DVD issues

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.

What do you mean by "rip" dvds? Do you mean take the movies off of them and store them on your harddrive or something? I have no idea.

yep, that's what ripping a dvd means. I think I got that part figured out, but I'm still having problems with my sound.

I use PowerDVD and have no problems but have noticed one thing that relates to volume. I had problems getting my Uncle's PC to play some MP3's until I realised when I started up RealPlayer the volume was automatically muted. So this may be the same with PowerDVD. Start it up and check the volume inside it and while it is running check it in the Master Volume Control and maybe try and play some music. If problem persists post back.

DVD Ripping, if you have Kazaa you can get much of the software needed for ripping DVDs with instruction, just try "VCD" or "DVD Rip" in the search engine for software. I've got a suite of things that I'm currently using to change a copy of Two Towers my friend gave me into a VideoCD. You'll probably need to use more than one program though.

Hope I was of some help.

Yeah, I checked the volume within PowerDVD and the master volume...both were all the way up.

Volume issues: Check/uncheck the "Transfer Audio through IDE" property in your DVD-ROM drive's properties. This may solve it.

Ripping: Yes, but usually you can get away with just about 3 (rip DVD VOBS -> HDD, set options, 1- or 2-pass encoder). I use SmartRipper, Gordian Knot, and VirtualDub w/MPEG2 Hack encoding XVID (cvs). Look at doom9.org!

Thanks, it seems like a feasible solution, unfortunately, I can't find that setting. The only thing I found a setting for enabling digital audio for the cd-rom device. :/