The above guide by Mr. Belvedere is a very solid one but, I personally don't care for Ripit4ME (i find it way too slow)or BurnAware not as feature rich app as I would like it to be.
I am in no way saying that they are not good apps , I just don't care for them.
I have been doing DVD movies with Shrink for years (one of the best Programs out there).I Used
DVD Decrypter 3.5.4.0.,then move on to
DvdFab HD Decrypter (it supports riping all the new Copy protections), FixVTS and I out put all my movies in ISo from shrink so I can burn them with
ImgBurn.
AutoGK and /or MediaCoder is what i use for my Divx/xVid needs.
the above has worked Quite well for me.
I just stated the above as an alternative.