DVD ripping program

I'm trying to create .avi or .mpeg, or anything really, files from DVDs.  I've tried four popular programs found through google and torrent searches, but always end up with unsatisfactory results.  Either the program crashes in some way, or I get errors, or the resultant file is broken somehow.  Once I spent about 6 hours testing and re-encoding a movie, and the farthest I got was a working video and unsynched sound.

What the hell program to you use to rip DVDs?

The combination of DVD Decrypter and AutoGordianKnot works good and is pretty easy to use.