Well, where to start, I don't even know.  So I'll just begin.  Recently I was tipped off to a piece of software called HandBrake.  (Don't even ask why it was named that.  You do NOT want to know.)  HandBrake allows you to rip a DVD, removing the CSS and compressing it into a smaller more portable format.  You can pick from standard formats, such as XBox360, AppleTV, Playstation and many others or pick your own settings.  It simply uses the FFMpeg compressor in the background, so the sky really is the limit.  I chose to use the AppleTV format for two reasons.  First, I have an AppleTV.  Second, the AppleTV format is standard Mpeg-4 H.264 video.  It's NOT hacked up Mpeg-4 wrapped in Microsoft AVI format.  So it's pretty portable.  Well, I started ripping my movie library like nuts into my iTunes library.  Before I knew it, my 500GB hard disk was getting full, and I still need room for video editing.  More on that in a minute.  So now with HandBrake, and a huge video library in iTunes, my entire video collection will soon be one remote control click away on my Living Room AppleTV.  This makes me want another AppleTV upstairs.  One last thing about HandBrake.  The PC version is terrible.  It was written native for OSX and is simply beautiful.  The Windows version pops DOS boxes and crashes a lot.  No Thanks.  Run it on a Mac.

In the process I went to Fry's and bought two 1TB Western Digital 7200RPM SATA drives.  This puts a total of 4 hard disks in my Mac Pro and a total of 3TB.  1TB for the main disk.  1TB for Time Machine backups.  1TB (500GBx2 RAID0) for HD video editing.  I used a program called SuperDuper for the Mac to move all the data around.  Quite simple.  The machine is an unbelievable power house.  With two Quad-Core 2.8Ghz Xeon's, GeForce 8800GT, 3TB of disk space and 23" Widrescreen monitor I feel like my office is running a NASA supercomputer.  Actually, I think that might be better than what NASA has. Ha!

Lastly, I purchased yet another Sony HVR-V1U HD1080p Video Camera.  I decided that the church, (Keystone Church in Keller, TX) needed it more than I did, so I gave them mine.  They were shooting with my camera almost every week it seemed.  They had a PD-170 which is low def and the tape deck just doesn't work right on anymore.  I tried to give them money to buy one about a year ago and they wouldn't let me.  So this time I just gave him mine and said "You can't say no."  So I ordered another one from B&H which arrived today.  I'm sure the very talented team at Keystone (Brian Burton and team) will put it to some excellent use as always.  Brian is a rock star at creativity.  On a side note, it appears they changed the firmware just a bit, but it's virtually unchanged from Version 1.  I'd absolutely dig a hard disk pack for it, but for some reason, Sony thinks a 60GB hard disk with an LCD screen is worth $1599.  It most likely costs them less than $200 to make.  Sad, but true.  But you have to admit, Sony has the absolute best Pro Video Cameras money can buy (well, in their price range,  sure, millions could buy better...).