If you were hoping to hold your now-obsolete HD DVD discs until their price on eBay rose, you may want to reconsider. Warner Home Video announced Thursday a trade-in program where customers can exchange HD DVD discs for a Blu-ray Disc of the same title at a discount.
The trade-in program is called Red2Blu, and centers around Warner’s Web site of the same name. The cost with trade-in is $4.95 for each Blu-ray Disc, plus $6.95 for shipping and handling for each order, whether single or multiple discs.
Up to 25 Per Household
On the Web site, a user selects from the available Blu-ray titles. There is a limit of one exchange per title, and up to 25 per household. The user then mails the original — not copies — of each HD DVD’s cover art to Warner and receives the Blu-ray version of the same title within four to five weeks. For boxed sets, Warner is offering special instructions as to what cover art to mail in. Only trade-ins of the same movie are allowed.
The site offers 128 Blu-ray titles from Warner, including Batman Begins, A Clockwork Orange, Blood Diamond, Michael Clayton, Ocean’s Eleven, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Sopranos, Phantom of the Opera, and the Best of HD DVD series, which becomes, of course, the Best of Blu-ray.
Josh Martin, an analyst with industry research firm Yankee Group, said Warner’s motivation is “probably public outreach, so that they look like they’re doing the right thing.” He noted that, when the HD DVD-versus-Blu-ray format war was at its height, Warner’s conversion to Blu-ray was the turning point.
‘Not a Game Changer’
Martin also pointed out that Best Buy offered a similar trade-in, with a discount for purchasing Blu-ray players if you traded in your HD DVD player, and that also was an effort to keep HD…