The Warner Bros. Home Entertainment division announced today the launch of DVD2Blu.com, a site for consumers to upgrade their current WB DVDs to Blu-ray for a fee.

The DVD2Blu program currently offers an Blu-ray upgrade on 55 of the WB’s home entertainment DVDs for the price of $7.95 to $9.95.

To get the Blu-ray version, visit the site and select the movie(s) you want to trade in (there’s a limit of 1 DVD per title; up to 25 titles per order) and then mail the DVD disc (without case) with special pre-paid postage to WB’s processing center. In 4-5 weeks, you’ll receive that title in Blu-ray. If you spend more than $25 on your order, you’ll get free shipping (otherwise, it’s regularly $4.95 per order).

Some of the films up for swap are Pan’s Labyrinth, 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, and Superman II: Richard Donner Cut. Check out the site for all the available titles.

I think this is a pretty good idea, since I know a lot of people who don’t want to make the jump to Blu-ray because they don’t want to have to re-buy everything on the typically higher-priced Blu-ray editions when they already own the DVD. Paying under $10 is a good deal for a Blu-ray disc. The only problem I have with this system (as far as I can tell) is the wait time. You have to have a lot of patience in this day and age to wait over a month for a movie you already owned AND paid to get again (and possibly paid shipping on). It’d be different if the upgrade was free, but even for this small fee it’s too long a wait (in my opinion).

By the way, if you’re curious what WB does with the DVDs you send them, the company will recycling them. The intellectual property will be fully destroyed and all of the physical components are reused or recycled.