rip dvd to harddrive

[defnoob81]

Hi,
My uncle got me a hard drive prepacked with movies and tv shows, I would also like to put my dvds on it as well.
I have done some research and ended up downloading DVD shrink. So I have tried to use it to convert a tv series disk onto the computer. It worked (YEY) BUT its in heaps of different files and one file may have 3 seconds and another may have 10 minutes. Is there a way that i can rip a dvd onto my computer in 1 file or 10 files if there are 10 episodes then move the file to the Media player?
My brother said to try Nero but im not sure if there is a free one or should i just pay for Nero?
Thanks in advance.

[Baldrick]

Try vob2mpg and it should create a mpg for each title.

[sanlyn]

I echo vob2mpg. We wouldn't recommend Nero. Not for anything. Period.

[Kerry56]

If your dvds are commercially made, you'll need to decrypt them as you rip. DVDShrink does this, but is terribly out of date and is not effective with movies that have more advanced protection. If you run into one that won't rip, this is why.

I'd suggest using MakeMKV to rip your dvds, as it will decrypt them and put them into one mkv file. This won't work very well for episodic dvds, like your tv series discs, but for regular movies it will be a good solution. MakeMKV is free to use for dvds, but you'll need a new beta key every month or so, which you can find here: http://www.makemkv.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1053

[jman98]

If you are ripping region 4 DVDs from Australia, you could try the old DVDDecrypter and have it rip in IFO mode. Note that I said IFO and I did not say ISO which is NOT what you want. You can find guides on how to do this. Ripping in IFO mode should enable you to rip TV shows by episode. DVDDecrypter has problems with some newer DVDs that use bad sector copy protection, but this is mostly used in region 1 DVDs (it's mostly limited to a few specific companies) and should be unusual in Australian DVDs.

[redwudz]

Hate to add another program suggestion, but VidCoder works well with DVD>MKV conversions. I go straight from the disk to the finished file in about 24 minutes with my system. It also handles episodic DVDs very well. You can often do the whole DVD with all the episodes, or with a few DVDs, set each one up separately and run them all at once. You will need a decrypter for this. Look to our tools section to the left of this page for a few.

And welcome to our forums.