DVD issues

[csnyder]

This is such a lame bunch of questions, but I've been working on this nearly all day, and I'm tired and frusterated, and I want guidence.

I got a LiteOn dvd-rom for Christmas, and just installed it, however, the sound is very faint, even though my volume is all the way up. I have an Asus P4S533 MB with an onboard soundcard (not sure why I went that route, but...) so I plugged the audio card into the aux1 plug right next to the game/audio module. I'm not sure why I'm not getting a better sound level. Anyone have any hints? Is my embedded soundcard just too weak (I get better levels from files I play off my HD)? Is it the software I'm using?

Is all dvd playing-software alike? I went onto downloads.com, and looked at the reviews, but even the most popular programs got mixed reviews. I have PowerDVD, which I don't really have a complaint against, but I was thinking my volume problem was relate to the software. (I dl windvd and the volume was a *little* better, but it's a lot of money.)

Also....how complicated is it to rip dvds? Eveerything I've seen telling you how to do it involves like 4 programs, like what is described here (I wasn't able to get this working, as I couldn't get the flask program to run.) If this is a typical way of doing things, I'll just pursue, but I'd like some verification on this.

Thanks in advance.