First download and install DVD Decrypter and Auto Gordian Knot. Insert the DVD you wish to rip into your DVD drive and open up DVD Decrypter. (DVD Decrypter is now out of development so you may as well turn off the 'Check for Updates' option when it appears) Go to Mode at the top and choose IFO mode from the menu. This will bring up a list of the video tracks on the DVD on the right hand list, film length for a film DVD or several episode length ones for a TV Show DVD. Select the track you want to rip (taking note of the exact PGC Stream as you will need this number for later) and click on Decrypt on the left. This will take a few minutes. Repeat this process for each track on the DVD you want to encode.
Once the DVD is ripped, close down DVD Decrypter and open up Auto Gordian Knot. In the input file box at the top, browse to the IFO file in the folder that DVD Decrypter ripped to (by default, C:\DVDName\VIDEO_TS). A pop up box will appear asking you to select which PGC you want and you should choose the number of the track you ripped. If you forgot to take note of this it should be fairly easy to work out from the drop down menu. In the Output Box choose the place you want the final file to be created and a name for this file.
Most of the options in the main window are self explanatory, file size, audio track etc. If you click on Advanced you will find options on what audio settings you want and whether to encode to DivX or XviD. Standard options here will be XviD and a VBR mp3 at 160kbps. Leave the Output Resolution set to Auto Width as this will remove the black sections above and below the rip on the video if it is not in 4:3 resolution.
Pressing Ctrl + F9 brings up the Expert settings for the programs. It is advisable not to play with these unless you know what you are doing (or have the time to spend playing with them to learn
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Finally click Add Job to queue up the encode, and click start to start the process off. If you have multiple rips you can queue these up to start as soon as the first encode finishes but just selecting the new IFO/PGC, going through the options and clicking Add Job again. Be warned that the encode process will take a long time, 2 hours or so for a film even on a modern computer.
*quick edit - you'll need a fair chunk of free disk space to do this as DVDs can be quite large. Once you have ripped the DVD to an avi file, you can then delete the other files*
