Newbie just wants to rip and play my exercise DVDs!

[kikinyc]

I have a Macbook air but am not very tech savvy. I have stacks of exercise DVDs that I want to rip and play on my mac, and also burn dvd copies of.

I need to retain the chapter titles within the dvds as I often go to a particular chapter for a specific workout. I would love to be able to edit the chapters themselves (like take out the boring part where the instructor talks, or delete exercises I don't like) but this is not a must at this point.

Most importantly, I'd like to do everything with a minimum of tech knowledge or fuss. Can anyone guide this newbie to the easiest to use options? I would be happy to pay for software that actually works.

Here's what I've tried so far:
-Purchased Wondershare Video Creator-- simply did not work. They provided me with Wondershare Ultimate Video Converter-- registration never worked. Horrible products, I am currently trying to get a refund.

-Make MKV-- I've been able to rip my DVDs using this. But I can't burn them. Also playback is not consistent--when I play, the audio on some dvds is garbled.

-VLC player. This seems to work to play the MKV files at least.

-Handbrake. Googling online all the tech people seem to use this. Honestly I am not quite sure what it does or why I need it. I tested it out-- I took one of my MKV files I ripped, then converted it to a MP4 (no idea what this means it was the default). Seemed to work ok, but there are no chapter headings anymore.

Now I have all these downloads and multiple copies of the same DVD in different formats-- I am utterly confused. Can anyone give me the "dummies" version of the exact process I should follow to accomplish what I described above? Where should I be saving all my dvds and in what format? Are there better/easier programs I should use? I do not really care about top quallity, I just want to be able to see and hear my video enough so I can follow the exercises. Thank you!

[ctyhntr]

Handbrakes lets you extract the contents of a DVD and converts it to mp4 or mkv files. What you're looking for is something like RipIt, which will let you copy and burn DVDs.