Great Idea or Waste of Time?

I did a post recently that mentioned among other things putting your DVD collection on your PC and streaming it across a network. Two things recently got me thinking a bit more about this, a conversation I had with a friend and an episdoe of Tekzilla from two weeks ago. There are tools out there that allow you to take a DVD and convert it to your PC or your portable media player much like you can with music. Yet this process is not for everyone, first of all it takes a LONG time depending on the speed and processing of your PC and if you're doing all this coverting on a PC it does't give you a lot of processing to actually watch movies. The idea here is to have a secondary PC do the work, which again is not something everyone has. Secondly while its not hard to do or figure out, its not real easy either, some of the better tools do a great job at making it simple but you have to have an idea what you're doing.

Of course if you do have the tools and you do know what you're doing it can be pretty cool to have your DVD collection become your own personal On Demand system. It's pretty neat to be able to browse your collection from the comfort of your couch and once you've made a decision the movie is just a click away. However unlike music which you tend to listen to alot and over and over, you don't really spend the same amount of time with your movie collection. Leading to the question is all the time it takes to put these movies into digital form really worth it. It could take up to 12 hours to convert a movie as opposed to the minutes to rip a CD, and the amount of hard drive space depending on your collection could be quite substantial (not to mention room to back it all up on second hard drive!).

At the end of the day it really depends on what you're working towards, having movies on hand across your network is really nice, especially if you've got kids, especially if you forget a favorite DVD at the in laws! Good quality rips will look nice on an HD TV as well as the old "regular" TV in the living room as well. You'll lose a bit of quality and digital surround sound (depending on your settings) and of course all the DVD extras. Which leads me to my final point.

When I get a CD I rip it and forget it, it goes into storage. From there it goes on the network and my Zune, no need to use that CD again. With a DVD's even after thier ripped I don't feel the need to store them away, I like seeing my collection! Plus when you really want the theater experience its better to have the quality and sound.

For me in this day and age I like having options, sure my Blu ray movies look the best and I still have my DVD collection available to me, but the convience of having these movies in digital form is also pretty cool. And from Blu ray to PC convert the quality isn't far from watchable.

In the end it really matters how much storage space and time you've got on your hands. Hopefully in the future real tools will show up to make it much easier and quicker to put your movies on your PC, until then keep to your movies and keep them to yourself.