[andi*pandi]

There's a couple different stores trying this out:

Warner wants you to go to a depot and pay to rip your DVDs to DRM-locked formats - Boing Boing
Walmart Will Turn Your DVDs & Blu-Rays Into Digital Movies For $2 - The Consumerist

The Walmart option appears to be a cloud solution, also limited to certain devices. A poster said, what happens when this service fails or the next incompatible technology surfaces?

Would you pay for conversion, or do you think that all DVD makers should include a digital version? (some do.)

Why is it still illegal to make your own copies of movies you own (and do not distribute)?

I have made backup copies of DVDs and think it is a bit time-consuming, but worth it. I went through the "buy it on vinyl, no wait, now buy it on cassette, no wait, now buy it on CD" rigamarole with music, it was a ripoff.

[Tiresias]

What about if you legally download a film so that it's already a digital file and no DVD to speak of? Are you able to make copies?

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Tiresias 

What about if you legally download a film so that it's already a digital file and no DVD to speak of? Are you able to make copies?

I imagine thats fine as long as you preserve any DRM. Except if it has no DRM, then its probably not fine.

[Eug]

Meh. I'll just keep on backing up the stuff I want to back up... at least on DVD. It's much harder on Blu-ray.

Personally I don't trust the cloud yet. The one time you'll want something really, urgently from the cloud, there will be an outage. I guarantee it.

BTW, the digital copies on some discs really suck. What sucks even more are low quality SD digital copies for Blu-ray discs. At least give us a decent 1080p iTunes version, not some heavily-artifacted 480p version, if we've already paid for the Blu-ray disc.

The problem with this too though is that a lot of the HD iTunes versions also are pretty mediocre. There is only so much you can do with limited bits. I'd prefer bigger files myself. Disk space is cheap.

[andi*pandi]

You know, I haven't even tried the digital versions on the blurays we have. They'd probably be good enough for ipads (well ipad1).

Macs can't play bluray unless you get an external player and software, right? Which means you can't back them up unless you have that either.

[Tiresias]

Is a digital rip of a bluray disk the same quality as the bluray disk?

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Tiresias 

Is a digital rip of a bluray disk the same quality as the bluray disk?

No, but do you care if you have a non-Retina iPad or an iPhone/iPod touch? These DRMed digital copies won't play in general (at least you'll be at the mercy of content companies).

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by andi*pandi 

Would you pay for conversion,

No.

Originally Posted by andi*pandi 

or do you think that all DVD makers should include a digital version? (some do.)

No.

Originally Posted by andi*pandi 

Why is it still illegal to make your own copies of movies you own (and do not distribute)?

F*cking craziness. I'm going to make backup and digital copies for my own use as much as I want.

-t

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Tiresias 

Is a digital rip of a bluray disk the same quality as the bluray disk?

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

No, but do you care if you have a non-Retina iPad or an iPhone/iPod touch? These DRMed digital copies won't play in general (at least you'll be at the mercy of content companies).

Actually, a direct rip from Blu-ray is exactly the same quality as the original Blu-ray. However, most people don't do that because it takes up too much space, so they do a rip and transcode.

Originally Posted by andi*pandi 

Macs can't play bluray unless you get an external player and software, right? Which means you can't back them up unless you have that either.

I have two external Blu-ray drives, including a Blu-ray burner, and a Windows 7 machine that handles Blu-ray.

That said, I haven't bothered with going through all the hassles for BD ripping. The drives are simply for playback and the occasional data backup to BD-R (ironically, on my iMac). I'd do more data backups on BD-R but good quality media is still expensive. I was hoping the prices would come down but it seems most of the value priced BD-R media is crap.

I do use hard drives for backup as well, but the great thing about BD-R backups is you can simply make a backup, stick it in a CD album (with some copies off site), and then forget about them.

[Athens]

Originally Posted by andi*pandi 

There's a couple different stores trying this out:

Warner wants you to go to a depot and pay to rip your DVDs to DRM-locked formats - Boing Boing
Walmart Will Turn Your DVDs & Blu-Rays Into Digital Movies For $2 - The Consumerist

The Walmart option appears to be a cloud solution, also limited to certain devices. A poster said, what happens when this service fails or the next incompatible technology surfaces?

Would you pay for conversion, or do you think that all DVD makers should include a digital version? (some do.)

Why is it still illegal to make your own copies of movies you own (and do not distribute)?

I have made backup copies of DVDs and think it is a bit time-consuming, but worth it. I went through the "buy it on vinyl, no wait, now buy it on cassette, no wait, now buy it on CD" rigamarole with music, it was a ripoff.

im hopping iTunes will provide a option for say $25.00 a year to scan your DVD titles and make the same digital titles on iCloud like the iTunes Match does now for movies.

