ItsCold - have you tried www.ApeJukebox.com THe interface is a lot better than MMJ or WInamp for standalone operation. Browsing via coverart is slick and is suited to displaying at TV resolution, etc. It's still a little rough around the edges but has a lot of potential. Also supports lossless compression ape format - but mp3 does it for me.

Now if only they would do a DVD version as well.

As for ripping there's no way around the time, but working in a home office with a laptop and a desktop ripping in the background via MMJ at 12-16x gets the job done with minimal pain. Just keep pumping the discs every few minutes.

As for backup - hard drives are getting cheaper, and firewire kits work well. THats the problem with the lower level (<$1,000) dedicated units - expandability. It seems that the interface is the hard part. They should just provide a firewire port and users could expand as needed.

$5 PER DISC - Hmm a cottage industry for someones kids?