Nero Recode/Vision can work very well, though your options are fairly limited, and it costs money. There are free alternatives available. What I'd recommend, for both encoding and playback, is:
To handle playback:Remove any playback codec packs or filter packs you've installed and
install CCCP. Make sure to
follow the installation instructions they provide on their FAQ.
To handle the few types of files not covered by CCCP, I would do the following:
1. Read Yaobing's excellent DirectShow Playback FAQ here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=39509.02.
Install RealAlternative to handle Real Media file types. You don't need to install MPC again as it's included as part of CCCP (so you can deselect that option during the install).
3. Install either
Apple's Quicktime Player or
Quicktime Alternative to handle Quicktime playback types. If you choose to install the "real" Quicktime, make sure to manually de-select all the file type Associations possible during the install so it doesn't take over your media files. You can also disable the task tray icon under
Edit --> Preferences --> Quicktime Preferences --> Advanced tab --> Install QuickTime icon in system tray from inside Quicktime. If you choose the Alternative, same as RealAlternative, you don't need to install MPC, as it's included in CCCP.
4. Install
Celtic Druid's FLV Splitter and Filter, following the instructions in Yaobing's FAQ. This will handle playback of Flash video, such as Google Video and YouTube videos through MC.
To handle ripping and re-encoding of DVD content:There are two options I'd recommend using freely available software. I'll start with the simplest one.
DVD Fab Decrypter and AutoGK:
DVD Fab Decrypter is a great, free DVD Ripping tool. It will decode the content on basically any available commercial DVD, it's free, and it is simple to use. After you get it installed, simply choose a folder on your hard drive and rip the DVDs in Main Movie mode. If you are ripping an Episodic DVD (a TV show disc with multiple episodes on it), you'll want to rip it over and over again in Main Movie mode to separate folders on your hard drive to get each of the individual titles.
This will extract the movie from the DVD (stripping out all the extra content and menus and whatnot) to your drive in full quality and resolution. Nice, but huge. To compress these files and make them easier to use, you can use AutoGK.
AutoGK is a simple-to-use, free, XviD compression tool. After you download and install the current version (v2.40 as of right now), you can open the VTS_01_0.IFO file that you extracted using DVD Fab Decrypter as your Input File. Select which Audio Tracks and Subtitle Tracks you want included in the resulting AVI file, and choose a size option. I'd target the 1/4 DVDR (1120mb) for fairly high quality rips of a standard 90-ish minute movie. For very good quality, or longer movies, I'd go to 1493mb or 2GB. If you choose the CD options from the size drop-downs, AutoGK will split the resulting AVI into two or more 700MB hunks to be easily burned onto CD-Rs. Then just hit "go" and wait for it to do it's magic (it does take quite a while -- be warned).
One nice benefit of AutoGK is that the files it creates will be compatible with the new DVD Set-top Players that support DivX/XviD/MPEG-4 files. This is a more and more common feature even on cheap and lower-end DVD Players. It's convenient that you can burn the files off onto disc (fitting up to 4 movies on a standard DVD-R), but still play them on your DVD player (if you have one that supports those files).
AutoMKV:
AutoMKV has the potential to create much higher quality rips of the DVDs than AutoGK can, and it includes DVD Fab Decrypter built-in so you don't have to rip the DVD separately, and it handles Episodic DVDs much more easily (you simply check an option and then pick the proper Title from within the program). The other big up-side to AutoMKV is that the rips can be much higher quality at similar file sizes, using some of it's codec options. It allows you to use the more advanced X264 codec and the more capable MKV or MP4 container file formats.
Unfortunately, it is still under heavy development (and is still Beta) so it is a
bit more complicated to use (it's not terrible, but it's not quite as simple as AutoGK). If you search for AutoMKV on Interact, you'll find some posts from me where I describe how I use it in detail. Looking for more recent postings should be more accurate, like this one here:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=38615.msg263907#msg263907 (you can use the built-in ripping functions though -- I've now used them and they work great). If you use the same size guidelines I gave for AutoGK above you should get extremely good results, though you can actually edge these downward somewhat and still have beautiful quality files. However, be aware that compressing to X264 takes a LOT longer than compressing to XviD. The quality is better, but it's more work for the computer to get it there. Compressing to X264 generally takes twice as long as compressing to XviD would, at similar target file sizes.
The other big downside is that if you use the advanced containers or codecs of AutoMKV, you won't have the ability to play the files back on those Set-Top DVD players that support DivX like you can with AutoGK. (You could use AutoMKV to make compatible files, but you might as well just use AutoGK for simplicity if you care about this.) If you don't have one of these DVD players though, and you just want to play the files on your computer, and you can figure it out, then I'd say AutoMKV is the way to go. You can really get beautiful quality rips out of it using X264.
Other Options:Two other (non-free) options you may want to investigate are:
1) Continuing to use Nero Recode/Vision. It can be difficult to get it set up properly to get high-quality rips, and it doesn't handle encrypted DVDs, but it can put out good quality files (and compatible ones) if you fiddle with it enough.
2)
DVD Fab Platinum. If you want to make files compatible with iPods or PSP devices, this great application has simple wizards to make your life simple. It also has a "generic" wizard, which could probably handle converting to XviD much like AutoGK. I've never used it myself (it costs $50) but people rave about its simplicity and ease-of-use.
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