Quick notes about ripping DVDs in 4 commands based on mencoder.

Mencoder supports more formats than transcode.

$ <in>DVD=PATH_TO_DVD</in>
$ <in>cat ${DVD}/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_*.VOB | mencoder -ovc frameno -o frameno.avi -oac lavc -lavcopts acodec=vorbis -alang en -</in>

The first pass generates file divx1pass.log (and uses frameno.avi).

$ <in>VBITRATE=1060</in>
$ <in>mencoder -oac copy -vf scale -zoom -xy 512 -o /dev/null -ovc lavc -lavcopts vbitrate=${VBITRATE}:vhq:vpass=1 -ss 1:00 -endpos 1:30 ${DVD}/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB</in>

The second one generates file divx2pass.log (and uses frameno.avi).

$ <in>OUTPUT=OUTPUT.avi</in>
$ <in>mencoder -oac copy -vf scale -zoom -xy 512 -o ${OUTPUT} -ovc lavc -lavcopts vbitrate=${VBITRATE}:vhq:vpass=2 -ss 1:00 -endpos 1:30 ${DVD}/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB</in>

Once the preview is satisfactory, the same can be done with the full DVD.

$ <in>cat ${DVD}/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_*.VOB | mencoder -oac copy -vf scale -zoom -xy 512 -o /dev/null -ovc lavc -lavcopts vbitrate=${VBITRATE}:vhq:vpass=1 -</in>
$ <in>cat ${DVD}/VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_*.VOB | mencoder -oac copy -vf scale -zoom -xy 512 -o ${OUTPUT} -ovc lavc -lavcopts vbitrate=${VBITRATE}:vhq:vpass=2 -</in>

The default video format is MPEG4. To use e.g., Theora, vcodec=libtheora can be added to -lavcopts.