@peemee Gotcha'! Yea, VLC is the solution to all of those issues, it's when I try to rip some DVDs that things go south quickly unless the region is set to the same as said DVD. Have no idea how it manages to mess with the ripping, I just assumed it read the data stream from the disc, but apparently there is some other magic happening in the background.
Oh well, I might as well invest in a Blu-ray player with USB 3.0 connection and be able to rip in HD as well. A shame, as the SuperDrive is wonderfully compact.