>>All this does now is illustrate why people rip the physical disc instead.<<
Well said!
I've been ripping my discs to whatever format I've needed since before blu-rays existed. I used to rip DVDs, I used to capture Laserdiscs and convert them, and now I rip blu-rays. I convert them for whatever device I need, be it an iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone, Galaxy, Sidekick, you name it (including the PSP). The best part is ripping to the exact screen resolution (keeping the aspect ratio, of course), and the crispness, color, and clarity blows away UV, Flixster, and any other crap they create to make us choose one side of the fence to be on. As far as ripping for multiple devices, I usually only have to rip once - for one device, be it my iPad, or my Galaxy, or whatever. When I have enough converted MKV files or AVI files or MPG files to fill a BD-R, I burn them, compare them to the hard drive copies, then delete them from the hard drive. If I ever have to convert the same movie for another device, big deal - I enjoy doing it knowing that it's what I want it to be. Also, it isn't hard - set your source, target, and options, hit start and go watch a move (or go to bed for the evening). MANY of these programs will also create an iTunes-compatible version that can copied into the iTunes media folder, imported, or simply just dragged over to the iTunes Library while it is running.
When I buy a disc, I don't even look to see if there's a digital copy or what format it's in because as far as I'm concerned, there's always a digital copy, and it's in whatever format I need it to be in 🙂.
The only downside for me is that I can't watch it anywhere at any time away from home, but between iPad-to-TV connectors, USB HDDs, and light-weight high-capacity extra batteries, I pretty much CAN watch it anywhere at any time.
