I've recently come to the end of ripping about 200250 DVDs, with the intention of then converting them the .m4vs on Handbrake for playback in the living room (or in the forthcoming study on a computer screen). However, simply ripping the DVDs has taken a huge amount of time. If I had worked the hours I'd spent doing this, I probably could have just bought the lot of them on iTunes.
But that's the problem. In the UK the film selection on iTunes is limited. Many of my favourite movies aren't on there, as they tend to cater to the blockbluster, latest formulaic Hollywood comedy (no doubt starring Vince Vaughn). I've no idea if this is the case in the US, but in Britain the offering of TV programmes is even worse.
I have for many years expected unlimited streaming of content on a monthly subscription to replace the local hoarding of material, such as we've seen for music with Spotify (which I still, for some reason, do not use). Again in the US I know they have Netflix, which is from what I can gather is fairly good, but the UK's equivalent, called LoveFilm, is really quite **** if you're into non-blockbuster films. Barton Fink was not, for example, available on either iTunes or LoveFilm the last time I checked, and is a movie that, whilst by no means hugely famous, I wouldn't consider to be too obscure.
Continuing the amass my own film collection seems to be the only way of guaranteeing the availability that I require (something no doubt stimulated by the fetishistic collecting pointed out by DrEnalg

), even though it will ultimately be a waste of time, as there will surely come a point where most films are available on streaming services.