Help converting DVD to AVI, simply

I apologize in advance if I have missed any guides or threads that directly answer this question. My son recently got a sony(?) LYRA from his grandparents. The only video file extension it supports is AVI. We have approx 200 DVDs that we own and he would like to have some of them to play on the LYRA, for trips etc. My question is what is the simplest way to convert a DVD to a playable AVI format? I say "simplest" because he, my son, will have to perform the conversion and lets just say that his computer expertise ends with how to use AIM.

I thought from one of the guides generously posted on this site that I had a two step method to accomplish this but I failed. I used SmartRipper 2.41 to rip a DVD and then tried to use DVD2AVI to convert it. I did the conversion while I was at work. When I got home last evening I surely had an AVI file for the movie that I was trying to convert, with no audio track at all. I tried to play it, video was fine, no sound. I thought that maybe I didn't have the proper codec for it and ran it through Gspot, and it did not have any audio track.

If I made a mistake in my settings that anyone would know of I would appreciate the proper info. The version of DVD2AVI that I was able to find is 1.77.4. All the guides that I have found through Google don't refer to the version of this program that they are using and it seems that all of the screenshots that are shown in those guides have different dropdown menus than my version. If anyone could point me to a link or a different software title that would make this process easier that would be great. Quality is not the issue, just the simplest method possible(and would be even better if it involved freeware). Thanks to any that reply.

EDIT: I just checked the Codec info for the LYRA and it supports MPEG4-SP, nothing noted about the audio track codec other than for pure audio files of which it lists only MP3 and WMA.

 

My personal method is:

1) convert DVD --> MPEG-1 with SmartRipper, DVD2AVI and TMPGenc http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/dvd2vcd_with_smart_dvd2avi_tmpgenc.cfm
2) compress that MPEG-1 wih VirtualDub, chooseing as compression DivX and 'Portable Profile' (so that the bitrate is 768 kbps max with 0 loss) choosing as Encode Mode 'Multipass - 768 kbps'.
an approcx guide for VirtualDub is in http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/dvd2divx.cfm

In this way you have the minumim size with 0 quality loss with respect a VCD movie (which is good) and a final size from 600 to 800 MB.

 

I rip it ot my HDD with AnyDVD and SmartRipper and then create a *.d2v file with DVD2AVI, as well as a demuxed *.wav file. Then i use VSAPI to create and pseudo-avi file (kind if like a fake avi file) I then use LAME to encode teh wav fiel to mp3 using the '--r3mix' option. I then use VirtualDub to do a 2-Pass XviD encode. Then i use VirtualDubMOD to mux the mp3 and avi files together.

LOL, pretty complicated, but i liek it.

 

Wow, Smart Ripper, r3mix and VFAPI. Someone has been following some old guides.

I would suggest dgindex instead of DVD2AVI. AVISynth instead of VFAPI and -V2/--alt-preset standard/--preset standard instead of --r3mix.

If you want easy, then you should probably use something like AutoGK. Not sure if you can set it to only use SP though.

 

Meh, w/e, it produces what i want. besides, i sue --r3mix because i want VBR audio. I try to follow TDX 2002 pretty close. (TDX 2002 is the standards that movie release groups (pirates) use.

 

Rip to harddisk with DVD Decrypter
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd_rippers/dvd_decrypter.cfm
Process with GordianKnot
or, how 'bout Automatic Gordian Knot (AutoGK) for your son :^)
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/video_capture_tools/autoGK.cfm
using XviD MPEG4 codec.
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/codecs_and_filters/xvid.cfm
Resulting AVI file should be 700MB.
Regards

 

APS, -V2, etc. are also VBR and r3mix has not been a recommended setting for a fair while. Although come to think of it if you use a recent build then it just gets remapped to -V3 (I think?) anyway.

 

Thanks for all of the input. I've got alot to learn about this process. Using DVD Decrypter and AutoGK seem to be the easiest method. However, I tried to encode with AutoGK and had sound but the video was not supported in the LYRA. All I got was green and black horizonital bars. I'm guessing that it is a setting in AutoGK but I can't figure out what it is. AutoGk installed Xvid and it has Windows Start Menu options for Encode Configuration and Decode Configuration but they are invalid links(the .dll's could not be found). Could it be that the codec is not properly installed? Once again, thanks for all of the help.