save a DVD on hard drive

I am new to Macs (had my for about a week) and loving it.
I recently had all my home movies transfered to DVDs and wanted to save them on my hard drive and then edit them with imovie.

Is there a program that will allow me to save my dvds to the MAC. Right now the MAC will play the dvd - but will not allow me to save it.

Thanks for the help,
Zach

Handbrake will do what you want.
Put the DVD in and Handbrake will save it as a file that iMovie can edit.

Is MPEG-4 a good format for editing, though?

Yes. As others have previously suggested. Handbrake is the way to go.

What about MacTheRipper?

thanks for the tip - handbrake worked well.

one question - handbrake indicated the dvd was 38 minutes but when ripped only 19 minutes converted - any suggestions.

Zach