Getting video files from DVD

QuickTime with the MPEG-2 component is supposed to be able to do that. I don't know of anyone doing it successfully though. Is this a commercial Hollywood movie, or a home movie? QuickTime will not break the encryption on commercial Hollywood movies. There are legal issues to consider when attempting to break copy protection.

Can I use Quicktime to capture video files from a DVD?

QT does not support VOB (muxed MPEG-2 DVD content) files natively. Even with the MPEG-2 component installed, it will not support muxed AC3 audio. The normal approach here is to use an MPEG-based, third party application to extract/convert the VOB content to a more friendly QT compatible compression format. For your purposes, it sounds as if the free HandBrake application may be what you are looking for until you gain more experience in working with these file formats.

You need mpegStreamclip plus Apple's mpeg 2 playback component (also linked to from here):

http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/mpegstreamclip.html

HandBrake (aka MediaFork) works great for converting DVD to iPod video. I used it a lot until I ran into certain DVDs that didn't convert properly. There are some bugs in the software. I then switched to VisualHub, which is much slower, creates noticeably higher quality video, has a different set of bugs, and cost $23. I also have QuickTime Pro, but I haven't created any iPod videos with it. I don't have the QuickTime MPEG-2 component.