Select Blu-ray titles offering $10 back if you own DVD version
By Darren Murph 
posted Jan 14th 2008 1:34PM
posted Jan 14th 2008 1:34PM
Another day, another random promotion in the format war. Granted, this particular one isn't exactly a jab against HD DVD, but it could sway some fencesitters to pick up a few Blu-ray titles they wouldn't otherwise add to their collection. Reportedly, the BD versions of The Rock, Crimson Tide and Con Air are all coming with $10 mail-in rebates that are valid if you can prove that you purchased the BD version and standard DVD version of the film. Interestingly, the promotion is good for this entire year, which leads us to believe this trio may just be the beginning of a much larger effort to entice consumers to bite on Blu. If any of you out there spot this offer on a title not listed above, be sure to let us know in comments.[Thanks, Roy A.]
I sent off for this $10 coupon, which is from Buena Vista Entertainment, and the letter was sent back as Not Deliverable as Addressed. It is just a PO Box address and I confirmed the letter was correct.
Anyone else have this problem? The address used is:
Blu-Ray $10 Upgrade Rebate Offer
PO Box 410252
El Paso, TX 88541-0252
Darrell
I used the same address. Letter came back not deliverable. I guess thay moved and the promotion is a scam. Any one else have this problem?
Darrell said: "I sent off for this $10 coupon, which is from Buena Vista Entertainment, and the letter was sent back as Not Deliverable as Addressed. It is just a PO Box address and I confirmed the letter was correct.
Anyone else have this problem?"
Yep, mine was returned on Friday; it's being reported on other forums as well. Somebody screwed up bigtime, we'll have to see how it shakes out.
Looks like people don't want to ruin their Blu-Ray box art x)
Excellent, it's only the beginning of the incentives hinted at by the Insiders over at Blu-Ray.com to try to get DVD fence sitters to switch. I guess you'll soon enough be able to buy a Bogo title (which brings down the price per disc at about $10-$15), and still get one of the two discs free with a $10 coupon, for an effective final $5-$10 per disc.
This is just a publicity stunt. Most people would have bought these DVD's years ago, so how many people are going to be able to prove the DVD purchase?
It will be useful for salespeople who are trying to sell BD players.
Customer : It looks good, but I dont want to replace all my DVD's again
Salesperson : You can get $10 back on DVD movies you replace with BD.
( SP Fails to mention the terms )
Customer : sounds good - give me that BD player!
To be fair the article says you just need to provide the UPC from the original DVD. So as long as you still have the box then you should be good to go.
This is great. Should be posted on the regular engadget.com as well for people who don't check HD as well
Since I don't have the receipts for these DVD's (which I purchased years ago), does sending the proof of purchase tab require me to cut up the DVD/BD artwork/paper insert at all?
Most Standard DVD's have some kind of UPC code on them so I would just cut it off and send it along with a copy of the receipt for the new Blu-Ray you just purchased.
If I was Sony Id offer a one month $50 trade in on HD DVD players against BD players. I think they could probably take a good number of HDDVD players off the market and sell a few PS3's to the type of customers who buy lots of movies.
HD DVD needs to be kicked while its down!
Gee. Just a bit of a sore winner? Personally, people like you make me want to kick the fanboys instead of the technology over which they're blinded.
It doesnt really matter who wins ( or has won ) - just so long as someone wins.
which Id bought for $99 a few months ago, I'd be happy to get $ 50 for it now and you could probably ebay your free movies as well.
It doesnt really matter who wins ( or has won ) - just so long as someone wins.
which Id bought for $99 a few months ago, I'd be happy to get $ 50 for it now and you could probably ebay your free movies as well.
Why? Why should I do that? Why should anyone do that?
For $98 I got an HD DVD player as well as an upscaling DVD player. My collection now entails about 10 HD DVD movies and I still have the 5 freebies on the way. I plan on keeping my player because IT STILL WORKS! There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for me to get rid of a working unit that will not only play all of my HD DVDs but also all of my DVDs and audio CDs, especially when it was just a little more than an standard DVD upscaling unit.
I'm so sick of having to say this to people like you, but this is not a Circuit Cuit DIVX player that will suddenly stop working come June 1 when Warner becomes BD-only. The player will work for years if treated properly. That gives me a few years for BD player prices to drop, although I've been looking at a PS3 for a few months now anyways. It also gives me a few years to re-purchase the movies in BD. And some of my HD DVDs are "flippers" that have the regular DVD on the other side, so there is no reason for me to get rid of those anyway.
I'm actually eyeing another HD DVD unit now that the prices have dropped. That way I can use my HD-A2 as a backup unit, and I get five more free HD DVDs.
Just like with those who still own and use laserdisc, Betamax, and even VHS, which is just as much a dying/dead format, there is absolutely NO reason for me to abandon HD DVD when I can still use the player for many years.
John B, I'm pretty sure that Circuit City's Divx players could still play DVDs. Circuit City did refund the upgrade price that people paid.
Yeah, that's a great idea! Buy the Toshiba's back, slap Sony badges on it and sell it as the first Profile 2.0 player! Great idea!
@ Greg
Just $50? Don't be so cheap. I say at least $100 (it would cover my HD-A2 that will sooner or later start to collect dust now because I'm not going to import HDDVD titles to the US at their current price). Granted, neither will happen, but it's the thought that counts.
BTW, this is a nice promo from the Blu camp.
They could even give the HD DVD players to charity so some starving kid in Africa has a great upscaling DVD player :D
Disney is offering $10 back on Cars Blu-ray if you already own the DVD version.
