If you want to turn it back into an .avi, so you can edit it, you have to set your regular DVD player up so that you use an S-video cable from the output of that player to go into the S-video input of either an Analog/Digital converter (Canopus ADVC -100 or many other brands/models) or a Digital Camcorder with "Pass-through" (some Sony models do this very well, but only some.) From either of those two, you will use a firewire cable to go to your computer. You start playing the DVD and you just capture as usual. If you don't have an analog to digital converter, then you're in trouble. Because the worst ones start at about $150.

I have achieved pretty good results with a generic USB 2.0 S-video equipped interface I picked up at CompUsa for $49. I can capture raw uncompressed AVIs from my DVD player at 720x480 29.97fps with no dropped frames using VirtualDub. I haven't been able to use any other capture apps, but VirtualDub works great. The interface is based on the Empia EM2800 chip which is not as widely supported as some others. To cut down on disk space, the PICVideo MJPEG compressor looks great and I will probably be using that for what little video capture I will be doing.

This will actually give better results than an external S-video to DV converter as you have the choice of what compression to use, if any. Some folks aren't happy with settling for DV from their original analog sources. My intent is to use this to archive my Hi8 family videos, at the best resolution I can.

Be aware that Macrovision might cause problems. This interface goes black with one of my DVD players, but works fine on another.

Randy

Best bet is a Sony D8 camcoder, might be able to pick up one cheap on eBay. The A->D converters in them are pretty good, you get Time Base Correction which is very handy for dodgy VHS and you can kill off M*Vision with it too. You also get Dynamic Noise Reduction, and if you've got any video8 or Hi8 tapes to deal with you can use it as a VCR for them as well.
Not quite as convenient as say the ADVC 300 but a lot cheaper and at times more usefull, at others less so as you don't get the realtime proc amp tweaks.
Bob.

thanks, everyone! I take it I'd also need a converter for RCA compostie as well?

Any converter that has a S-Video input will also have a composite input, certainly the D8 cameras and ADVC 100/300 etc do.

PS: if you're thinking of a video card with inputs.......Forget it. They'll just end up being a big pain in the long run. Usually, most people have problems with video and audio going out of sync after a few minutes. There are a couple of people who seem to have figured it out, but nobody has a universal theory on how it works. An analog to digital converter "locks" the video and audio together every few frames. It's so much easier in the long run that it's worth it. And I'm with farss, as far as recommending a Sony Dig 8 with pass-through. They are usually the more expensive models and you can still find them used on Ebay. I picked one up for about $300. (That was a model Sony TRV-730 which sold new for almost a grand) (PPS: Stay away from "Dazzle" converters too, easiest to find but one of the worst.)

If you decide to re-visit using the VOB files (which is FAR easier and takes a fraction of the time of the approach you are about to use), here are some old links describing how this is done. For the project I just finished, I received five DVDs from the parents of a local basketball player of the video she took of this past season's basketball. I needed three minutes of highlights from five hours of B-ball. I copied the VOB files (at 10x read speed) which took very little time, used Vegas to edit them, and went from there. Very simple.

Here are the links:

VOB files

Straight path for reauthoring

Extracting Video from a DVD image

Thanks for (all) the ideas! I'm not closing the door on anything at this point, so I'll try those links. Thanks.