If you're trying to capture DVD video content, the free VLC media player actually does a really good job, and it will rip content-protected DVDs (at real-time play speed.)

http://lifehacker.com/397573/master-...media-with-vlc

It's of course nowhere near as fast as a hardware solution, but it's free and of decent quality.

If you're capturing analog video, a hardware MPEG capture/encoding card will be your best bet. The software encoders in my experience, unless you have a VERY fast machine, tend to produce glitchy video.

Also, little known fact: With a DVD that isn't copy protected, you can simply copy the Video_TS folder to your local drive, change all the .VOB files to .MPG, and they will be playable, editable, and transcodeable directly, no ripping required.