To rip the DVD to your harddrive in .vob format (which is what is used on a DVD), you would simply use something like DVDshrink or just explore the disc and copy the .vob files right off of it. However, to get it into a more usable form (MPEG I, MPEG II, FLV, et cetera), I would recommend getting a transcoder. There are some excellent ones available in Linux, but I will assume you use Windows or Mac. Xilisoft makes a very nice transcoder, but it's not free.
http://www.xilisoft.com/dvd-ripper-platinum.htmlAlso, just as a note, most DVD .vob files are actually just MPEG files with an added RIFF header. You should be able to pull the .vob files off of the DVD (copy & paste), and rename the file from whatever.vob to whatever.mpg and it should play fine. However, you might run into problems trimming the video down or splitting it into multiple segments.
I'm sure all that information probably just obfuscated the issue or frustrated you even more. I will try to think of an easier and free way to do it.