Ripping a DVD usually involves a GUI application like dvd::rip or thoggen, or something similar. For me, HandBrake put a stop to all that GUI thing.
First of all, when I say that HandBrake is a CLI app, most people immediately go yuck. But I assure you, HandBrake simply doesn't deserve that. It is a powerful DVD ripper, yet it has lots of sane defaults and backstage magic so you really won't be doing too much reading.
For a quick introduction, here's a sample HandBrake usage:
handbrake -L --size 700 -i /dev/sr0 -o movie.avi
What does the above line do? -L option is "use the largest chapter". Usually, the movie on a DVD is the longest chapter and there a many small ones. --size 700 is the target size in MBs.
-i /dev/sr0 means use the device /dev/sr0 as the source device. This is really convenient, because you can copy the contents of the DVD to your hard drive, into a directory, and use that directory as the source, too.
-o movie.avi is the output file. The default options for encoding are using ffmpeg for video and autodetect the sound format according to the extension of the output file. In case of .avi, I suspect it is AC3.
That's it? Yes. That's it. But it can do much, much more. For example, it can find out what subtitle appears only 10% of the time, and treat that as forced subtitles (those that appear, for example, when a foreign language is encountered). It can use many formats for both video and sound, my favourite being Matroska with xvid video encoding and OggVorbis sound. This format can include multiple audio channels within the same file, and HandBrake can create such video from a multilanguage DVD...
All in all, I think this command line tool is as easy or easier to use than most GUI rippers (except, maybe, Thoggen, which is an excellent tool), and if your needs are simple, you may even be better off using this instead of those GUI tools.
