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[porthacking]

I have just been through the laborious task of ripping all my CDs...the DVDs are next.

I would like all of my DVDs (and the few Blurays I have) on a hard drive. There is no longer room in the living room, and I am sick of the kids scratching DVDs as they take them out of cases. What is the best way to do it? What program should I use to do all the ripping? etc etc.

A few requirements though...
I want them to play exactly as though I put the DVD in my DVD player. The other half likes all of the special features and the inlaws are half deaf and like the subtitles.
I'd like them just how JRiver displays my CDs when I go through to chose them (e.g. cover flow). Is this possible with the DVDs?

If there is anything you think I need to know, please let me know.

Thanks everyone.

[Mr ChriZ]

I tend to use DVDFab for the ripping and then import the VOB's into MC.  This guarantees the full DVD is copied over including the menus, although it does use a lot of space  (7-8GB per DVD).
It's fairly quick and easy though.  I have views based on File Location.
I fill in the data using the Lookup Data from Wikipedia tool built into Media Center, and then usually get a high res cover poster from Google.

[WinoOutWest]

You may also want to have a look at MakeMKV

http://www.makemkv.com/

No compression and puts everything into one nice mkv file.  I found this after having already ripping my DVDs to VOB files and actually used this on my rips to dramatically clean things up.
I was very pleased with this little tool.

[porthacking]

Thanks for the replies. I am not too concerned about the size, just want the
DVDs out of the living room.

I like the look of the makemkv tool, but what about all the other stuff on the
DVD other than the main feature? Can you just rip this separately if you want?
I do like the idea of having all the main features together in one place. The
menue systems can get painful. Perhaps I'll swing between the two depending on
the DVD.

Any other options other than mkv files? Can you just keep the main feature in
its normal format?

[WinoOutWest]

Well I'm no expert on this but my understanding is that the MKV doesn't re-code anything it just changes the container - so it remains the same quality as your original (and the same size).

I always strip out all the extras so I'm not sure what the options are there.

(I actually use XBMC for all my video content - its really is pretty slick)  I just started using MC DNLA Server to XBMC.  Gives me all the power of JRiver's DB and smartlists with the killer interface of XBMC.

(just my $0.02.)
Cheers!