Red to Blu

Didn't listen to me when I said Blu-ray would become the industry leader over HD DVD? Did you take the confederate side in the Format War? What were you thinking? I told you not to. I am ALWAYS right. Now you are stuck with a small, awkward collection of HD DVDs that you don't know what to do with. You spent money on that silly HD DVD player and NOW you want to switch to Blu-ray? Well at least Warner Bros. feels guilty for selling you that garbage. This month they've launched "Red2Blu", a new program that allows HD DVD owners to trade up their obsolete discs for beautiful Blu-rays. You select which HD DVDs you have that you want to trade up, you pay $4.95 for each one ($14.95 for those discs with 4 movies on them), you send them the cover art from your HD discs, pay an additional $6.95 for shipping, and they will send you a new collection. It's a lot cheaper than going out and buying them all again at retail. It's a great idea for WB. Not only does it benefit your obsolete collection, but it also helps WB get your BD collection growing. BD sales are up this year, but they are not growing at the speed the industry would like. Any gimmick that can encourage sales is good for Home Entertainment. "Red2Blu" isn't the only program Warner Bros. are putting forward this month to hype Blu, "Warnerblu Buy 5, Get 1 Free" is exactly what it says. You buy 5 WB BDs, they'll give you 1 free. Just register on the site, register each participating title you purchase between now and April 2010, and for every 5 you buy you get 1 free (just pay S+H). Pretty simple and encouraging. I like.

So basically, my point is Blu-ray is awesome, HD DVD is for people who lose, and WB has some clever people in their marketing department. Cool? Cool.