I have some seasons of differnt TV shows that I want to rip for playback via my media center.  I'd like to rip each episode to its own separate file so I can delete them after I watch them.  It would also be nice to be able to fast forward though them and to be able to maintain the video and audio quality.  I want something that is pretty well automated so I can pop in a disk and get it started without having to spend an hour configuring it. 

Last night I was messing with DVD-WMV and it has an option to split vobs, but I was still only able to output one single file.  I was thinking about trying DVDshrink to rip and something else to encode, but I thought I'd see if anyone else had some experience with this before I go installing more software that I don't need.

Well, I was able to get seperate VOBs for each episode by going extracting with DVDdecrypter directly.  Now I can convert one at a time with DVD to WMV but when I try to load them to batch process it tells me that it is "Unable to find Audio Track number to use."  When I do them one at a time it gives me another error but I am able to specify the track in the settings and it works.  I'd really like to be able to batch process them.

DVD Decrypter is probably your best free option for doing episode-by-episode rips.

Once you've got your 25 or so VOBs, you'll need to transcode them. The options that Media Center "really supports" are:
1. MPEG-2: VOB (and DVR-MS) is basically MPEG-2 plus a few things. Buy a copy of VideoRedo and mass-transcode them to regular MPEG-2. You'll lose some stuff (secondary tracks  and subtitles coming to mind), but it'll play much more nicely with Media Center. The downside. besides those lost features, is that MPEG-2 is relatively heavy in terms of hard drive space needed.
2. WMV-9/VC-1: The other format that plays well with Media Center is WMV, and WMV9/VC-1 is pretty good to your hard drive when it comes to space (1/3 - 1/2 of the VOB's size). Unfortunately, getting from MPEG-2 to WMV9/VC-1 is difficult - I've not found any transcoders which could do it reliably (AutoMKV and MediaCoder included).

I am guessing that the transcoding does not take too long to convert the files since the VOBs are MPEG-2 files to begin with?

I personally use autoGK to convert dvd vobs into DivX (or Xvid, whichever you prefer)

it's pretty simple, and very easy to set up batch jobs

this is a dvd example, for tv shows, for 1 hour I aim for 350ish Mb, for 1/2 hour 175ish Mb

I tried the demo of VideoReDo and it seems to work pretty well.  I'll have to test the files tonight when I get home.  They are pretty large.  Stinks to have to pay 50 bucks for something just to batch convert Vobs to MPEG.  It is very clean and simple to use though. 

As far as AutoGK, I am using XBox 360s as extenders, I have heard that you can play Xvid or DivX now on the 360 but I am not sure if this works via the extender or not.  Does AutoGK need to install or does it run direclty from an executable?

you'd need to install it

it's just a gui wrapper for a bunch of video apps

transcode360 should stream xvid/divx np

Ok, I am liking the DVD decrypter/Videoredo solution.  Not much interaction needed and since I am not archiving them I am not worried that much about space.  Only problem is, the video is jerky.  Seemed like the PQ was better than the WMV that I made (as it should be).  I am guessing that this is a videoredo issue.  I am using the TV Suite version and I noticed that the system requirements are much steeper than Plus version.  I wouldn't think this would matter since they are both going to use the same engine to perform the same task.  I was running it on my laptop here at work, (don't tell the boss).  It's a Pentium M 1.6Ghz w/ 1.25 GB ram.  You think I need to run it on a faster computer?  Do I need to disable my firewall and network magic before I run it?  Or should I try the Plus version instead?

I could set it to run on my mediacenter PC which is a Athlon XP dual core without much besides mediacenter (MCE 2005) software installed on it.  As long as it isn't going to mess up my mediacenter installation.

maybe I'm missing something here...

you mentioned that you're not archiving them. 

are you wanting to just transcode on the fly? or are you wanting to convert a dvd to some other format, to keep on a hard drive that you can access whenever?

They are TV episodes, I plan on deleting them as I watch them.  Say I want to get through the first season of 24 that I have laying down on the shelf somewhere.  I'll rip them all to the HDD and watch them when I get time.  If I delete them after I watch them its easy for me to tell which ones I have seen.

This is why I don't want to have to spend alot of time setting each one up.  I just want to throw in a disk, hit a few buttons and let 'er rip.

gotcha

I think maybe you just need to google up transcode360 then

you don't need to actually convert them then, the box will transcode on the fly

Ok, now maybe I am missing something.  I thought the whole point of transcode 360 was so that you could stream DivX to your 360.  That would require that I convert all of the Vobs to DivX so that I can have something constantly running in the background in order to be able to watch them through mediacenter.  How does this bypass the encoding step?

hellerbrewing:

Ok, I am liking the DVD decrypter/Videoredo solution.  Not much interaction needed and since I am not archiving them I am not worried that much about space.  Only problem is, the video is jerky.  Seemed like the PQ was better than the WMV that I made (as it should be).  I am guessing that this is a videoredo issue.  I am using the TV Suite version and I noticed that the system requirements are much steeper than Plus version.  I wouldn't think this would matter since they are both going to use the same engine to perform the same task.  I was running it on my laptop here at work, (don't tell the boss).  It's a Pentium M 1.6Ghz w/ 1.25 GB ram.  You think I need to run it on a faster computer?  Do I need to disable my firewall and network magic before I run it?  Or should I try the Plus version instead?

I could set it to run on my mediacenter PC which is a Athlon XP dual core without much besides mediacenter (MCE 2005) software installed on it.  As long as it isn't going to mess up my mediacenter installation.

Does anyone have an answer to my previous question?

transcode360 will transcode a ton of stuff to a format the 360 will understand

TMPGEnc Xpress 4.0 does it all for you as you described (as long as you have AnyDVD)

Yes, its not so cheap ($100) but is soooo good. It will also take advantage of your dual core and let you convert two DVDs at the same time.

Have a stab with the trial version, I have been using it after trying all manner of free solutions and I would never go back.