So after huge amounts of frustration, it has come down to lots of Diagnostics.Process calls with StandardError and StandardOutput redirected to files which then get ReEx-ed to work out the contents of a dvd, rip specific streams (demux), then recombine specific streams (mux).

This, however, is proving incredibly difficult so I thought I’d share my annoyances:

1. DvdDecrypter – has proven fantastic for me in the past, so tried to use it here to demux the dvd into streams on my HD.
Tip: make sure you change the settings to not write anything to registry else it will fail to close cleanly.
Pro: Great command line functionality
Con: is out of date and does not handle current dvd encryption.

2. DvdFab – apparently the best thing since Decrypter went out of date.
Pro: Command line is almost as easy as Decrypter’s
Con: doesn’t work. It just dies on my pc, so this is a non-starter

3. SmartRipper
Pro: Decent command line support
Con: Throws up a “could not unlock dvd” upon opening which means it won’t rip. you have to be playing the dvd at the time that you open SmartRipper for it to get access to the contents of the dvd. This is fiddly, but doesn’t totally remove it from the running (could use “mplayer dvd:// -endpos 00:00:10” just as I kick off SmartRipper if necessary)

4. mencoder – After masses of trial and error with the various options, I’m now using this to mux the streams back into one file. Can I use this to also rip the dvd in the first place? It seems like I can, but once again – not recent dvds.

This is SO annoying! I just want to backup my dvd collection with some nice command line tomfoolery! ARGH!