When you steal something, it's a result of your intentional action. It doesn't matter if it takes tunneling into the foundation of a savings and loan building to do it or simply pressing a button. It doesn't matter how "easy" the company makes it for you to steal from them. It doesn't matter if they "stick it in your face" and "practically beg you" to take it. If you're walking away with their property and you aren't paying for it, you're stealing from them and that's your bad, not theirs.

I've spent hundreds so far to put approximately the first 3rd of my DVD collection in DiscSox. I don't use them for box sets, TV seasons or movies with any type of special packaging, Criterions, signed DVDs, etc., and also not for Blu-Rays. Just regular single and double disc DVDs. It's saved up a bit of space, but I have so much more to do. It's just tough to justify spending about a dollar to store a DVD that's worth about a dollar in order to free up some space. That said, I think they're great.

Rest assured, there will be a special place in heaven for you when you die well above the rest of us evil doers who may have illegally photocopied a page from a book or magazine at some point in our lives!

Discount and dismiss, but when people are talking about the wholesale copying and selling of their entire collections of hundreds of DVDs, it gets into a bit of money. It's not your money, though, so keep on rationalizing.

Thank you for continuously hammering home your point, Captain Killjoy. And what is with you and your fascination with shooting people in the face?

To keep this thread on topic for storage solutions: I'm in the midst of putting together a new PC--plan is to store all my media with the Synology 4-Bay External Enclosure, load it up with a quartet of 3TB hard drives and configure it as a RAID5 setup, which will leave me with a little over 8TB of drive space for my DVD/Blu rips; the new PC will have a second connection outputting to my TV, and I'm also installing XBMC on it to act as a library manager with a purty GUI. So it's not exactly a HTPC situation, but it's something along those lines.

And for the record, if I sell a disc (though 9 times out of 10 it gets donated to the local library or a family member), that usually means I don't want the movie anymore, so I don't particularly see the point of keeping a copy of it around.

It takes two (+) to tango, bud.

I make an analogy, I stick with it.

I did the same thing and started the project around a year ago. Took me about 6 months to complete. I did my entire CD collection of around 600 almost 10 years ago already. I'm using a Zotac Zbox with XBMC Live with a Probox 4-bay hard drive enclosure with 6TB worth of music and movies (most in HD) and still room for another drive. I am still glad I made the decision to do so. I find myself watching more movies because of it and it is so much more convenient.

I cannot believe this thread has gone on as long as it has. Usually after the word "ripping" is stated, the thread is closed...
Anyway, I've just skimmed through the entire thread and think it's funny how so many of you are so quick to criticize others for breaking this law. Everyone breaks the law every day whether you dont wear your seatbelt or don't make a full stop at a stop sign. This is a law that I don't agree with, and dont really care about, so I break it (frequently). As a long time member of this forum, I've read countless threads of members complaining about the studios ripping off the consumer, but this copyright law seems to be taken pretty serious around here.

Or better yet, sell them and "acquire" the HD version instead. Less space and better quality.

That's what I hear but it has rarely happened to me. Anyway, the backup plan is to backup whatever drives you use and store the backup drives in a safe place.

I think the secret is to buy a good, professional drive like an Avastor or Rocstor brand and then continue to use it.

If you let a hard drive sit for a number of months without using it, it can tend to seize up on you.

All digital storage is a little suspect. I always get suspicious when a DVD-R archievel-grade manufacturer claims they will last 100 years or 300 years.

Of course these are the most risk-free warranties out there. They just replace your $.40 disc, they're not on the hook for any lost content.

In five years there probably won't even be optical disc drives in your computer anymore.

Except that I clarified my statement on the exact same page. Where by ripping I meant for example putting my CD into the computer and importing it into iTunes? Like I said, I was thinking of something else, and perhaps my terminology was off. But on your subject, I agree, I'm not perfect either. I was just pointing out that situation.

Recording a movie or tv show is not legal even if you use a DVR. This is that gray area of copyright law which essentially makes just about everyone a criminal.

Walmart Launches Exclusive In-Store Disc-to-Digital VUDU Service

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...U_Service/9002

Are we allowed to discuss methods of digitizing our DVD collection for personal use? I want to start a thread about it but don't need the Mods cracking down on me.

I guess they have done their research and think this will fly but I can't imagine spending $1000 to $2500 to send my 500-title DVD collection into a digital cloud.

It's an interesting idea but how can they prove you own the titles. What's to say you can't rent or borrow a new release movie and take it to Wal-Mart, plop down $2 and you have a legal legit copy in the digital cloud.

Maybe the studios are just giving in to reality and would rather get $2 per title rather than nothing at all.

Think of the flood of physical DVD titles on the market if this idea takes off.

I think the reason this thread has still stayed open is because nobody has actually said how they digitize their collection, just that they have done it; talking about methods would probably get it locked. Maybe a mod can step in and clarify.

I asked some questions back when I was in college about ripping video for a school project (completely legal) and got shot down by the mods. Maybe I'll post something in the Forum Feedback section to see what they say.

Should be interesting to see how that Vudu thing takes off. Vudu is "good enough" for rentals, basically checking out movies I haven't seen that I might or might not want to buy on disc later, but there's still a bit of visible compression (I can only get up to the "HD" quality with my internet service, HDX keeps stopping every minute to buffer and even that isn't perfect while it does play.) Why would I want to pay to access my purchased movies through that?

I've heard they will stamp your disc when you bring it in so the same disc can't be used twice for a 'digital copy'.