I'm posting this here, in case anyone missed it in The VUDU Thread.

VUDU is offer 50% Off all Disc-to-Digital conversions using the In Home software when doing 10 or more items. That means Blu-rays are $1 and DVDs are $2.50 when converting to HDX. They're also giving a $2 credit to all accounts for a free D2D conversion using the new software. This offer expires on August 31st.

This is a great way to get HD versions of movies that haven't been released on Blu-ray. I love converting my old non-anamorphic DVDs to HDX.

http://www.vudu.com/in_home_disc_to_digital.html

I've been converting since the beta went live, and today I got an email stating that, as a thank you, they credited my account with $65.50 (half the amount I've spent on converting discs)!

That's some bad ass customer service!

I'm going to take advantage of this. I can find plenty of old DVDs in my collection that are worth $2.50 to upgrade to HDX, either those that aren't available on BD or are not worthing purchasing on BD (maybe Olive or TT have it or it's just too expensive). I haven't watched too much HDX but what I have watched looks a lot closer to BD PQ than DVD.

So I take it that we'll have unlimited 50% off purchases of 10 or more through 8/31?

I know I had a few DVD's I found in HDX when I had some free credits so I might do this. One I know for sure is 25th Hour.

I've already done 6 orders.

Here's some D2D HDX movies I've found that aren't available on US Blu-ray.

So what's with requiring you link to an Ultraviolet account for this?

All the D2D movies are Ultraviolet compatible. When you buy them at Vudu, they'll be added to your UV account. And then they can be watched through any UV service (Flixster, CinemaNow, etc).

OK, but what if you don't want that? I've used UV before on my iPad and it looked like shit so I don't really care to have that link, but apparently I am required to have it.

You'll need a VUDU account to take advantage of their promotion, as well as to watch them in HDX. As of now, I think they are the only ones that offer UV streaming in 1080p.

VUDU is not the same as your UV account. Your UV account would be linked to any streaming provider you choose (including VUDU of course). So for anybody signing up for the first time, they need to create 2 accounts: one with their streaming provider and one for their master UV account.

You don't need to worry about accessing both accounts to add movies, since as they are linked, the info will be passed to both. The nice thing about having a master account is if a streaming provider goes belly up then you don't lose your collection but just use another provider (or several for that matter).

I understand they are different. That's my point. I don't care about or want UV. But, when I logged into my existing Vudu account to check for movies to convert I was required to link to UV, whether it's an existing account or newly created right then and there. I don't see why that should be necessary to convert movies for use within Vudu.

What is to stop one from just going out and renting a bunch of discs and then converting them? I don't think that dvd's are individually serialized (?).

Or, perhaps more importantly, what about all of the ex-rental discs that we have purchased through the years (especially blu-rays from Hastings, most of which I picked up for around two bucks a piece)?

I'm fairly certain all of these would work. There's an odd chance that they would link the discs to an individual serial number and that further attempts to convert the same disc would be blocked, but I somehow doubt that.

It seems that double sided dvd's don't work (?). I have tried a half dozen of them and they all are either not recognized or not valid. Anyone else have any luck with these?

Addition: I got the Man Who Knew Too Little to work but they only have SD...

I used a HD DVD Combo and it worked.

Once VUDU merges my Wal-mart.com account and my newly created VUDU account, I'm on this like white on rice.

1080P COPY OF 100 GIRLS, HERE I COME!

I've used this a few times. Works very easily and I do like that I have instant HDX versions of some older dvds. However, I wish they'd put more emphasis on audio. I would at least like to have DD+ on all titles, but some are only DD 5.1 and 2.0.

I'm going to be converting 10 to 20 movies per paycheck from DVD to HDX (when possible). I did my first ten today with the sale:

• 100 Girls (non-anamorphic DVD)
• 100 Women
• Bring It On
• Cheats
• Good Burger
• Grind (pan-and-scan DVD)
• Once
• Over the Edge
• Private Parts (non-anamorphic DVD, only available in SD)
• Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday the 13th

The goal is to get as many DVDs that will probably not see Blu-ray releases anytime soon first. If there's an existing Blu-ray, it can wait. I tried Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, Overnight Delivery, and Spice World which are apart of the program, but it didn't recognize the DVDs.

I spot checked a few HDX titles of old classics (Marked Woman and Camille) and there is quite an improvement, especially with the audio (which seems almost muffled on the DVD by comparison). Definitely worth the upgrade, but wish I could use English subs. Also the rewind and FF go way too fast.

I'm going to get as many as I can during the next 3 months, since I can't see paying $5 later unless it's got high replay value and no signs of it coming to Blu-ray. Also I might get some $1 HDX of some BDs I own, but not sure if I'll ever watch them (only on the road or at a friends house I suppose, or if I'm too lazy to put the BD in the tray).

So I was able to convert about 1/2 of my remaining DVD's to HDX.

I was most successful with WB and Paramount. Fox and Universal seemed mostly successful as well. MGM and Disney-owned studio movies were a no-go even though some of them were available to rent or own in HDX just not available to upgrade from disc to digital. 25th Hour was one of these.

I wouldn't do this "conversion" if hell froze over. Facts:

1. It's DRM-infested
2. Bitrates in 1080 are super-low with artifacts galore.
3. It's not on a physical media = Streaming pile of shit!

Not recognized (but part of the D2D program):

Far and Away
Walk the Line Extended Edition

Normally I wouldn't do this either but I'm essentially looking at it as a 2.50 HD rental for each of these. I'm not getting rid of the DVD and won't until a Blu-ray of each movie is available.

Want to thread crap elsewhere?

Facts.

1. DVDs and Blu-rays are copyright protected. Your point being?
2. Vudu's HDX encodes usually hover around 8 - 10Mbps, which is far superior to most cloud based services like Amazon Instant Video, Best Buy CinemaNow, iTunes, and others. The only streaming service that comes close to Vudu's encodes is Netflix's SuperHD service.
3. I'd rather take a streaming 1080p encode than a standard-definition DVD. Also, as long as your Vudu account is linked to Ultraviolet, the disc-to-digital conversions are linked to your UV account. All of the titles you convert will be available on most, if not all, UV based services. Even if Vudu fails tomorrow, you'll still be able to access titles off CinemaNow, Flixster, and others.

For the DVDs I convert, I'm ditching them unless there's specific material that's not available elsewhere like alternate cuts. For the first bunch of titles, they're bare-bones so I'm good with ditching the discs to Zia, BuyBacks, or whatever.

I'll assume that you meant "copy protected", since all creative works are automatically "copyright protected" when they are created.

His point is a valid one. While DVD's and BD's are copy protected (with encryption) to prevent casual copying, they don't employ DRM which requires an outside authorization in order to playback. That is, I can take any DVD or any Blu-ray to any player anywhere, and it will work, just by sticking the disk in the player. I don't have to authorize my account or manage my devices or anything like that.

That said, I agree with your other points and the points of other posters on here that this is an affordable way to get a decent HD video presentation that you can "own" for some titles that may never be available on BD.

I went through my DVD titles, and found the following available for D2D (all in HDX, I think):

Abyss
Better Luck Tomorrow
Broken Flowers
Forget Paris
Garden State
Ghostbusters 2
Intolerable Cruelty
Iron Giant
Mallrats
Man on the Moon
Prince of Egypt
Punch-Drunk Love
Roger & Me
Roger Dodger
Sneakers
Team America World Police
Time Code
Titan A.E.
Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
Willard
Young Sherlock Holmes

I'll probably upgrade most of them.