landzw:
Its my little boy that has started me of ripping his films , it costs a fortune through itunes to replace all my little lads films into itunes and since i have replaced a couple of his dvd though his neglect i though the best way forward was to own the films on dvd and then rip them to an mp4 file .
That way we have instant access to his films without the chance of damaging the dvd
I know exactly where you are coming from. Theoretically, in a Windows environment, one of the best approaches is to rip the DVD as an ISO image, as this preserves the disc structure, menus, etc. This would be at the expense of disk space, but you could get 150-200 DVDS on a 1TB drive. However, doing this would require the use of software to get round the DCSS security - for example AnyDVD from Slysoft.com. You would also need software to mount the ISO as though the original DVD was in the drive, say VirtualCloneDrive. To do the ripping itself you'd probably want something that integrated with Windows Media Centre as well, such as MyMovies - which has the advantage that if you have a Windows Home Server allows for automatic ripping. Unfortunately, as the law stands ripping protected DVDs for any purpose is illegal in most countries, although you could use a similar approach on approved digital copies, of the sort that you can get with some BDs.