mate this is dead simple and you don't need to bother with capture cards or any other shit like that - assyrix has already answered the question as well as it can be answered. I'll elaborate on it with more detail.

First thing you need to do is download the shit you need, see assyrix's post for the links to DVDDecrypter and VirtualDub, I'd also suggest downloading XVID to compress the files with.

After installing those 3 things, the first thing you need to do is rip the DVD onto your HDD with DVDDecrypter.

After installing it, pop your DVD into the machine and load it up (also disable 'check for new versions' somewhere in the options menu). Go to 'Mode' and select IFO. In the right of the window you should see the chapters, make sure the ones with the scene(s) you want are ticked and deselect the rest (or leave them all checked and sort that later if you don't know where the scenes are, it's not important). Select your destination to save the files and press the button to start (where the green arrow is).

After it's finished ripping load up VirtualDub and click Video > Fast Recompress. Then click File > Open File, then open the .VOB file containing the scene(s) you want. Scroll along to the start of scene you want and go to Edit > Set selection start. Then scroll to the end of the scene and do Edit > Set Selection end. Then go to File > Save as. Tick the box that says 'Dont run this job now', then at the bottom where it says Compression (under Video) click Change.

If you installed XVID (not sure if the program you score with allows you to import MPEG-4 avi's I would imagine it should), then scroll down and select XVID MPEG-4 Codec. Click on Configure and it will bring up the XVID Configuration window. Select 'Advanced Simple @ L5' for the profile and click 'more'. Probably best to uncheck everything except Adaptive Quantization then press OK. Under Encoding type, set that to single pass, and then set the target quantizer depending on what kinda quality you're aiming for, set the Target quantizer to between 2 and 6 (lower = better quality) then press OK. Select the name you want and then press OK to save it. Then you can do a new scene from the same VOB if you want, or open another VOB and select scene(s) from there etc. Then once you've got all the scenes saved that you want to encode, press F4 to bring up the job window, and press Start, and it will do them all one after the other.

The time takien to compress the files depends on the speed of your machine, the quality settings you used, and the amount of scenes you chose, but it shouldn't take long at all really, my PC is a beast but it takes just a few minutes for a scene so I imagine a half decent PC should only take 15-20 minutes max for a few minutes long scene.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ January 22, 2006 03:21 PM: Message edited by: Bnew ]</font>