Quickly ripping clips for use with PE7?

[buddycat]

I'm currently learning how to use this software. Some things it really does much better than Nero, but there are other things (like a much slower burning time) it doesn't do so well.

I discovered that PE doesn't directly support .vob files - they recommend using software that converts clips to DV-AVI. (I could just as easily convert them to mpegs, I suppose). That's a little disappointing - I really saved myself some time by using a little utility called DVD Knife to rip clips from recorded home DVDs. So apparently I would have to use some other freeware program to go back & convert what I've done so far plus rip any new footage from discs I haven't touched yet. The thing I liked about the DVD Knife program has been that Nero had no problems mixing and matching mpeg and vob files into a single project. What would anyone recommend for the future? It'd be good to be able to rip clips as I had been without having to go back and convert them yet again. I suppose I could go back to importing a disk into Nero and export clips as mpegs like I did before DVD Knife, but that takes a lot more time.

A tangential thought I had was that I was planning on storing these clips I've ripped on a media player, where they could be accessed individually. I suspect that DV-AVIs would take much more room on the hard drive. Would I just be better off getting a program that rips vobs to mpegs?

[guns1inger]

VOB2MPG extracts the video and audio from VOB files into mpg files without conversion, so it is relatively quick, and cause no quality loss. If the disc is not protected then you can go straight from the DVD to the HDD. If it is protected then you either have to rip it first, of have AnyDVD (or maybe DVD43) running in the background.

[buddycat]

No, they're all burned by me. Thank you, sir!