Hello again and thank you all for being so helpful.

I wonder if there is any free program to remove the extras when backing up a DVD. I currently use DVDShrink, but the best I can do is to set a still picture, which is still annoying when playing it. I have used AnyDVD but that's only a trial and I also read a thread saying that it might cause some problems.

Thanks for your help

Use re-author mode in shrink , it will remove the extras and menus , leaves just the movie , you can still skip chapters . Here a link to basic re-authoring
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=77121

Vobblanker is the simplest method i've ever used. Copy the dvd to your drive in file mode, load the folder into vobblanker, click auto blank and everything except the menu and main movie are gone. It also reduces the size of the disc so if you need to compress it's not as much, therefore your copy looks better.

I second VOBBlanker
in the beginning you'll have to learn how to use it but after that it's pretty easy to use

CloneDVD2 also works well for this purpose, and it doesn't have a learning curve.

VobBlanker is a great tool. After using VobBlanker to blank unwanted material I will usually apply MenuShrink to further reduce the size.