DVD Ripping to .avi or .mpg?

[Sylentwulf]

Is there a reliable tool for ripping the video/audio into a standard .avi or .mpg format?

This is the first any most likely only DVD I have ever needed to backup, and I've tried DVD X Copy, DVD Decryptor, Nero and Smart Ripper. All have failed at some point, or I just don't know how to use them. Smart Ripper finished once after a LONG while, with a bunch of errors, but now that I have all the .vob files, I don't know what to do with them (And I don't think they'll work anyways due to the errors)

I usually convert from .avi and then burn with TMPGENC DVDAuthor, so if there's any way I can just rip it into an .avi format, that would be HIGHLY preferable.

[DereX888]

DVD2AVI, DVD2SVCD, DVD2DVD - I believe theyre all in one package called DVD2SVCD. You need separate MPEG encoder fot it to run (Cinema Craft Encoder is the best, but TMPEG does the job too).
But... if you had a problems running such simple programs like DVD Decrypter, IMO it might be too difficult for you to use DVD2SVCD, unless you stick to all default settings there and hope it'll work.
DVD2SVCD automates most of the tasks you'd have to do 'manually' doing it all under single GUI, so there is a trade-off (less things to do/set by yourself, but this means your file might not be exactly what you expecvt). Anyway - honestly saying - I don't know any easier way to convert DVD to any selected format (avi, svcd or dvd-5) than with DVD2SVCD. But if it is still too difficult for you to use, perhaps reading guides and trying to understand what/why/where is needed in order to succesfully backup DVD to your selected format would be the best starting point?

[Tommyknocker]

You can load your VOBs into Virtual Dub mod and save them as AVIs.

[Sylentwulf]

Thanx Tommy, that'll work perfect.

Derex - Not that I don't know how to use them, none of them worked correctly That's why I asked if there was a reliable way to just transfer them into .avi files instead since this is a one time thing, I really don't want to read up on what might be going wrong. Not worth spending 4 hours of reading to rip one DVD (4 years of burning, and this really IS the first time I've ever had to rip anything)