How to get movies on that awesome 720p screen

[dswatson83]

So, coming from a lower resolution Evo, I never had any issues putting my dvds at 480p on the screen and everything worked well. Now that I will have a 720p screen, my current process does not word.
First, what legal methods are there for purchasing 720p or 1080p digital movies that will play or can be converted to play on the phone or tablet?
Second, I own a few blurays and was contemplating getting an external player for my laptop and thus I could convert those to a file using the correct software. Anyone know of any decently priced software?

 

[Suntan]

No legal ways other than to get them from places like Google Play. Ripping your discs is illegal (in the USA) with the exception of a number of DVDs that were mastered fairly early in their life and thus had no DRM implemented on them. If you own the discs you can rip and convert them and that rests within the prevue of "fair play," although you will still be breaking the DMCA law. If you live in other regions of the world it is perfectly legal.

Obviously if any mods have an issue with ripping talk, please delete.

Now with that said, my personal preference is to rip the Blu Ray disc with AnyDVD HD (which is not free and it is not cheap either, but it is the standard ripper to compare others to.) You can then compress the video down to 1280x720 and convert the audio streams to 2 ch AAC audio with Handbreak (which is free.)

SlySoft AnyDVD HD

HandBrake


Alternatively, you can look at DVDfab software which offers a program that will rip and convert the movie in one. I haven't used this one myself.

Blu-ray Ripper software -- DVDFab Blu-ray Ripper is a powerful Blu-ray video converter that can rip and convert any Blu-ray to any formats and devices.

There is also MakeMKV which is currently free (and has been for years) for ripping your BRs. They resultant rip can then be compressed down with Handbrake.

MakeMKV - Make MKV from Blu-ray and DVD

-Suntan