DVD Rippers!

[Flick]

I own a lot of DVD movies. Among other titles, I own all the Disney animated DVD's (i.e. Toy Story, Snow White, etc.). I have about 600 different movies. I want to back these up. Does anyone have experience and recommendations for a good DVD ripper? I want to be able to maintain the original quality in all respects. I downloaded "DVD Decrypter" last night and it looked pretty good but I noticed that in order to play the DVD's back from the hard drive using WinDVD, I also had to download DAEMON tools. DAEMON tools conflicts with Adaptec Easy CD creator. I have used Adaptec Easy CD for the past two years without making one coaster in the process, so I am reluctant to install DAEMON. So the question again is this; does anyone know of a good DVD ripper that I can install with Windows ME and make flawless copies of my DVD movies? I realize that under Windows ME with FAT 32 that the maximum file size limit is 4 GB and that a typical DVD is 7 GB. I also know that XP doesn't have this limitation. So, if I can find a program that will copy my DVD's without any flaws, I'd be willing to upgrade to XP. Any suggestions are welcomed.

[mjc]

With the lawsuits against the DeCSS folks DVD ripping development, that is free from DRM has pretty much become a thing of dark alleys and unsavory corners of the Web.

You either have to accept the "approved" methods, which don't give you free and clear copies, but ones that will require involving some form of software on your computer (kind of like what you are doing, but with DRM enabled software). Or try some hodgepodge method (seems to be what you are doing now).

[hiredgoonz]

Generally, when people talk about copying DVDs they mean ripping the VOB files from the disk, then converting them to divx/mpeg4. This leaves you with a single AVI file 500mb+ depending on quality...

Done right at a high bitrate, the quality is very good. Not quite DVD, but almost.

Alternately, you can leave the VOB files on your hard drive and play them back using windows media player. The files are only 1gb each so you don't run across the file size problem with windows.

The best program I have found for getting the files is smart ripper, although clad dvd works very well also. For more information than you can likely use, go to:

www.divx-digest.com

They have tutorials and software downloads, great site...