I started ripping all my DVDs to put into iTunes but with 300 DVDs, after 25 i gave up took a lot of space, and took a long time to rip. Because TV shows in Canada can be re-downloaded now from the Cloud im starting to buy my TV series on iTunes, then I dont have to store them on a local drive and I can access the content on my iPhone with out syncing. But movies are not like that yet and the price of movies is way out of step with store copies. Some of the TV shows are way over priced compared to what they are in the store too.

[olePigeon]

I rip my DVDs to .ISO and put them on my media server. I've thought about getting Blu-Ray movies, but I haven't found a program that'll make unencrypted .ISO files of Blu-Ray movies. All I can find are rippers, but I actually want all the extras.

[OAW]

I absolutely would NOT pay for such a service. 1) I don't buy movies at all. Especially on disc ... DVD or Blu-Ray. I rent movies because I rarely watch a movie more than once. I have a sizable DVD collection I built up over the years that is literally collecting dust because of the fundamental reality of my viewing habits. The "coolness" factor of having a large DVD collection to show off to friends or family when entertaining waned long ago for me. I'm at a point where I simply don't care for the clutter anymore.

I changed my Netflix Blu-ray plan to 1-at-a-time as a result of the ill-received price increase. So I was basically able to keep my monthly outlay to them the same. And it really didn't impact me much because it's getting to the point where a disc will sit on my table for months at a time until I finally get around to watching it. I have one out now in this very situation. In large part because my Blu-ray player has become extremely unreliable. Even with the latest firmware updates it's just all too common for the picture to start stuttering or freezing halfway through the movie. And naturally this tends to happen right when you get to the good part. An experience made even worse by the fact that it's no longer under warranty. While I'm a fan of the picture quality of Blu-ray discs, if the player doesn't work reliably then the difference between 720p (or 1080i) and 1080p is simply not worth the aggravation. And my Google Fu has shown that I'm not the only one experiencing these issues with Samsung Blu-Ray players. Which is a damned shame when people could buy a $50 DVD player from some Chinese brand you never heard of that played the movie without issue every time. But a "top quality" brand like Samsung can't replicate that experience with the newer technology. In any event, I'm thinking that once I finally sit down and watch this movie ... after I send it back I'm just going to go ahead and cancel the disc portion of my Netflix subscription altogether. The Netflix streaming service gives me access to older and independent films. And when I watch new releases I'm typically doing it on my Apple TV these days. Which has a much higher "coolness" factor because I can be watching a movie within minutes of the mood striking to do so. I might even spring for the new Apple TV that just came out once it hits the shelf of my local Apple Store. With the 1080p support it's capable of the only remaining benefit Blu-ray has over that is the fact that subtitles are always available ... whereas with movies streaming from iTunes or Netflix that's a hit-or-miss proposition.

OAW

[ghporter]

We're not allowed to make digital copies for a number of reasons. First, we can't be trusted to not pirate the be-gee-zus out of absolutely everyting (DUH!), so the distributors frown on it. And they want to cash in on us wanting the same stuff for each new technology that comes along (how many times do they want us to buy the same album? every time, of course), so different media (to them) equals a different product.

I watch movies on my TV, and play them from DVD or Blu-Ray discs right there at the TV, but I'm still trying to find some films that are not available in any digital format, so I'm actually two or three media types behind in some things. But my situation is not typical; most people who buy these new technologies are interested in the technology, not in replacing their media libraries.

Pay for this? HECK NO!

[andi*pandi]

You're not the only one with the old tech too glenn. Is there a way to rip a laserdisc?

[osiris]

This doesn't pertain to betamax tapes, right?



As for paying for digital copies - **** no, not today, thank you kindly.

[-Q-]

If I own it in some format already, no way will I pay. I'll rip and convert on my own if I need them to come with me.

Like OAW, I very rarely buy movies anymore and will simply rent them when I want to watch something. I used to use Netflix, but after the last few times of not finding anything recent in their collection, I dropped them.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by andi*pandi 

You're not the only one with the old tech too glenn. Is there a way to rip a laserdisc?

No but you can do an analogue copy, esp. if you have a Macrovision defeater (which were under 20 bucks) for the few laserdiscs that had Macrovision.

Note that laserdisc video is based off FM (recorded digitally).

[Demonhood]

I think I have a few laserdisc-->VHS transfers around here somewhere (T2 and Reservoir Dogs I believe).
As for digital copies - if I own it, I reserve the right to make a digital copy for my own private use. If something were to happen to my physical BluRay disc, it's nice to have a backup. And it's handy to be able to stream it if I so desire (or put the disc in storage so it's not taking up physical space).
So, because I know how to do these things, I would never pay for a conversion service.

[Shaddim]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

F*cking craziness. I'm going to make backup and digital copies for my own use as much as I want.

-t

I do too. They can all go and get bent.