Walmart Announces First Ever Disc-To-Digital Movie Conversion Service
We all have that huge stack of DVDs taking up space in our living room. Maybe they are alphabetized on a media shelf. Maybe they are crammed into a cupboard under the television set. We’ve amassed an ever-growing pile of discs and just want to be free of the clutter. Walmart has teamed up with video streaming service VUDU to help us clear out the DVD and Blu-Ray shelves in our lives.
That’s right, Wal-Mart, in partnership with major home entertainment companies, has created the first “disc-to-digital” service. Starting April 16, customers will be able to bring their DVDs and Blu-Ray discs into one of 3,500 Walmart stores and get digital copies made and sent to VUDU’s cloud storage for access anywhere, on any device.
“Never before have consumers been able to add value to their existing collections so easily and economically as with Walmart’s disc-to-digital conversion service,” said David Bishop, president, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. “Disc-to-digital will be a milestone through which Hollywood and Walmart are finding ways to create even more value for consumers.”
Customers will be able to choose between a $2 standard definition conversion and a $5 HD quality conversion. Once the digital copy is made, it will be put into your VUVU account right at the Walmart Photo Center, you don’t even have to upload the movie yourself. Once in VUDU’s UltraViolet cloud, it is yours for viewing anywhere from any VUDU compatible Blu-Ray players or smart televisions, plus Xbox 360, Sony PS3 and a number of different set-top boxes. VUDU’s website is also optimized for the iPad so that users can easily navigate and browse through their titles through Safari’s mobile browser.
What this means for iPad owners is that we are no longer restricted to what Netflix or Hulu Plus has to offer. We can stream our entire private movie collection from our iPads anywhere we get Internet access. Well, almost the entire collection. Walmart will only transfer movies from participating studio partners, which includes Paramount, Sony, Fox, Universal and Warner Bros. It looks like Columbia, Screen Gems and Disney Studios opted out of this partnership. Not to mention all of those obscure samurai films you’ve been collecting over the years. Now, you can box those space-hogs up and make room on your shelves for your collection of Walking Dead Action Figures.
