Walmart Launches Disc-to-Digital Conversion Service (WMT)

Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) has announced that it will kick off a new program in April to convert a customer’s physical DVDs to a digital, downloadable version using the company’s Vudu streaming video service. Essentially, the service will license the content of the DVD to the customer, who will then be able to access the content on a PC, tablet, smartphone, or other Internet-connected device through a free Vudu account.

The arrangement is the first of its kind and was developed in cooperation with a number of movie studios. Converting a standard DVD or a Blu-Ray disc to a downloadable version costs $2; upgrading a standard DVD to HD costs $5.

This is a clever — and reasonably inexpensive — way to leverage the investment that people have made over the years in DVDs. This may be the best idea Walmart has had in a long time.

Walmart’s announcement is available here.