DVDShrink will produce .VOB files. You will probably want to convert them to DivX or Xvid, because these formats take up less space on your hard drive when you're finished.
You can play the VOB files individually, but they're usually only about 20 minutes long apiece. So you have to play one and then open the next one. Or you can get software that will "pretend" to be a separate disk drive on your computer. You can load a disc folder into it just like you would load a disc into a real, physical drive, and then you can watch it as if it were a real, physical DVD. (You can also use DVDShrink to burn to an .iso file, which most emulators can read, instead of several smaller VOB files, but software like PowerDVD cannot read an .iso file.) I've used
DaemonTools in the past, which fortunately is freeware although it will give you the option to install some other things you don't need at the same time.
The downside of using an emulator is that you have to keep the entire DVD (up to 9 GB!) on your hard drive for the emulator to be able to load it. That's a lot of space to take up with one video. It's useful if you want to watch it once or twice and then delete it, but it's not particularly useful over the long term. If you want to store video on your computer for a longer period of time you'll want to convert it into a format that takes up less space (like DivX or Xvid).
Also, if you want to be able to watch it on a portable device (like a video iPod or Sony PSP), you'll want to convert it into a format that device can read. Most if not all of these devices cannot read VOB files.
I hope that helps!
Kaylle
