Warner Bros. Encourages DVD Owners to Go Blu

As the old proverb goes, “history has a way of repeating itself,” but Warner Bros. is doing all it can to make the experience a little easier this time around with DVD2Blu.com, a Website designed to help the average consumer upgrade his or her DVD library to a higher quality.

We all remember the trauma of the late 1990s, when the first mass migration in home entertainment took place, from videotape to DVD. We were forced to spend a king’s ransom to accommodate the more compact format. The DVD promised not to degenerate over time and boasted a greater capacity for information that would allow for the inclusion of the director commentaries and deleted scenes that we can no longer live without. Now movie fans are faced with the predicament of replacing their DVDs with the vaunted Blu-ray discs. With DVD2Blu, this cost should be curbed significantly.

The way the Website will work is simple: Select the Blu-ray titles you would like to upgrade, print out the prepaid postage, send off the corresponding DVDs from your collection and within five weeks the Blu-ray will arrive. Although the upgrade is not free—it will cost $7.25 per movie—it is much cheaper than the $30.00 it will cost to buy the movie new from the store.

Right now, only about 50 Warner Bros. movies are available for an upgrade through the site, but that number should only increase. “We’re launching the program with a wide range of titles that will appeal to a broad audience,” says Warner Home Video exec Dorinda Marticorena. “In the coming months, we’re looking to expand the program and make additional titles available.”