True Newbie who has burnt way too many coasters needs help

[ruaturtle]

I am trying to rip a disc to my hard drive (mainly to watch on a computer without a dvd drive) as an avi file but also am planning on burning a few short discs to one disc in the future. I have tried different stages of Nero, DVD Shrink, dvdSanta, TMPGEnc, FlaskMPEG. I am doing something wrong. The best I have been able to do is end up with VOB files... I have looked through alot of the guides but am kinda lost with the language. As a warning, when I have tried to go in and change settings bad things happen... Thanks for any help in advance.

[Baldrick]

use dvddecrypter to rip to your hd.
convert to avi / divx/ Xvid with fairuse wizard.

[patricksull]

I would recommend starting slow and easy. Use dvd decrypter and dvd shrink, then once you are successful, you can move on to other tools. Start by using decrypter to rip to hd, then open shrink and locate that file. Load the largest VOB file and shrink will do its job. This will create an ISO. Then use decrypter to burn this ISO to your DVDR

[Redd]

And make your first burn to a /RW. Why you ask? Because an /RW can be used X1000, so no more coasters. If you get a good burn and your happy with your project, use Nero or your favorite burning utility to copy the /RW to an /R. Then use the /RW again for your next project.