Converting DVD to AVI
 

I came back from a vacation where you do this activity and the company videotapes it for you. So I've got a DVD with my family and a bunch of people I don't know on it. I want to take the DVD, convert it to AVI (best quality possible), and re-edit it so it's just my family. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what kind of program I should use? Thanks.

First rip the DVD to your hard drive with DVD Decrypter. Then convert it to an avi with DGMPGDec.

Does DVD2AVI encodes it with DivX or can it make a raw AVI or Microsoft DV AVI?

I just learned that the original DVD2AVI had unfixed bugs. You should now use DGMPGDec, which is DVD2AVI with a bunch of bug fixes. I've updated my first post to reflect this.
I honestly don't know. You'll just have to try it. You won't lose anything if it doesn't, as the program is completely free.

rip the mpeg's off of the dvd, but use the womble mpeg editor to cut out the stuff you don't want... that way you won't lose any video quality, because you won't be converting/re-encoding the mpeg's to another format.

Jeez whiz. Are there instructions on how to use DGMPGDec? There doesn't seem to be any in the program itself, nor on the website.

you do not need to decrypt anything, since i doubt that a personal DVD comes with any kind of protection.
the best converter on the market is max DVD to avi.
http://www.dvd-converter.com/

the womble editor will edit the vob's directly, no need to "convert" anything... just copy the entire dvd right over to your hard drive.

A zip file that has an older version contains a Quick Start guide. You can download it at http://www.softpedia.com/progDownloa...oad-14565.html.

I also found this guide, "How to frameserve DVD/MPEG2/HDTV to an advanced video editor", that shows how to edit the DVD contents in Premiere (or another editor) without actually converting the DVD to an avi.

i was just about to ask the same question here... but you beat me to it ;)
thanks!

I'll try the dgmpgdec -- hope it doesnt cause too much problem.

I was given footage for a DVD I'm creating, and need to include it in my multi-cam edit... So I'll have to figure out how to get the file to import into FCP