That’s the promise behind Vudu’s new “disc-to-digital” service, which scans DVD and Blu-ray discs from your home collection and adds digital copies of your movies—well, some of your movies, anyway—to a cloud-based digital locker.

Once stored in your “My Vudu” locker, your movies are accessible from your PC, Mac, iPhone & iPad, and Android tablets, as well as such devices as Vudu-enabled HDTVs and Blu-ray players, the Roku set-top box, and game consoles like the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. (Nope, no Apple TV, or at least not yet.)

Even better, you can opt to convert selected DVD movies to 1080p “HDX” video quality—not quite the same level of sharpness as Blu-ray, but pretty darn close.

Sounds interesting, right?

You can add your old DVD discs to your “My Vudu” digital locker, and even upgrade them to HD—for a price.

Naturally, though, there’s a catch—several of them, actually, starting with the fact that Vudu’s “disc-to-digital” service isn’t free.

First, let’s go over the basics.

For starters, you’ll need to sign up for a free Vudu account (Vudu, by the way, is the maker of one of the first streaming TV set-top boxes, and it’s now owned by Wal-Mart), and you’ll also need to register with Ultraviolet, a video-streaming “standard” established by five of the biggest Hollywood movie studios.

Once you’re all signed up, you’ll be prompted to download Vudu’s disc-to-digital utility, versions of which are available for both PC and Mac. I downloaded the Mac version, and the installation process took only a few minutes.

After that, you fire up the Vudu app, click the “Disc to Digital” tab, click the “Add Disc” button, then insert a DVD or Blu-ray disc into your system’s optical disc drive. (Yes, your PC will need a Blu-ray drive to scan Blu-ray discs—and no, Macs don’t come with Blu-ray drives, at least not built-in.)

It takes less than a minute for Vudu to scan and identify a DVD, but prepare to pay up before adding the movie to your digital locker.

It takes less than a minute for Vudu’s software to scan and identify a disc—and if it finds a match in its massive database of digital movies, you’ll get the chance to instantly add the movie to your “My Vudu” archive.

And here’s comes the first catch: Vudu charges $2 for every DVD you add to your digital locker, and that’s if you choose the SD (“standard definition”) version of the movie.

Want to pony up for the HDX (high-definition) version of a DVD? That’ll be $5, please.

Meanwhile, adding a Blu-ray disc to your Vudu lockers costs $2 for the digital HDX version.

(For a limited time, Vudu is offering a $2 credit toward your first disc conversion, and it’s also offering 50% off if you convert 10 discs at once.)

You can watch your Vudu disc-to-digital movies on an iPhone, iPad or Android tablet, but only in SD.

Once you’ve added some movies to your Vudu locker, you can watch them on your PC or Mac using the same “disc-to-digital” program you just downloaded.

Vudu also offers streaming video apps for iPhone/iPad and Android tablets (which can only play the SD versions of your Vudu-converted movies, by the way), as well as apps for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, and Roku.

Apple TV still isn’t supported, although you can try streaming your Vudu movies (in SD, mind you) from your iPad to Apple TV via AirPlay.

Now, here’s another catch: there’s a good chance that only some (and perhaps even just a fraction) of your DVDs and Blu-rays can be added to your Vudu locker.

Why’s that? Well, to begin with, only five of the six big Hollywood studios—Sony, Universal, Paramount, Warner Bros., and Fox—offer movies through the service, with Disney being the lone but notable holdout. In other words, don’t count on converting any of your “Pirates of the Caribbean” DVDs to your digital Vudu locker anytime soon.

Many of my DVDs—including “Star Wars,” “Indiana Jones,” and “Jaws”—were “not eligible” for transfer to my Vudu movie locker.

And even if you are trying to add a movie made by one of the other five studios, a given film must still have been “legally cleared” for streaming via Vudu.

Example? Well, I had no problem adding my “American Graffiti” DVD (from Universal) to my Vudu locker, but when I tried adding “Star Wars” (Fox), I was curtly informed that the movie was “not eligible” for conversion—and I got the same answer for such high-profile titles as “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (Paramount), “Jurassic Park,” (Universal), and “Jaws” (ditto).

Still, several other DVDs worked fine, like “Star Trek II” (Paramount), “The Maltese Falcon” (Warners), and “North by Northwest” (also Warners).

I should also mention that my new HDX version of that classic Hitchcock thriller looks splendid—far better my old standard-definition DVD version, in fact.