I'm assuming that this is in the form of a mail-in rebate form included in the Blu-ray case that requires both proof-of-purchase tabs.
Is that correct?
Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End on DVD came with a $10 coupon for the Blu-ray version.
Ratatouille on DVD has a $10 mail-in rebate for the Blu-ray version. It requires you to submit both proof-of-purchase tabs.
What if I can prove that I burned a copy of The Rock previously? Can I still get the rebate?
:)
This is a surprisingly interesting promotion - but doing it for _new_ releases is idiotic, which is what Disney is doing. They need to do it more heavily for their older catalogs...
I dunno... It got me to buy Pirates 3 on Blu-ray, and I don't even have a Blu-ray player yet (I have an HD-A3--I'm thinking of getting a PS3, or a Profile 1.1 player when they come out, if they're cheap enough). Of course, they were having a Buy-one-get-one-free deal, so I ended up with Pirates 2 and 3 for $20 out the door.
Of course, that was only because I had to price-match 2-for-1 the deal at Best Buy. Toys R Us had the 2-for-1, and the titles were $25 each, but I got there on the last day of the sale, and they didn't have Pirates 3 in stock anymore.
Pirates 2 & 3 on Blu-ray for $15 would have been a pretty sweet deal.
All you do is pull out the tab in the regular dvd. This is a great deal for those who already own the movie. Naysayers are just hd-dvd fanboys, becoming ever so bitter in the losing world.
Nice promotion. I hate everything about $ony and BR, but this is finally something that raised my eyebrows. Finally a pro-consumer move from $ony that didn't come as a reaction to someone else doing it first.
Unless a movie was absolutely fantastic, I wouldn't see the point of buying the Blu Ray version if I owned it on DVD.
As a slight aside, I saw the rip-off to end all rip-offs while I was looking at the Blu Ray (and HD DVD disks) in Zavvi (formerly known as Virgin Megastore). Prices for HD content is so ridiculous in Europe that I have no intent buying but I was still interested to see what was out.
There, nestled amongst other expensive titles is Paul Verhoeven's Black Book. Not a bad movie per se, but the cover had a little sticker saying it was backwards compatible. Seemingly the box included a Blu Ray disc and DVD. Fine, but how much for this movie? FIFTY EUROS. Good god, they must think people are morons. I won't buy any movie in Europe while they keep up this rape but I wonder if there are people THAT stupid to justify those prices. Surely someone must buy the disks. I just wish Blu Ray will become mainstream enough that they have to drop their prices because it's absurd. HMV is slightly better than Virgin / Zavvi but both of them cost far too much.
I think this is a really great promo idea. I own a lot of DVDs that I'd like to upgrade, but the cost is prohibitive. This would sway me, though.
This is a good idea. I also agree with the idea someone posted about swapping your HD DVD player for a Blu-ray player. Imagine how many people would take on that offer. Though what would they do with their old HD DVDs. Have a choice of blu-ray movies to choose from for free.
This is a great offer... I don't even own a BD player yet and will begin buy some movies that offer this $10 credit. The ROCK FTW!!!
This is definitely an enticing offer for those folks who may still be on the fence about upgrading to HD... love to hear how the HD-DVD fangheys spin this one.
Maybe it's worthy of pointing out that on Amazon The Rock is $9.50 and the other two are only slightly over $10.00. Therefore, you could use this promotion as a way of getting the dvd versions of these movies for free or very close to free.
upscaling is too good for me to upgrade any of my current library.
too bad the hd and blu people don't get that.
Yeah but no one cares that you're too damn cheap or poor to upgrade to HD. So STFU and go enjoy your DVD's in all their 480i goodness.
480p.
not everyone owns a Ferrari like you.
If you own a Pioneer Kuro plasma set, then upscaling DVDs do look amazing, nearly HD quality.
However, by the looks of your cheapness, you don't own a quality HDTV - but even still you've completely wasted your money on a TV and not even reap the benefits of it by getting a low cost PS3 for BD playback.
Yep, you suck.
Since I am just getting on the Blu-Ray wagon (I actually knew the format would win over, just had not had much time to devote to starting my collection until now), I like the fact that coupons are being placed inside discs to let us get a rebate on the Blu-Ray version if we already owned the standard version. Crimson Tide and The Rock were two titles I was going to buy anyways, but by having a $10 off coupon for each is great, and I only need to supply the UPC code from the standard DVD box is no problem.
If you are planning on buying those titles, a great place to do so is Buy.com. If you use the Google check-out, you save an additional $10 from your order. For example, you order "The Rock" Blu-Ray version from them for $22.13. You use Google Check-Out (it's quick and easy) and they take $10 off your order instantly. Shipping was free for me, and there is no sales tax. My order total was $12.13 shipped. I then get the $10 off coupon when it arrives, send it in, and when it's all said and done the Blu-Ray version only ends up costing me $2.13. Not bad...now I just need to buy the new Plasma and get a Blu-Ray player, but I am waiting until the next generation players and televisions hit in late spring, but I figure I would start transferring my movie collection over to Blu-Ray now. ;)
I thought google checkout with $10 off on buy.com's site was a one time deal only.
Once you've added an email, the second time you use google checkout with the same email, you won't be getting the $10 off anymore.... you'd have to supply a new email and refill all info again.... so if you got a whole collection of dvds that you want to replace with blurays, you better have a whole list of emails to spare to save the 10 bucks off of each.