DVD too AVI

Hi Guys,

Im new here so please be patient.

Im a Stargate and Stargate Atlantis junkie and have all the episodes.

I have a DVD player with a USB input so I bought myself a WD 500 portable disk drive.

I copied an avi file too that disc drive and then plugged it into the DVD player and it played on the TV perfect.

Thats why I am here, I want too take all my Stargate and Atlantis DVDS and convert them too AVI files and store them on the portable hard drive.

What do I need too do, your help would be greatly appreciated, oh and something really simple would be best.

Thanks Heaps guys
Trevor

 

You first need to rip the DVDs. DVDFab is free, and really easy to use. You can use it to rip only the main video, and leave out all the extras, therefore saving alot of space. After the DVD has been ripped to your hard drive, you'll need to convert it to AVI (generally a DivX or XVid encoded file). There are several free programs that will do this, AGK is by far the highest quality IMO, but it will take some time. Here's some links:
DVDFab Decrypter http://www.majorgeeks.com/DVDFab_HD_Decrypter_d5168.html
Auto Gordian Knot (AGK) http://www.majorgeeks.com/AutoGK_Auto_Gordian_Knot_d5795.html
I have used both of these quite a bit, and they work great. Here's some others:
Catalencoder http://www.majorgeeks.com/Catalencoder_d5397.html
DVDShrink http://www.majorgeeks.com/DVD_Shrink_d4020.html
ShrinkTo5 http://www.majorgeeks.com/ShrinkTo5_Basic_d4755.html
There are others in the BackUp download section and the Multimedia download section here at Major Geeks.
Good luck, and welcome to Major Geeks!

EDIT- I left out a couple programs Dr. Divx is an excellent conversion tool. It will convert just about any video format into a .divx file, and you can select custom file sizes so more will fit on a CD or DVD (or hard drive). Also, KLite (the righteous codec people) also have a video conversion tool that is very highly rated. Both of these apps are free also.
Dr. DivX http://www.majorgeeks.com/Dr._DivX_d5208.html
KLite Video Converter http://www.majorgeeks.com/K-Lite_Video_Conversion_Pack_d5768.html