Complete DVD > MPEG4/H.264 options?

[alfonzo]

I'm interested in ripping my DVD collection to a homebrew media server. It'd be great if I could cut down the footprints of the discs by transcoding them to an MPEG4 variant, but I'd like to keep all the disc content and menus, rather than just ripping and converting the main title.

What are the options (if any)? I've played around with Nero Recode 2 a bit, but I don't have a clue as to what I can do with the resulting files (I freely admit to not having tried Nero ShowTime yet). Obviously, since I'm not planning to burn any discs here, any recode is useless without a (preferrably easy to use) software player.

Any thoughts? Other than ratDVD and the obvious MPEG2 recoders (DVDShrink, DVD2One), I haven't been able to find much in the way of complete DVD backups, and nothing (other than Nero Recode) in MPEG4-flavors.

Thanks...

[guns1inger]

mediabuilder allows menus etc for Divx material, although I don't think it converts entire DVDs. The biggest issue is that there are no standards or industry groups to run this type of initiative, so you have Divx going in one direction, and independent developers going off in other directions.