I watch all my movies through an ELECTRON MICROSCOPE SYSTEM and the detail is AMAZING. It makes Blew-Ray (blu-ray) look dismal. Hopefully the ELECTRON MICROSCOPE SYSTEM (EMS) will go main-stream to the public very soon. All those who bought blew-ray will then need to replace all those blue cases with the rainbow cases of EMS movies. It is cool to be an EARLY ADOPTER. I can feel superior to all the LATE ADOPTERS and the NEVER ADOPTERS. (Sarcasm, it's not just for breakfast anymore.)

Only movie I own on DVD that's on the list is Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. If this applied to Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, I would be all over this like flies on stink. Guess I'm gonna have to wait to upgrade those.

Honestly, how does a viewer benefit from a blu-ray release of "The Wedding Singer"?

@remington870_20ga:

I wanted to add that the idea of something being "Filmed in HD" is erroneous. Movies on film have a significantly higher resolution than HD TV can even display, and that is true for movies dating back a long time. Film captures more detail than any digital format available today and you in fact are still losing clarity on Blu-Ray compared to any movie on film (assuming the film is in good condition).

ALL of these films can benefit from a good HD transfer compared to their DVD counterparts. It's really all in the transfer, which some studios are half-assing for older titles (either because of the work involved or the lower potential sales). Take a look at the new Gone with the Wind of Wizard of Oz Blu-rays. They look much better than they did on DVD.

I just want to help with everryone's home video purchases. Rememebr to check reviews to find out how well transfers were handled, especially for older movies. They're getting much better about it though ans most Blu-Ray titles are looking significantly better now.

@remington870_20ga:

I wanted to add that the idea of something being "Filmed in HD" is erroneous. Movies on film have a significantly higher resolution than HD TV can even display, and that is true for movies dating back a long time. Film captures more detail than any digital format available today and you in fact are still losing clarity on Blu-Ray compared to any movie on film (assuming the film is in good condition).

ALL of these films can benefit from a good HD transfer compared to their DVD counterparts. It's really all in the transfer, which some studios are half-assing for older titles (either because of the work involved or the lower potential sales). Take a look at the new Gone with the Wind of Wizard of Oz Blu-rays. They look much better than they did on DVD.

I just want to help with everryone's home video purchases. Rememebr to check reviews to find out how well transfers were handled, especially for older movies. They're getting much better about it though ans most Blu-Ray titles are looking significantly better now.

Is it really so rare for someone to have a 42" or larger TV @1080p? The prices on these sets keep falling lower and lower, the quality is getting better and better, and the difference in quality is very noticeable from DVD - > BD. I can tell the difference from broadcast HD on showtime or hbo, and the real BD [Wall-E on Showtime vs. BD comes to mind].

What irritates me is what i perceive as the elitism of the luddite.

I'd be all over that if they offered any of the movies i own.

Now to see if their list of eligible titles is totally sad and tiny...

@Willzyx:
id start calling people. they can probably do it.
or have a program underway for canada, maybe the currency needs to be updated with dif pricing.(conversion rates)

@GitEmSteveDave_WantzTaunTaunBag:

Will the 250 DVD's I send you be insured for replacement value or only $100.00?

And as I mentioned, if you're willing to look for deals (might I suggest HighDefDigest.com's Blu-ray bargains forum) you can get the Blu-ray version for the same, or in some cases even less than the cost of the DVD version.

I picked up the new Star Trek on Blu-ray for $15.99. To get the same 2-disc digital copy version on DVD, the cheapest I can find is $19.99 from Amazon and Overstock.

It's not a plot for money, it's a genuine advancement in the consumers ability to see movies and television as they were meant to be seen.

@ElPresidente408:

Also, it depends on where you sit. If you're 20' away from a 46" screen, doesn't matter if it's 1080, 720, or 480.

For the record, I don't actually download movies. I did once download a copy of Monster's Inc, but that was after it left theaters and before it was released on video, and I was going to buy it when it came out anyway.

