[Rathji]

I am currently wanting to transfer my entire DVD collection to hard drives so I can stream them from my server to a WD HD TV Media player or similar device. I have fiddled with these things in the past but mostly for watching stuff on my ipod or laptop, and was never very concerned about the quality or ease of doing it.

Right now I think we have about 500 individual DVD's that need ripping, including many TV series box sets that include many episodes per disc. Iam looking for software options that have as many of the following properties as possible.

- It needs to have an option to produce a high quality 'archival' type file, so if I needed to replace a destroyed disc it wouldn't be garbage.

- It needs to be a single step conversion. If it is possible, to able to output 2 or more different files for each disc, such as one HQ one for the TV and one for iPod/Blackberry.

- It needs to be easy. If I want this to be done anytime this century, my wife needs to be able to pop one in the computer whenever she comes downstairs. I would be really happy if it would rip each episode from a TV series disc all at once, without needing to restart the process for each episode.

- It would be nice if I could have multiple DVD drives set up so I could queue dvds before I went to bed or to work.

- It would be nice if I could also use the same software to take multiple movies and burn them to a single disc at a reduced quality for use on road trips or to simply many kids shows on a single disc.

- It would also be fantastic if it would work on Windows XP, Vista, and 7, but if needed I can put whatever OS on the machine I will be ripping them with.

I know this seems like me being very picky, but if I can get something any where close to this I would be in love. Everything I have tried to this point has seriously disappointed me.

Also, if anyone has any advice about this entire process, I wouldn't mind hearing it. I am pretty sure many on this board have done it.