My family going on a car trip to Garden City, Utah on Friday, like we do every year. It’s painfully long, at about 15 hours on the road the first day, and about 3 the next day (including meals, breaks, etc). So, I have Netflix and I want to rip some DVDs to watch in the car on my laptop (WinXP). I don’t want to have the physical DVDs to carry around, just the files on my laptop. I’ve got around 30 gigs free, so I should be able to do it without too much compression.
My basic question is:
I have DVDFab Decryptor, and I’ve got the DVD’s files on my HD. Now, how do I play them? 
Oh, and I’m looking for freeware here.
I don’t know anything about that particular program, but just make sure that if you’re gonna watch porn in the backseat, to put a blanket over you and make sure the headphones are plugged in.
$.02
I didn’t check the “Perv” box when I signed up for Netflix, so I’m not eligible to get those movies. Sorry. 
If you’re implying that I do…well, I don’t. I’m much more mature and responsible than that.
Plus, I’m not subscribed to Netflix…though I’m considering Gamefly…but that’s for another thread.
I know, I didn’t think you would.
Back to the thread’s topic, I downloaded Dr. DivX and am currently converting “Thumbtanic and Thumbwars Double Feature” to DivX. I hope after the estimated 3 hours is up, it will actually work… :o
vlc media player plays nigh on everything, just give it a search on google and it is easily found, one of the best freeware programs around…
Do you have the ISO files? or anothger kind of file? actualy I don’t think it really matters much. Just get VLC Media player, it plays everything. Best program ever and if you don’t already have it then you are missing out.
damn beaten to it
Not only does VLC work wonders (thanks Ntappin and manic_mark!), but I also went out and bought 100 DVD-Rs to burn on, discounted from 72$ to $30! I just burned my first DVD, after having a DVD burner for over 2 years… Anyway, yay me! 
Thank you Sylvan…errr…unicyclist.com… you changed my life! 
Since he’s a minor we really shouldn’t really be giving this guy adivce on how to steal.
I know you can use the built in Mac DVD player program to play a VIDEO_TS folder. Which the optimal way to rip and watch DVDs when Hard Drive space is not a limitation. Just be sure to delete the files before you send the DVDs back or your stealing. There must be a similar way to do this on a PC
I thought we were just giving advice on ripping his own DVDs to his hard drive so he could watch them later. Sounds well within fair use, though maybe on the wrong side of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act…
Why yes, of course. Why would I ever even consider stealing a movie? Only scum does that… 
He said he netflixed them, so they are rentals. As long as the originals are in his possesion and not sent back, I’d say he was within fair use whether or not that is legally the case or not. But if they are sent back it is clearly a violation.
i dont like to call it stealing.
if you steal something from someone, you deprive them the right to use it.
when you rip a dvd and give it back, they have back what they gave you and can use it as they see fit.
clearly not stealing.
but by all means it’s wrong, blah blah blah, i rip some stuff now and then, no biggie. i’ve got VLC and it plays everything it is great.
yea VLC has gotta be the best video player.
cleary it is not stealing.
No. Last time I tried VLC it didn’t work with the hardware video acceleration on my Nvidia GPU. Playing DVD or HD video used up huge amounts of CPU. It wasn’t making use of the GPU to do the video work.
On a laptop that extra CPU use makes for shorter battery time. On a desktop that extra CPU use can make things choppy.
There are video players out there that will make use of the hardware acceleration on the GPU to play back DVD and HD video. If VLC supports HW acceleration from the GPU it didn’t work for me.