Hello.
Yes,
dvd to avi converter, Blu-ray and HD-DVD will be coming soon,
dvd to mp4, but I'd give it until 2007-2008 before it is mainstream. - Even though Blu-ray players won't be backwards-compatible, HD-DVD will (which is why I think Sony's Blu-ray will lose out to HD-DVD since people have 100s of DVDs in their collections and aren't about to abandon DVD - just look at the adoption rate for SACD & DVD-Audio).- If you think ripping a DVD-9 takes too long,
ipod transfer, imagine a HD-DVD disc which is 3-4 times as big. That's okay. How much more improvement can you add to 1970s films which they keep reselling. - Copy protection will be a very big part of the new formats. You might not even be able to rip them...at least until someone comes up with a new decrypter.