How can I backup my blu-ray disks to my media server?

As for the actual ripping, it is actually VERY easy. Install AnyDVD HD, put disc in, right click the anydvd icon and choose "Rip Disc to Hard Drive" or "Rip to ISO", wait 30-45 minutes, and you're done. Now if you want to encode that into a single, movie-only file then you can use something such as ClownBD (free) or eac3to (free) to extract the movie only and put it into a MKV container. This too, does not take very long either.

If you want to encode the video into a different codec in order to compress it and save more space, then you will need something such as Ripbot264 (also free) and this will take a bit of time. I single movie can take up to 6-8 hours on a fairly decent and recent machine.

Now on the legal aspects of it, I can only speak for the US and do not claim to be a lawyer either. The DMCA, as mentioned, makes it illegal to bypass any system of copy protection (CSS, AACS+, etc) or digital rights management (DRM). However, the majority of the time people don't seem to be pursuing individuals who are making legitimate backup copies for personal use alone and aren't sharing or distributing them. Either way, you can use AnyDVD HD to rip the blu-ray without removing the copy protection.

It's legal if you got a "digital copy" included in the price, in which case there should be a copy facility on the disc itself or instructions in the documentation or packaging.

In terms of ripping for personal backup, which some consider a "grey area" ... I'm not sure this site would allow such discussions.

Otherwise it's almost certainly probably illegal.

Please bear in mind I am not a lawyer, but my understanding of whether its legal or not is that it depends on where you live. Ripping copyrighted DVDs and Blu-rays involves circumventing the copy protection measures. In the US this is covered by the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act), and similar laws have been passed elsewhere that make it technically illegal.

Copying of DVDs and Blu-rays for personal use is often said to fall under "Fair Use", and it may take an actual trial in your country to set a precedent whether this comes under that principle. From what I've seen you would be on less shaky legal ground if you're ripping your own disks and retaining the originals. You could then argue you are simply making the copy for convenience rather than theft. If you rip disks you've rented from Blockbuster then you aren't backing up and any possible fair use argument wouldn't apply.

Leaving aside the legal issues for a moment, I've not tried actually doing it as I'm happy to watch my Blu-rays on my PS3 and am moving to streaming content and services like Sky HD for my HD content.

I have seen an article on Gizmodo that describes using AnyDVD HD to bypass the CSS, and a plethora of other tools to do the actual ripping. Be warned though, it doesn't look easy.

Ripping Blu-ray discs sucks. Hard. It takes forever, eats up a ton of hard drive space, and for all practical purposes requires software that isn't free. It's like trying to rip a DVD in 1999: computers still have a long way to go before this is easy.

I just read about MakeMKV which is free while in beta. It might be what you're after.

• Reads DVD and Blu-ray discs
• Reads Blu-ray discs protected with latest versions of AACS and BD+
• Preserves all video and audio tracks, including HD audio
• Preserves chapters information
• Preserves all meta-information (track language, audio type)
• Fast conversion - converts as fast as your drive can read data.
• No additional software is required for conversion or decryption.
• Available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux
• Functionality to open DVD discs is free and will always stay free.
• All features (including Blu-ray decryption and processing) are free during BETA.

The Pavtube Blu-Ray Ripper Software is currently the best ripping software and surprisingly it can rip both DVDs & Blu-Ray Discs without the need of having a different Undo-Protection program.

* Support GPU acceleration in the availability of NVIDIA CUDA graphics card.
* Rip/convert/transcode/compress Blu-ray/DVD to HD AVI, MKV, MPG, etc.
* Remove AACS and BD+ encryptions up to MKB v20 from Blu-ray Discs.
* Support selecting audio tracks and subtitles, including forced subs.
* Using the “Full Disc Copy” feature, you can preserve the Blu-ray/DVD’s original file structure.