KDB and all-

I don't own a lot of movies - they're mostly like books for me  - I don't read or watch all that many more than once, but I have a few pals who've done this sort of "unwieldy, time-consuming" archiving.  They say Tivo (I don't own one) has changed the way they buy movies since it's made TV more accessible and they used to play movies when there was nothing on.  Anyway, I asked them about it and here's what they sent me.

This seems to more or less spell out the deal for Windows  - (my pal regularly checks out this site - he said to bookmark it)

http://www.ce-1.com/artman/publish/article_13.shtml

 I have a friend who uses a Mac and while he had to drop a fair amount of coin for this hardware - he swears by it.  Here's the link -

http://www.centreforce.com/studio.html

"But I will want to add FINAL CUT PRO or ADOBE PREMIERE."

I'd say go with Adobe - mostly for cross compatibility and convenience.  Their products are easy to use and you get what you expect.  After Effects is an awesome package as well.  As you're probably well aware you do need to have a beefy computer to use any of it efficiently.

Regarding Tivo - they only sell them with the subscription package nowadays - but if you check out Ebay you can get some early models that will work without the subscription.  One more thing regarding the subscription: Tivo checks out what you watch so it can make suggestions as to what you might also like.  It uploads this information daily while it downloads the next day's programming.  There's talk of using Tivo in this way to replace the Nielsen ratings eventually. 

Hope this was helpful

Plug 'n' Play,

Lee