Once you have your programs at hand, it's time to start converting. I handle this in two separate jobs since I've found that Handbrake doesn't always integrate well with the decryption programs.

First, you put the DVD in your computer. Then, instead of letting your DVD software play the movie, you hop out of your player and open your DVD decryption program. Using these programs requires you to little more than press an icon and off it will go. Do pay attention to where you're placing the files. You'll need that information for the next step. If you're trying to convert a Blu-Ray disk make sure you have lots of room, the unencrypted files can take up to 60GBs of space.

Decryption programs place the files in different places and in different ways. DVD43 and DVD Decrypter places the DVD's actual files in a directory under a version of the name of the movie. MakeMKV actually converts the DVD's files into MKV.

Next, you start up HandBrake and choose whether to convert the video from a folder or from files. If you've used DVD43, DVD Decrypter, or a similar decryption program you should choose to convert the folder -- not the files -- where the videos are now stored. You can go in and cherry-pick the files you want to convert, but I've found this to be a waste of time. HandBrake does a better job than you can of picking and choosing what files you'll need to convert to produce a watchable video.

If you're converting a video file from the Internet or an MKV movie into MP4 you do want to pick out the file. That shouldn't be a problem since the audio and video content will almost certainly be in a single file.