Jay said:
You could remove encryption from all DVDs today and the number of discs being ripped to hard drives by tomorrow would have increased by exactly zero percent.

Anybody who has any interest whatsoever in "backing up" their DVDs or having a media server is already doing it. Not one consumer--not a single one--who doesn't understand that you can rip DVDs would be interested in ripping DVDs if they knew they could. And the same is true for Blu-ray.

We're nerds, dude. We get this stuff. We need this stuff. They don't.

Actually, I've talked to a couple of non nerds (I actually consider myself a Dork, nerds have zero social skills, I at least have some) that didn't know they could rip DVDs and asked how to do it. After telling them about DVD Shrink, they started ripping all kinds.

The reality is that people don't usually want to go to the effort of setting up a media server because 1) it sounds complicated and 2) it takes a bit of work. For the first one, companies like HP are taking the "complicated" out by giving people everything they need in a prebuilt box. It does still take a bit of work though. And most people would rather have a "media server" look like their existing equipment. Otherwise, it looks like a PC hooked up to a TV (which it is) and they don't like that.

The only reason it wouldn't make a difference to remove encryption from DVDs is because there's already plenty of programs available for breaking the encryption. Each and every one of them is free, so the only thing that would be saved is a little bit of time. It takes about 15 mins (maybe less) for me to rip a movie from the disc to the hard drive. If I had a large enough hard drive, I'd just leave it like that. I'm trying to save some space though, so I end up converting them to mp4 in an mkv container. That takes about an additional 5 hours, but I usually do it at night. They look just as good as the DVD did (unless I get really close to the screen). If it were as easy as clicking one button (MeGUI isn't that easy, but AutoGK practically is) then more people would do it.