i have a pctv pro card installed it has an svideo in socket on the back.i simply plug my dvd player into my pctv card press play on the dvd and record on the tv card i record it in svcd format which is very good quality then run the program through dr divx it works very well for me plus pctv dosnt recognise macrovision so theres no problem copying them .
All these are very nice but you've got to get the PCTV card. If you have it you forget all the other ways. If you don't you do it the software way.
The advantage of doing it the software way is that a digital transfer from DVD to HDD is going to have a much higher quality than an 'analog' transfer using S-Video. Also, when you are converting the MPG (SVCD) to DivX, you will get a more of a loss in quality than when converting the VOB's.
