A topic I feel I can be useful with.
I spent months trying to work it out and when I finally did I ended up changing the way I did it several times.
I use Dvd decrypter in the same way you do, then I use a program called Gordian Knot. I haven't used it for a little while so I hope I get it all right. Gordian Knot is free and it works with both Vista and XP as far as I know. I have only used it on Vista myself, but I think it was originally written for XP.
I had a quick look for the download and you can find it here
http://www.doom9.org/index.html
You'll need to click downloads on the left.
Gordian knot and the codec pack for it are the first two downloads on the page. Under the first heading "Rippacks" (You'll need both ("Gordian Knot rippack 0.35.0 pack2" and "Gordian Knot Codec Pack 1.9"))
You'll need to install both (obviously) the codec pack can be a little annoying since it is a bunch of different installers in one big installer. The codecs may be outdated so if one trys to install and you have a newer version of it then just click cancel on its installer and then the codec pack will simply move onto the next codec.
A bit of a warning, it has 1000's of different options, so if you fool around with it too much you can end up with some big problems.
Now step by step
1. Use DVD decrypter to create the VOB files. I think you need it in "IFO" mode but I'm assuming you know how to use it.
2. Open up Gordian Knot and go to the ripping tab, click the little filmstrip button under the second heading "2. Prepare the VOBs"
3.DGIndex (a separate program will open (its a part of Gordian Knot) will quite quickly create an index file used in the next step of encoding.
4. Go File then open, and select the vob you created, if it works right the vob will open and you can look through it. Use the tools at the bottom to select the range of your program (so you can cut out the credits or select an individual episode if the dvd had all the episodes in the same chain)
5. Go file, Save, then let it do its thing.
Hopefully this isn't too complicated. I am doing some of this from memory so hopefully I'm right... if I'm not then let me know.
6. Back in Gordian Knot we will want to select the setting you want before we open the newly created .d2v file (which is the index we just made)
7. On the Bit Rate Tab you can the codec, container (avi, ogm, mkv) and plenty of other settings. Leave them all alone except the ones I say, things like duration are set by the program later.
8. You want Avi as the container so choose that. Codec can be either DivX 3.11, DivX5, XVid, or X264. You can use whatever you like, I prefer X264 because it gives the best quality for relevant file size, if you have problems anywhere along the way you should change the codec here and try again, as I have sometimes had problems depending on the codec.
9. Under
total file size you can decide how big you want the file to be, 175MB for a half hour episode (more like 20-25 minutes) or 700MB for a movie. I usually have higher numbers as I like nice quality, play with this and see what the results look like, then decide what you like.
10. You should be done here now, I never changed anything else here so it shouldn't be a problem.
11. The next tab is Resolution, the setting can often mess up what your end result is, so be careful... they also rarely seem to change back to something stupid, so if you finish and find you have the wrong size then just come back here and try again.
12.
Width X Height in the middle is what the final resolution will be. Use "Input Resolution" and "Input Pixel Aspect Ratio" to hopefully get what you need, then use the arrows between
Width X Height to get what you need, if you can get it change "W-Modul" and "H-Modul" next to hopefully get what you want. If you have a strange aspect ratio you might have problems but with the right settings you can get everything you need.... worst case you get something very close. It wouldn't matter too much.
13. Subtitles (the next tab) are something I never figured out how to do right
oh well, if you want then see the programs help section (on the same site as you downloaded the program)
14. Everything should be right now, so open your .d2v using the open button in the bottom left of the program, if you do it right you should see your video.
15. Since I don't have d2v file to open I am doing this from memory. Basically you just need to "Save and continue" all the way through, the only thing you need to change here is select the audio track(s) remember to do this each time.
16. You'll need to select the audio track(s) that DGIndex made, they should be in the same folder you put the .d2v file in. In the setting you can choose make sure to encode them to mp3 with a bit rate of something like 128KB/s I think thats the default, if not, then pick something suitable, if you choose "Just Mux" then you might have problems. This is also where you can fix any audio delays, DGIndex should fix any audio problems, although if the dvd has lagging audio (only really possible if its a dvd you made yourself) then I think you can manually edit the delay here (I think) although I never had any problems with audio delay thanks to DGIndex
17. Once that is done and you have gone through everything, then you'll be taken to the "Encoder" tab, It'll ask you if you want to start, if your doing a movie then just say yes, if your doing episodes repeat the steps for all of them and once they are all in the job list click "Start Encoding" however you'll likely want to do one episode by itself first to make sure everything works right.
Once it starts encoding then hopefully it'll work, first you'll see a very simple program open called BeSweet, it'll encode your audio, then when thats done "virtualdubmod" will open and automatically start with the video, if in your codecs settings you have selected two pass, it will go through twice meaning it will take twice as long. Don't close either of the programs that open otherwise you'll kill the process and need to start again. Depending on the file it could take a long time, but considering you have done dvd encoding before you should know this.
Once your done look at the video, if it looks good check the file size, if thats ok then you should be done. Just make sure the video is the correct length and then you can delete all the files you created along the way besides the avi.
Other things to note.
Codec settings are separate to the program, they can mess it up the result and can't be controlled through gordian knot.
Since the codecs are programs installed on your computer you can find them and manually open the setting for them. Usually the default settings are ok though. I know X264 supports multipass encoding, its too complicated for me to explain that myself but you can find info here.
http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/gknot-main6.htm
If all goes well then you should be able to do whatever dvd you like with plenty of different settings... if something goes wrong then say something so I can figure it out.
Also, the site the downloads are on has tutorials, but they were way over my head so I ended up learning a lot of it by myself... I think following steps like the ones I just made is a lot easier than following the tutorials, but feel free to look at them.
To anyone else reading, if you know an easier way with as many options then I'd like to hear it.
Very curious to find out your results.