DVD Ripping software

[Zippper]

Anyone know of a DVD ripper which can rip a DVD to a single AVI file??

[backpackerx]

Well, a ripper won't rip to AVI. That requires a codec. A ripper will make .VOB files from the DVD. Some rippers make several VOBs and some rip into one big VOB. After ripping to VOB you need a program to convert VOB files to .AVI. Currently the only one I know of is freeware called VirtualDubMod based on VirtualDub. Make sure you find the Mod because regular virtualdub doesn't recongnize VOB's. Check this site for great info.
www.clonead.co.uk

[Zippper]

I tried VirtualDubMod and wasn't overly impressed. Is there anything else out there that's freeware that will covert VOBs to MPEGs as opposed to AVIs??

[Jason Dunn]

This might help:

http://home.cogeco.ca/~avi2vcd/

Ultimately though I don't think you'll see many options for MPEG2 encoding that are free.

[backpackerx]

I tried VirtualDubMod and wasn't overly impressed. Is there anything else out there that's freeware that will covert VOBs to MPEGs as opposed to AVIs??

The interface may not be the best but as far as power and features go, VirtualDub is recognized as one of the leading conversion tools. Even many professionals use it from what I'm told.

You might look for TMPGEnc. It does Mpg and I think one of the newer versions does VOB coversions. VOB are just loosely compressed Mpeg-2. The nice thing about going to DivX is that it is better quality and utilizes less space than Mpeg 2. There are also free programs for DivX for both the PC and PocketPC's. Another side note, it is much more difficult to convert to MPEG.

Check this site out, there is a guide to Mpeg conversion. www.clonead.co.uk