not sure about the top five, but I know that AnyDVD and SVD Shrink are among the top best scroll through the software section and check out the reviews there...
I would recomment anydvd with clonedvd2..ya you have to pay for them..but they are worth it. Anydvd takes of the DVD protection, and just a couple clicks with clonedvd2 and you make a copy of your DVD. Also you can choose which parts of the DVD you want, for example, if you just want the movie itself and not the extra crap like interviews..just uncheck all of the other titles.
nero does take its time to burn stuff though. i was a burning a movie the otehr day and it took 2 and a half hours were as power to go took 49 mins. theres a big defference. id perfer power to go as long as you have k-lite or ffdshow installed so it can encode the movie
I would say CloneDVD 2, i use this software to burn all my movies, and i think it takes only takes nearly 5-8 megs i think..don't remember, but i'll check out my software out againg, but yeah, I'd recommend...these three apps DVD dycrypter DVD Shrink CloneDVD 2...