Okay,
Mr. Newbie here. Wazzzzzuupppppppppp, how ya doin'

I have just recently got into this whole dvd ripping, vcd thing. It took me awhile to get all the components like the dvd player, then the dvd player for the pc, etc. I was also unaware about the whole process of ripping, so I had my eye set on the ADS Technologies USB to DVD hardware for $200.00 but now I am thinking that I don't even need this!

Anyways, I have:
HARDWARE:
Sony NS300 Home DVD Player
AMD 800 (Non Overclocked)
TEAC 12x CD Writer(PC)
Sound Blaster 4X CD Writer(PC)
Univeral BUSlink 16x DVD Player(PC)

SOFTWARE:
EZ CD Creator 5 Platinum
TMPG
VCD Galaxy
SmartRipper
Various others

THE STORY:
My first attempt was to try and Burn a Jurassic ParkIII DVD into a VCD playable on my Sony DVD Player.
I used SmartRipper to rip the .VOB files to my HD.
Next, I used VCD Galaxy (Step 2 - I think it's DVD2AVI if I remember correctly).
And lastly, I went to step 3 of VCD Galaxy.

It turns out that I thought the file would fit on 1 DISC but it wound up being 1 BIG 900mb file.
So, since I have never seen what the quality of a VCD file looks like;
Is it BETTER than VHS?
I went ahead and took a .vob file and made a project out of it, went through the process and used EZ CD Creator on my TDK 800mb CD's and it would not play on my Sony. After doing some research, the sony only likes certian blank media to record on and I can't use EZ CD.

COMMENTS/QUESTIONS:
I know learned that you can use the tools to 'split' the sections so that it can fit on 2 discs.
What I don't think is cool is that it can't fit on 1 disc, so that seems kinda lame!
I have still have yet to see what a VCD disc looks like, is it better than VHS at least?? How much better if so?

What would buying a DVD Recorder buy me?? Can I copy disc to disc if I had one or just rip it and then record the files on a DVD and how much quality would I loose if I did it this way??

The only 2 things that I am interested in doing is copying 'Chapters' or whole movies and then editing them to make my own "movie version" and backing up whole DVDs. Any information that anyone can take time out to enlighten me on would most rad.

Thank you in advance for your time.