Yet another idea from the infinite wisdom of the studio think-tanks!

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/ente...tsujihara.html

What were they thinking? Getting rid of the used market for one.

Taking financial advantage of pop-futurist enthusiasm for another.

They can get my dvds (& blu-rays) when I die. Screw this cloud crap seriously. I hope it fails miserably.

Infinite pass

Pass, but I will admit that having a massive collection is becoming very cumbersome. Some days I wish I could eliminate all my DVDs and have everything - films and extras - stored on a server.

Yes, I know that's possible now but it's also expensive and time-consuming.

"Load up the UHaul honey. We're goin' convertin'!!"

I'll give them my DVDs when they take it from my cold, dead hands.

They can have my DVDs... but they'd better not come near my Blu-rays.

my hard drive of movies is bigger than your hard drive of movies

You could always rip them to an external hard drive - a 3 TB drive could hold roughly 420 dual-layer discs. As for issues of time and money, I purchased my 3 TB drive for $140 from Amazon (although I noticed the same one was now $160), and it takes maybe 25 minutes to rip each disc in its entirety. I've really been trying to shrink my collection over the last year or so, and trim most of the fat and inessentials. I've sold, traded, or given away at least 300 DVDs, and haven't purchased a new one (other than the occasional MoC or Second Run release) in at least two years. I've freed up a large amount of shelf space, made a nice chunk of change (especially from selling my OOP discs), and have made my next move that much less daunting. This thread has a terrible title, by the way - why do people choose such vague titles? What are they thinking?

But but I can rip it meself and don't drive nowhere no pay nobody

I approve of this. As much as I love movies and TV shows, the less "things" I have, the better!

A frightening and terrible 'plan' which will make the strip of "owning" physical media complete.

Wow, I can't think of a worse thing for consumers of movies! You just know that:

1. The movies will be DRM'd
2. Bar will be lowered and the movies will have much lower bitrates, quality
3. Precident set. Other studios follow. Consumers lose out. Studios profit.
4. Rinse & repeat.

Ideally, that's what I'd like to do. I've got around 2500 DVDs, and I know I could eliminate a sizeable chunk if I ripped them and then sold them. Of course, the collector in me has a hard time doing such things.

And, of course, it's also illegal to do so.

What's your backup plan?

I'm a bit paranoid perhaps, but hard drives do have a fairly significant failure rate don't they?

I think I could someday rip everything to drives and then keep the discs in binders as my backup. I could maybe throw away or sell the cases, but not the discs. Of course, having the drives and the discs in the same place doesn't help if I get robbed or a fire comes along. (knocking on wood)

It's illegal to sell a DVD you own?

After ripping it? Of course.

Making a backup copy of the drive and storing the second drive in a safe place in its original box. I can also always track the films down via Netflix or private tracker if necessary.

A victimless crime, but one that is nevertheless frowned upon (or even forbidden) as a topic of conversation here, so I'll shut my yapper on the subject.

I ripped a ton of movies but gave up. I prefer just to rent, then if i really like it I'll buy it. If you look at my collection you'll see that very few rentals make it to the shelves permanently. At this point I don't want tons of physical media or a crapload of files i have to worry about losing.

EDITED: I was told I shouldn't talk about what I posted.

An ingenious, if expensive way. But, now you've got all your eggs in one basket (well, two, because of the 3 extra drives as backup). Might make sense to further back up those titles you really like to BDR and / or DVDrs. They probably will outlast the Hard drives.

It's not a victimless crime. The distributor of the disc is losing a potential customer to your competitive product (the disc you've put on the used market because you're keeping the copy you made). By all means, rip a copy and use the hard drive for convenience, but keep the original or you're effectively swiping it.

And people wonder why we're forced to put up with DRM.