Importing DVD's into iTunes

Cate1976

Note to Mods: Hope this post isn't breaking rules.

I have some DVD's which don't have copy protection on them which I'd like to import into iTunes and then onto my iPod Classic. How do I do this? I'm guessing that I can't do it from within iTunes and that I need to get some preferably free software to do it. I know that format shifting maybe a grey area legally but I don't see the difference between putting DVD's without copy protection onto my iPod, importing CD's I own into iTunes to play on my iPod. Any DVD's I have which do have the copy protection built in will not be imported, I'll either just watch the DVD's or for a few of my favourites will buy them from the iTunes store. How is what I want to do with unprotected DVD's different from what I'm sure many people my age, 30+ would have done when copying CD's onto tapes to play in the car before cars had CD players in them?

Thanks to anyone who can tell me the cheapest and easiest way to do this.

Cycrow

legally, you can make a backup of media as long as you dont break any copy protection to do it.

so anything without copy protection should be fine.

obviously you then cant sell the original cd and keep the copy.

There is plenty of free software out there to rip the DVD and encode it into some video format thats compatible with iTunes

wba31

One piece of software is Handbrake which is free. Ive been using it for about 5 years...