How to encode ISO DVD multi-ep discs?

[SearchingBearCub]

I am attempting to turn my collection of all 7 seasons of Star Trek TNG, DS9, and VOY, along with the 3 seasons of TOS, into AVI files.

To that end, I have ripped several discs of DS9 to my hard drive with DVD Decrypter as ISOs. At this point, I can easily mount them with Daemon Tools and watch them like normal with PowerDVD, but nothing more.

I looked around and was led to a package by the name of DVDSHRINK, but it didn't have the flexibility I needed, as it only wanted to pick out the longest section on a disc to encode. That might work well for movies, but for discs with 4 episodes, or in some cases, multiple special small featurettes, it doesn't work, as the program gave me no choice to go episode by episode. It just picked the longest one and ignored everything else.

I am no stranger to computers, and would be willing to get into some technical stuff to get some good rips, but I have no idea of where to begin. I have limited experience using Virtual Dub with the XviD encoder to take a home movie down from say 2 gigs to the size of a 700mb CDR.

It may be a bit low, but my target size for each ep I rip is 175 megs. I would like to be able to fit an entire season onto a DVD, with as little quality loss as possible. I'm willing to wait, so my system can take its sweet time and encode an ep or two overnight for the best size. (1.5Ghz AMD Sempron)

How can I do what I want to do?

Thanks!

[CWR03]

DVD Decrypter and either AutoGK or Gordian Knot would be my suggestion. I can't imagine you'll be happy with an entire season on a DVD-ROM, though. I'm currently encoding some and I'm aiming for 13 eps (1/2 season) per DVD.

[Zig Fowler]

I own all the first 6 seasons of Stargate SG-1 and I converted each to a 125 MB XviD AVI. This allows me to get about 3 seasons on a DVD9 (66 episodes). The picture is fine for me at 8 feet from a 36" TV, there is a slightly noticable quality difference, but only if you are looking for it, and it is not distracting at all.

After I have the Episode VOBs, I run them through AutoGK. On my PentiumD 3.0Ghz, 1024 MB RAM, 7,000 RPM WD HardDrive (where the conversion takes place) it takes about 45 min and episode to convert (about as long as it would take to watch it!)

I agree the episode-by-episode rip is annoying. I'd like to see a feature that would some how recognize multi-episode DVDs and rip accordingly, with autonaming etc. (or let the user set an option to tell the program to do this). Not being a programmer though, I don't know how difficult this would be or if it could be done. While I'm on my soapbox I'd also like to see a feature to take multiple VOBs from a disc (VTS_01 VTS_02, etc) and combine them into one VOB file. :)