And Warner is actually one of the better studio at remastering older films that look absolutely gorgeous in HD (Casablanca, 2001, Wizard of Oz, Blade Runner...)

@Westonian:

If I saw them side-by side *maybe* I could tell the difference. But I'm not looking at them side-by-side.

My system has the 67" TV and a 7.1 Klipsch Audio surround system driven by a very swank Onkyo reciever with every certification in the book.

It is *so* good that I don't care about BD. If BD is 100%, what I have is 99.8%, and I am not about to start spending an extra BD tax on all my movies to get an additional %0.02 that i'm not going to care about.

... have a lot of DVD's - don't know if I have that many that are WB movies....

[www.dvdbeaver.com]

You're telling me you can't see the significant improvement in each of those frames?

And that doesn't even take into account the significant audio improvements. The best audio DVD can offer is 1.5 Mbps DTS. The Kingdom of Heaven Blu-ray provides a lossless DTS Master Audio track that averages around 16 Mbps that is a bit for bit replica of the studio master recording.

Many Blu-rays street at near, or even below the cost of their DVD counter parts if you're willing to look for the deals. I paid $10 for UP on Blu-ray and it included a DVD and digital copy.

The studios are making significant profit from this trade-in program too ...

$8-10 to exchange, material cost for the movie is in the $1.75-2.75 range, so they are seeing $6-8 profit per unit exchanged ... maybe if they cut that profit margin down to $3-4 I'd consider upgrading some of my ~300 or so DVDs

@Darklighter: Unfortunately, television shows aren't being broadcast in movie theaters, so where are we now?

You're comparing a lower resolution to a higher one?

Anyways once you pass the 40" mark on a 1080p set, you can see the difference between upscaled and Blu-ray. I recently upgraded my TV from 32 to 42 inches. At 32 (720p) unscaled DVDs looked just like Blu-Ray. However now I can really see a difference.

@samgman: I dont buy anything filmed prior to 2007 on Blu-Ray as its no better than the dvd versions. Boondock Saints on Blu-ray!? Pass.

@diasdiem: I do like this new Disney model. We don't have a BR player/PS3, but we buy the BD editions because they come with the DVD that we can use for now. If I could get more than a couple bucks for the copy of Monsters Inc that we have, I'd sell it and buy the BD copy of that as well.

I agree with the other commenter's note about the high price of BR.

If BR sales are sagging, it's because the studios were greedy and stupid enough to charge a premium for higher resolution with little or no added content.

And let's face it, folks: the content available seldom warrants deluxe treatment. How many good movies come out a month? Perhaps one or two -- in a good month. How many TV series are worth owning? Precious few -- most network programs these days are garbage.

I haven't even upgraded to a flat-screen TV yet, because of the expense and hassle. Plus I keep hearing about flat screens failing after only a year or two, occasioning huge repair bills.

Phooey!

@Westonian: I did the same with the Red2Blu program. I got some better deals off of Amazon first. Or even better, I looked at the price of the HD-DVD getting upgraded to Bluray versus the just buying the Bluray outright. I ended up getting bargain HD-DVDs ($2-3) and sendign them out for Bluray. I don't mind waiting.

@GitEmSteveDave_WantzTaunTaunBag: Will you accept golf balls that I have drilled finger holes in?

Blu-Ray sales are sagging because the movie industry is charging a premium for a quality increase over "good enough". If they want people to buy Blu-Ray movies, -price them the same as DVDs-.

Meh. The quality of watching DVDs on my 67" LED DLP unit is so freaking good I don't give a rat's ass about BD. If and when BDs cost exactly the same as DVDs, maybe then I'll consider buying them. But when my movie viewing experiences is already ZOMG! I don't see any reason to bother.

And count me shocked at the suggestion that one would find it difficult "to tell a noticeable difference between Blu-ray and an upconverted DVD". The differences are huge in the video department, and one thing people over look is that even the grainer, dirtier Blu-ray releases also provide a distinct bump in audio quality.

