Is it Dangerous to Download Movies? (DVD, game, sounds, install)

[Jesse69]

My cousin in the Phillippines downloads movies and doesn't get in trouble because I think the gov there wouldn't prosecute him. He's been doing this a long time and never got a problem. He watches the movies on a media player connected to USB drives.

I don't download music because you could get sued for that from the RIAA. But are movies ok to torrent in America? Do you do this and have you gotten in trouble? Or heard of other people's experiences doing this?

If I could download and watch movies I'd do it on a low power HTPC. Don't want to watch movies through a media player. Anybody do this? What do you use to watch torrented blu-rays and dvds?

[EscapeCalifornia]

If its copyrighted, its illegal unless its through a legit source like iTunes. People get warnings from their ISP's for BTing movies all the time. Also, this is how people wind up with spyware on their computers.

[Jesse69]

Is there a program where I can rip a movies into a hi def format to be stored and watched on an HTPC? I would rip my dvd collection to this format, so I can carry around an entire movie collection in an HTPC.

What are the various programs and which one is the best?

I thought you would get spyware from torrented programs, not movies. I've never torrented a movie, I just watch them through Netflix.

It would be great having movies on an HTPC and not bothering with discs anymore. A lot of movies can fit on a 3 TB drive nowadays. Hopefully that drive won't break.

[EscapeCalifornia]

Originally Posted by Jesse69

Is there a program where I can rip a movies into a hi def format to be stored and watched on an HTPC? I would rip my dvd collection to this format, so I can carry around an entire movie collection in an HTPC.

What are the various programs and which one is the best?

AnyDVD should do it.

Originally Posted by Jesse69

I thought you would get spyware from torrented programs, not movies. I've never torrented a movie,

How do you know you're downloading exactly what it says it is and that is doesn't have malicious code attached?

[Narfcake]

I don't download/torrent movies ... and it's not because an ISP or religion is holding me back.

I don't because I have morals.

As for whether it's dangerous ... the last two freebie computers I got were because they were seriously infected. Yes, they (illegally) downloaded stuff. Did a format C:, and it was good again. No hardware issues at all.

[Jesse69]

This seems like a good program to rip a dvd to H.264. I tried it on Date Night and it worked well - 8.4 gb total. That'll fit 345 movies onto a 3tb hd. Sounds great for an HTPC but better have Raid or a backup device.

http://www.wondershare.com/guide/dvd-ripper-platinum.html (broken link)

[NHDave]

Originally Posted by Jesse69

I thought you would get spyware from torrented programs, not movies. I've never torrented a movie, I just watch them through Netflix.

Don't believe everything you see on the internet, rule number one, learn it, know it, live it. Just because it says it's a movie doesn't mean it is. I can send you an infected executable that would look to you like it's a standard Word or Excel document, just because it claims to be one doesn't mean that it is.

[NJBest]

You can download movies safetly from Amazon.com

[Jesse69]

Yeah, I got a nasty trojan from a downloaded video game once. That's why I subscribed to ESET Nod32. I have 3 antivirus on my Vista install and 2 on my Windows 7 install. Somehow Spyware Dr 8 didn't work well with Win 7.

I'm liking the Wondershare DVD Ripper program I got.

I'd rather just have Netflix stream all of their movies through internet so I don't have to save movies on hd. But somehow Netflic doesn't have all movies instant streaming capable.

[NJBest]

The reality is that if you know what you're doing, you won't get a trojan or virus from downloading media. But if you don't then you're pretty much screwed.