There may be info in past threads, but I will give you my 2 cents. ok, if you want to rip a dvd onto your hard drive, I recommend mac-the-ripper. It is a great program for ripping. As far as copying goes, the best and cheapest software I have found is called Popcorn by Roxio. I downloaded it a couple of months ago for $50. I had searched forever for a free copying software to no avail. But with mac-the-ripper for free and buying popcorn you are only $50 in the hole. I think it is worth it.
There is a program called Handbrake that can convert dvds to mpeg, avi, or h264. After ripping the dvd with MacTheRipper, you can just use the video_ts folder as the source.