From unprotected DVD to MPEG2 without re-encoding?

[Pavel D]

I've got a question that seems to be quite simple, or even dumb, but all my searches in all kinds of forums, articles and guides didn't provide an answer to it (maybe because it's a "given" to someone who knows what they're doing?).

Anyway, here it is - how do you turn a totally unprotected, 1hr-long home-made DVD into 1 big MPEG2 file without re-encoding/loosing quality? Is it possible at all? And if it is, can you make 1 huge MPEG2 files out of 2, without loosing sound quality, that can be read (and furthermore worked with) by Pinnacle Studio?

The history of this is as follows: I had a home-video Hi8 collection, which was getting too old, so I borrowed a Hi8 VCR from a friend, DVD-Recorder from another, and just digitized all my videos in real-time on DVD-Rs, each 1 hr long (XP speed), no menus, nothing. I think, however, that the recorder automatically split each DVD into 5? 10? minute chapters, but I'm not sure about it. Hoping, that later, at my own pace, I can edit them and make them into nice DVDs with menus, effects etc., without much headache... How wrong was I!!!

Here's what I tried to do after:
1. Import videos from DVDs to my PC, using a)Ulead Workshop b)SmartRipper c)Ulead MovieFactory
2. Work on them with Pinnacle Studio.

Here's the problems I encountered:

1. Ulead soft when importing DVD video splits it into about 20 MPEG2s.
2. Pinnacle doesn't read Ulead's MPEG2s
3. Merging several MPEG2s with DVTool gives you a bigger MPEG2 with sound, but Pinnacle doesn't read it.
4. Merging several MPEG2s with TMPGEnc gives you a bigger MPEG2 that Pinnacle reads, but it doesn't have the sound (!), and Pinnacle hangs up when trying to "create a movie" from it, stumbling exactly at a point where initial MPEG2s were "glued" together.
5. Ripping with SmartRipper gives you VOBs, a huge m2v etc., that neither Ulead, nor Pinnacle want to deal with.

Well, I'm wondering - isn't there a program that does a supposedly simple task - takes video from the DVD, and saves it as an MPEG2 on your hard drive?? As far as I understood from my research, a DVD actually IS an MPEG2, just with a shell (which is VOB? or m2v?), isn't it?

In other words, my questions are:
1)Can I escape somehow getting multiple MPEG2s when importing from my DVDs (even if my suspicion is true, and the recorder split the videos into chapters)?
2)What program can do this importing without re-encoding (since common sense tells me that any "reprocessing" will affect the final result) and/or loosing the sound?
3)If none of the above is possible, and I'm doomed with multiple MPEG2s with sound problems, how can I possibly put them together nicely?

Anyone, who cares to help me with this - tons of appreciation!

[BJ_M]

DVD Decrypter - set "do not split files" and rip using stream mode into 1 big m2v file and 1 ac3 file (or whatever the audio format it is)