APP: Backup DVDs to your hard drive (like ripping CDs)

After you've ripped you CD collection to your hard drive so you can listen to them whenever you want, you realize you have this hefty DVD collection and you wouldn't mind ripping this onto your hard drive. But DVDs don't have to take up a ton of space on your hard drive, just like audio CDs don't have to take up 700MB per CD.

Most DVDs for sale in North America are NTSC set at 720x480 resolution and can take up to 9.4 GB on a dual layer DVD, but with DivX or Xvid compression you can backup a DVD onto your computer to sizes between 700MB and 1400MB without significant quality loss.

Make a DVD Backup/How to rip the DVD

Download and install
DVD Decrypter and Auto Gordian Knot

Copy to Computer
Use DVD Decrypter to copy the DVD files to you computer's hard drive (minus encryption). These often take around 6-8GB but you can erase them when you're done.

Compress
Next, run AutoGK. Select the decoded DVD files on your computer. Select an output .avi file. Additionally, AutoGK allows you to choose the file size of your output file, in case you want to compress and back it up onto a CD or other media.

AutoGK is a front-end programs which actually runs a few other programs in the background to perform different tasks in video compression like audio compression, and codec specific tasks etc.

Play it
Now to play the .avi file in windows, all you need is something like Winamp 5.1 installed with video support(or windows media player if you must).

Housekeeping
Now, don't forget to erase the files generated by DVD Decryptor, once you have the output .avi file and you've test it and it works. These files take up a 6-8GB normally, so you really out to clear them off before doing another disc.