Got any questions about Vudu’s “disc-to-digital” plan? Let me know in the comments below.

Bonus tip

You can search Vudu’s library of available disc-to-digital movies right here before going to the trouble of downloading the software.

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Sure, I’ll rent the odd feature from iTunes or stream a TV show from Netflix’s instant streaming catalog; after all, it beats slogging to the local video store in a snowstorm. But I’m still partial to good old-fashioned discs, even if it means waiting a day or two before pressing “play.”

Why trek to a Redbox kiosk, drive to Blockbuster (yes, they’re still around), or wait for a red Netflix envelope to arrive in the mail when you could stream a movie rental with a single mouse click? Well, there are at least five good reasons I can think of, starting with…

1. DVDs and Blu-rays never buffer
Once in a blue moon, I’ll get a scuffed DVD from Netflix that skips just as you’re about to find out whodunnit—and no, that’s not cool.

Far more aggravating, though, are the times when the movie I’m streaming grinds to a halt, usually due to a choppy broadband connection. (Anyone with a cable modem who’s tried to stream an instant Netflix video on a Saturday night—precisely when everyone else on the block is also trying to stream a Netflix movie—will know what I’m talking about.) Sure, the video stream usually resumes after “buffering” for a few seconds, but the interruptions can be jarring, not to mention frequent.

2. Blu-ray picture quality can’t be beat
Several streaming-video services now offer HD instant movies and TV shows at full 1080p resolution, but not all 1080p video is created equal. Indeed, even the rock-solid high-def videos you’ll see from the likes of Vudu, Xbox Live and Netflix look a little soft compared to the razor-sharp picture on the best Blu-ray discs.

For my money, “Avatar” looks more astonishing on Blu-ray than it did in 3D at my local IMAX theater, and I was equally impressed by the theater-like image quality of “The Tree of Life” on Blu-ray.

Related: 10 classic, must-have Blu-ray movies

A recent viewing of “Moneyball” at 1080p over Xbox Live’s “Zune” video store looked … well, just OK (maybe somewhere between DVD and Blu-ray quality). Now, “just OK” might work fine for a straight-ahead drama like “Moneyball,” but it’s a shame when it comes to an epic like “Tree of Life,” or the newly restored “Gone With the Wind.”

And while some of the videos in Netflix’s instant catalog look surprisingly good (take “Black Hawk Down,” for instance), too many are marred by VHS-quality transfers that have been cropped to fit your HDTV screen.

3. You want it, you got it
Probably the biggest complaints I hear about Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” service is that the selection stinks—and specifically, that the 25,000-odd streaming titles on Netflix are continually being shuffled in and out, seemingly at random. And while the video catalogs of à la carte streaming services like iTunes and Amazon tend to be a bit more stable, individual titles may still be yanked in deference to the home-video “windows” of such premium-cable channels like HBO and Showtime.

On the other hand, a quick glance at Netflix’s DVD and Blu-ray catalog reveals a staggering number of movies and TV shows—more than 100,000, all told, including just about every movie ever made.

And while the big movie studios have started holding back their latest releases from Netflix, Redbox and Blockbuster for a month or more (to boost streaming and pay-per-view rentals, or so the theory goes), you can at least be fairly confident a DVD that’s available for rent today will still be available tomorrow, next week, and the following month.

4. Subtitles and alternate audio tracks
More and more streaming-video services are offering subtitles and closed-captions for their instant-watch titles—particularly Netflix, which only recently began adding English subtitles to its streaming collection. Still, too many streaming-video services fail to offer subtitles or alternate-language tracks for their rentals, which can be particularly annoying for a) hard-of-hearing viewers and b) those of us who’d rather not hear Gérard Depardieu speak in badly dubbed English.

DVDs and Blu-ray discs, on the other hand, typically offer a generous selection of subtitle and audio options—perfect for, say, non-English speakers who want to watch the new “Star Trek” movie with Portuguese subtitles, or movie lovers who like hearing the actors in French films speak, you know, French.

5. Bring on the extras
For the most part, the movies and TV shows available for streaming come without any documentaries, deleted scenes, audio commentaries, or any other “extras” at all, save for a few exceptions on iTunes and Vudu.

