being brain dead and forgetting that this was only for Warner Brothers movies. Whoops. :o

[Jason Dunn]

Could this be a cheaper way to get certain Blu-Ray titles? i.e. you buy a WB HD-DVD title at super discount price somewhere, then send in the cover art and $5 to get the Blu-Ray version?

Not exactly ethical, but yes, I suppose you could do that. :confused:

[Chris Gohlke]

For those of you who are sticklers for details, I was a bit concerned about the language on the site that said they would send you the replacement Blu-ray DISCS, I just called and confirmed with Rob at their 800 number that you do in fact get the entire retail package for the replacement movies. He said they had that same question as the call center and had to confirm it with the company as they were not the ones that came up with the text for the site.

I also complemented them on this being a great promotion and definitely above and beyond what I would expect of them.

[Dyvim]

Not exactly ethical, but yes, I suppose you could do that. :confused:
I'm not sure how it would be unethical. Do you think that would be cheating the artist and studios out of the money they deserve? If so, is it then unethical to pick up bargain bin HD-DVDs or to buy used DVDs or CDs? Unless they were actually losing money on the $5 Blu-Ray disks (which seems doubtful). Really you'd be buying the movie twice (albeit for cheap)- once on HD-DVD and then again on Blu-Ray. I saw $15 Blu-Ray titles in the supermarket today- I don't imagine this would be much cheaper (say $5 for HD-DVD and $5 for the trade-in).

Just playing devil's advocate. I probably won't even use this offer to trade-in the HD-DVD titles I own since I don't have a Blu-Ray player nor plans to get one in the near future.

[Jason Dunn]

I'm not sure how it would be unethical.

It seems pretty clear this offer is being made for people who own HD-DVDs and are feeling burned that they backed the losing technology. It's a goodwill effort from Warner Brothers to give people a chance to buy the movies they already own in Blu-ray format. Someone using this as a way to get Blu-ray movies for cheap is just scamming the system, working an angle to save a few bucks. In my books, that's unethical. It's perfectly legal, but it's an abuse of the system and if it happened on a wide-spread basis would dissuade companies from making gestures like this in the future.