Is the Warner DVD to Blu-ray Disc swap offer a good deal?

Warner Brothers, the studio that gave Blu-ray the final boost it needed to make it the de facto standard for high-def discs, is giving the format another bump with a program aimed at cutting the cost of switching over from DVD to Blu-ray. DVD2Blu lets owners of certain Warner Brothers DVDs swap them at relatively low cost for Blu-ray Discs of the same title. The swapped-for Blu-rays cost either $7.95 or $9.95, depending on the movie, and shipping is free if you spend $25 or more for the upgraded discs. But before you get too excited, let's step back for a second and see how good a deal this really is.

The program does not include all of Warner's titles. For example, you won't find any Harry Potter films, nor are many of the studio's recent blockbusters included. That's not to say some older popular titles can't be found -- for example, "Wedding Crashers" and "Michael Clayton" -- but most of what's available are older, slower-moving catalog titles that can often be bought for just a couple of bucks more than what's being offered, and sometimes for even less.

Also, don't forget that Blu-ray players are backward compatible with DVDs, and that some players do a great job of upconverting DVDs to HD resolutions; see our report on Blu-ray players for additional information. So, in many cases there might not be any overwhelming need to trade the discs in at all -- unless you just have to own "Rush Hour 3" or "Ocean's Thirteen" in the highest definition.

Swapping discs for Blu-rays is nothing new for Warner. It also offers a Red2Blu program that gives supporters of the HD-DVD format it helped to kill an inexpensive way to turn their Warner HD-DVDs into Blu-ray Discs of the same title (the studio at one time offered films in both formats). There is no free shipping option, but the list of available titles is more inclusive. Discs cost just under $5 each to upgrade and you don't even have to send in the disc itself, just the sleeve art.