More holiday high-definition DVD shopping today. We told you about the HD DVD deals earlier this week. Well, one of our colleagues here was looking for a Blu-ray player for his home and stumbled upon a pretty good deal and good way to grab a player and have an instant starter collection waiting in the wings.

He found Sony’s BDP-S300 1080p Blu-ray player on Wal-Mart’s web site for $470, with free shipping and seven free movies. It included two movies exclusive to Wal-Mart shoppers—the animated Open Season and Gridiron Gang with The Rock. It also included the rebate coupon for five more free movies, which is what we really wanted to point out here.

Bluraysavings.com has had this deal before, but has now extended it past Oct. 31, to run for any eligible Blu-ray player bought between Oct. 1 of this year and Jan. 31, 2008. Eligible models are: Sony’s BDP-S1, BDP-S300/301, BDP-S500, BDP-S2000ES and BDP-HES-V1000; Sony’s PlayStation 3; Panasonic’s DMP-BD10K, DMP-BD30K and DMP-BD10AK; Philips’ BDP9000/37; Pioneer’s BDP-94HD and BDP-95FD; and Samsung’s BD-P1200/1400.

For the movie titles, you choose one in each of five categories. The titles aren’t all Academy Award winners or summer blockbusters, but there’s enough there to create a solid starter collection. My picks would amount to: Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Superman: The Movie, American Psycho, The Patriot and The Last Waltz (although that last category also has Species as one of the choices, and needless to say Natasha Henstridge in HD makes it a tough call).

If Wal-Mart’s two freebies don’t do much for you, save another $30 and grab the BDP-S300 on Amazon for $440 and print out the rebate coupon for your five flicks.

Arlen Schweiger - Editor of Electronic House Magazine

Arlen writes about home technology installations and product news and reviews for electronichouse.com and Electronic House magazine.