i'm the oddball here as i never liked handbrake to convert dvd's on a mac as i prefer popcorn. it's not free (current is version 4 for $49.99 but i'm happy with version 3) but it works like a charm-just drag and drop and that's it.
as to ripping dvd's i use mactheripper for both my non-copy protected dvd's and copy protected ones but that's another story