I haven't ripped a DVD to .avi In years. What's the best free way?

[snafoo]

Years ago, i ripped an UNPROTECTED DVD to .avi, but forgot how. I have some UNPROTECTED DVD's that i wanna watch on my Samsung HDTV. My Samsung doesn't play mp4. It only plays avi. What's the best free software to do this?

Happy Holidays, everyone!

[davexnet]

Probably a few ways to do it, even today.
AutoGK - takes care of everything, inverse telecine, frame rate, deinterlace, etc. (Not sure if it runs on recent Windows)

Or using recent software MakeMKV and Xmedia Recode. Use MakeMKV to create a lossless MKV of the main movie.
Then use XMR to convert to DIVX Avi/Mp3. But you'll need to take care of the stuff I mentioned above manually

[ProWo]

For unprotected DVDs you can also use clever Ffmpeg-GUI to rip the movie and elaborate it further.
It's small, portable and doesn't need installation.

[Sharc]

One would have to reencode the DVD rip (mpeg2) to mpeg4 part2 (=mpeg4 visual) for .avi.
It can be done with ffmpeg, like
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Encode/MPEG-4
Replace the input file by your ripped file (*.mkv in case of ripping the DVD with MakeMKV).
Using a GUI which does it may be simpler though.

[ProWo]

My Samsung doesn't play mp4. It only plays avi.

Could you specify the exact model of your Samsung HDTV?

[jagabo]

If your TV plays MPG files: VOB2MPG

[IndigoZephyr]

DVDFab can convert your DVD disc to AVI as well.

[netmask56]

Samsung TV's normally, natively supports MKV container format unless its a very old TV. Using MakeMKV is the easiest and best way to do it without any re-encoding or loss of quality. It will work on all DVDs protected or not.

[cholla]

First you need to rip the UNPROTECTED DVD to your PC in DVD format folders.
Then join the .vobs.
I use one of these programs to do this & both work equally well.
https://www.videohelp.com/software/VOBMerge
or
https://beginwithsoftware.com/videoguides/joinvobfilestool.html

Then use ffmpeg to convert the "joined.vob" into an .avi.

ffmpeg -i input.vob -c copy -r 29.97 output.avi

The -r 29.97 is the frame rate of the .vob I tested with.
Yours should be the same but if it isn't match the frame rate to your .vob.
You can check the framerate with MediaInfo,

[hech54]

MakeMKV then Handbrake.

[johns0]

Or vidcoder.