Granted, most of us don’t really care about extras or bonus features when it comes to popcorn-munchers like “Friends with Benefits” or “Captain America.” But if you want Roger Ebert to give you an audio tour of “Citizen Kane” (and I highly recommend you do), you’ll have to rent the DVD or the new Blu-ray to listen in.

So, what about you? Are you still renting movies and TV shows on DVD and Blu-ray, or are you ditching discs for streaming?

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This isn’t the first time that Redbox has experimented with boosting its magic buck-a-night price point for DVD rentals. Back in 2009, the Coinstar-owned video kiosk company tried charging customers in selected markets $2 for the first night, followed by $1 a night thereafter.

Later tests involved flat fee increases ranging from an additional 15 cents a night to a full 50 cents extra.

This latest test in Portland appears to be another isolated trial, reports Home Media Magazine, adding that Wall Street analysts seem confident that Redbox customers wouldn’t boycott the kiosks over such a modest price hike.

Personally, I think Redbox is nuts to mess with its main selling point: a buck a night for DVDs! That said, the prospect of padding the bottom line by raising DVD rental prices must be a tempting one. (By the way, Redbox also rents Blu-ray discs for $1.50 a night, while video games are $2/night—and those prices appear to be locked.)

Redbox is also facing pressure from Hollywood movie execs, who have complained bitterly that Redbox’s low prices have undercut DVD sales. Redbox has since inked deals with most of the big movie studios that involve 28-day delays before it can offer their latest releases in its DVD kiosks.

So, would be willing to pay more than a buck a night to rent DVDs at Redbox kiosks? Cast your vote below!

[polldaddy poll=5162395]

Source: Home Media Magazine

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Starting Friday—tomorrow—about 21,000 of the company’s 27,000 kiosks will be stocked with the latest Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 games, including such recent releases as “L.A. Noire,” “Infamous 2,” “Red Faction: Armageddon,” “Brink,” “Lego Pirates of the Caribbean,” and “Just Dance 2.” (If you haven’t heard of any of these games, don’t worry—your kids have.)

Redbox video game rentals will set you back $2 a night, twice as much as nightly DVD movie rentals. (Blu-ray rentals at Redbox kiosks remain $1.50 a night.)

Worried that video games will hog kiosk space that would be better suited for movies? Don’t fret. According to the L.A. Times, each Redbox kiosk will only stock between 22 and 28 games, leaving room for about 200 DVDs and Blu-rays.

Want to find a video game-packing Redbox kiosk near you? Just visit Redbox’s game page, select a title, and enter your ZIP code to search.

Source: Los Angeles Times

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The redesign, which appears to apply only to Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” titles, replaces the clickable rows of smallish box covers with larger icons that slowly scroll when you hover your cursor near the edge of the page.

The usual star ratings are now hidden—that is, until you hold the cursor over a particular title, which spawns a small pop-up window with the movie and/or TV show description, details, plus the previously missing stars.

Drawing the most ire, however, is the fact that you can no longer sort “Watch Instantly” titles by year, MPAA rating, or star rating—a feature that used to be one of the best ways to pick a video from Netflix’s growing streaming collection.

Update: Want to re-enabled sorting for instant Netflix videos? Here’s how to do it.

In a post on the official company blog, Netflix Director of Product Management Michael Spiegelman wrote that the redesign “provides more focus on the TV shows and movies streaming from Netflix,” and that the new “look and feel” will “make it easier for you to find something to watch instantly.”

The steadily growing number of annoyed users who commented on Spiegelman’s post were having none of it, however:

It’s a horrible design. Flat-out awful. This is one of those design changes that’s going to be talked about on the tech-review sites later today, and not in a good way.

…wrote one user. Another:

Please, please, please go back to the old website version. It takes way too long to find something to watch now. We need titles and ratings viewable without mouse hover, and the horizontal scroll takes FOREVER.

…and another:

You’ve managed to make your layout look sleeker and operate far clunkier. This would be laughably bad, except for the fact that I’m paying for it.

While the redesign wasn’t without its defenders…

I like the new interface. No more click click click – just hover to scroll and see program information. You only need to click when you actually want to watch something, add it to your queue or change genres. Big improvement.

…the vast majority of the 80-odd (and rapidly growing) comments on the Netflix blog were of the “this is the worst change to the site since the last one” variety. [Update: There were close to 1,000 comments on the post by Thursday morning, most of them quite testy.]

So, you Netflix users out there, what do you think of the redesign? Love it? Hate it? Cast your vote in the comments below.

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