HD lossless audio is truly amazing, and has to be experienced. It was even enough to get me through Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen!

@Oranges w/ Cheese has 2 cats! ahahaha.: Well, now studios are automatically factoring in blu-ray for their releases, so they'll make more of an effort in the makeup department and the set departments to make sure the actors look as good for blu-ray as they do for DVD.

@JimBoSlobish:

Until they come out with a newer and better format, when the vicious cycle of paying to get new copies of copies you already paid for starts again.

GoodFellas and Blazing Saddles are older movies and look terrible, however Brade Runner is pretty old now but he 5-disc set is one of the best Blu-rays I've seen.

@Keen314: I have Firefly on Blu-Ray and one of the charms of the series is the texture of the costumes and sets, much of which is lost on a small screen, and on regular format. Blu-Ray really makes the colors pop and the texture you see from the sets is fantastic.

My boyfriend has a 47" 1080p and it makes regular DVD's look REALLY WEIRD on his PS3. He says bluray is awesome though. I don't really see the catch. I don't need to see every zit on the actors face.

Its.. weird.

This program however is not such a good deal. You pay $8 to $10, plus $5 shipping, and you give up the actual movie. Take Beetlejuice for example. $8 to upgrade + $5 shipping with no DVD copy. You'll get the Blu-ray in 5 weeks.

Or you could order Beetlejuice for $10.49 from Amazon, pay their minimum shipping, keep your DVD and get the Blu-ray in a few days.

Before anyone takes Warner up on this offer, do some price searching and make sure it's actually a bargain.

@JimBoSlobish: Agreed, sounds like a winner to me. I would only do it for those movies that would really benefit from the transfer. Chick flicks can stay on DVD format as far as I'm concerned.

Its a plot for money, that's about it.

but stargate universe is recorded in true HD, the problem is it doesn't have much action.

It's trivial to tell the difference between an DVD up-scaled to 720p and an actual 720p source, let alone 1080p.

@GitEmSteveDave_WantzTaunTaunBag: Are you affiliated with the Cash4DVDs that I see at my local Holiday Inn?

@Etoiles: But you can have a tube TV hooked up to blu-ray and it'll still look better than a tube TV hooked up to a regular DVD player. With prices dropping on blu-ray players, you can get a new or refurb one for the bedroom. The computer thing is different, but a lot of blu-rays come with digital copies for the computer and those aren't blu-ray.

The list of titles is... rather disappointing.

But that said, we still only have one blu-ray player -- the PS3 -- and one HDTV. Anything I upgrade, I can no longer play in any of our computers or in the bedroom. So it's still a disadvantage, in 2009.

Some early Blu-Ray releases were of questionable quality, but is that the case with more recent releases?

Granted, it takes a mammoth 1080p TV to tell a noticeable difference between Blu-ray and an upconverted DVD.

My 42" 720p plasma shows a remarkable difference between even well-done DVDs and Blu-ray Discs.

If this was industry wide and included all movies, that would be fantastic. As someone already said, the most popular movies (and the ones they take the most time to make look pretty in the Blu version) aren't included.

Now, if I had a Ps3 or was given a BluRay player, I'd be all about paying 8-10 bucks for BluRay versions of the few titles I had on the list, but I wouldn't be going out to buy a BluRay player just for this program and it wouldn't even be a selling point, it would just be a nifty bonus thing.

Plus, looking at the list, do you really need a BluRay version of Christmas Story over an upconverted DVD version they already own? Seriously?

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All I did was look through my drawer of unwatched DVD's, and sent them to Cash4DVDs!

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My Ps3 plays Blu-ray, but I haven't been able to convince myself that I need to upgrade yet.

I'm happy enough with DVDs.

A good idea, but I do not own any of the 55 titles they are including in the offer. Hoping to upgrade The Matrix or Harry Potter titles? Don't bother.

I have several Warner Bros. Blu-ray discs that I got free with my PS3 and the picture quality is awful.

Not bad really. End up getting the best version for $8-10? I'd be down for that.