This quick little guide will tell you how to get from your DVD to an Matroska (MKV) file.
  1. Robot4Rip to transfer your raw data from DVD to hard drive and encode the audio.
  2. GordianKnot (with XviD) to encode the video.
  3. ChapterGrabber to add chapter titles to the chapters. (optional)
  4. VirtualDubMod to combine the audio & video into a MKV file.
I learned most of this info via the guides at Doom9, my fav site for video encoding discussion. Plus a little bit of my own experience/experimentation.

INSTALLATION

Goto Doom9's software page. From here you can download the latest versions of Gordian Knot Rippack and Gordian Knot Codec Pack. These packs install a lot of different software and it may look a little daunting, but if you just follow the instructions, everything should work out.

You can get ChapterGrabber here. If that link doesn't work, goto this thread in the Doom9 forum.

VirtualDubMod actually comes with the Gordian Knot Rippack, but I had problems using Gordian Knot. Go here to grab the latest version of VirtualDubMod, unzip the file to the folder of your choice. Then, in the Gordian Knot options window, you can manually select the folder where you unzipped VDubMod.

For playing back files I recommend the free version of The Core Media Player (TCMP). It supports MKVs very well. Be careful when installing because this player is meant to play a wide variety of audio & video files; the installation program may change the file associations on your computer.

STEP 1 - Ripping the DVD to the hard drive

Insert the DVD in the DVD-ROM drive of your computer. Start up Robot4Rip program. There is probably a shortcut installed in the Gordian Knot directory of you startmenu. Robot4Rip will analyze the DVD and display the following screen:

In the left column you choose the program chain that represents the movie. More than likely the program will select it automatically, otherwise you can select it manually yourself. In the middle column, there is a listing of audio and subtitle tracks available. Check off the tracks that you want to retain. Note that MKV files can handle multiple audio and subtitle tracks (I'm not sure if there's a limit at all), but using them takes up space in the final product reducing the quality of the video. You can also right click on the audio tracks to select the preset you want to use. There are six presets setup automatically. If you want to add more, simply goto audio preferences in the menu. I recommend Ogg 0.2 for movies, and Ogg 0.4 for music videos. Ogg offers superior quality at low bitrates meaning that video improves.

Just underneath these windows are a list of options. Simply click on the button to add or remove that step of the process. The steps are:

  1. Rip
  2. ISO Image
  3. PGC Rip
  4. Demux
  5. Audio
  6. Subtitles
  7. Chapter
  8. Finalize
  9. Start