Ripping doesn't affect the disc in anyway.

If the film on the disc is in VTS/VOB format (easy to find out, put it in the computer then right click on the D: drive in MY COMPUTER, click EXPLORE and if you have it, double click the VIDEO_TS folder and you should see this;



If so, you can rip the disc to your PC using DVDShrink (google it - it's free ) This will rip it in the same files as you see above (VTS), which should be playable in Windows Media Player. If you want it to be a single video file, like and AVI or MP4, then you need to use a programme to convert the files you ripped. One such programme is AUTOGK (again, google it, it's free) This converts the files into one single AVI/XviD/DivX file, which will be a fairly small size (ie, 700mb to fit on a CD, but you can specify what size you would like it to be) Some DVD players support AVI, but not all.....

Alternatively, you can use Nero 8 to rip a DVD directly to MP4 format. This might not natively play in Windows Media Player on the computer, so you might need codecs to do so. Very few DVD players have MP4 support, so it probably won't work in 95% of DVD players either....