the internet being what it is, it's hard to decipher what adds for "free" programs are legit and what are trash.

I have dvds of converted home videos (from the 90's... thanks Mom) that I want to convert to digital so that I can destroy the hard copies that are taking up space, and also give soft copies to said mother.
what do you use? how do you like it?

something simple is all I need.

I use makemkv

https://www.makemkv.net

Take a look at vidcoder.

https://vidcoder.net/

I would suggest using H.265 as the output codec.  It's extremely space efficient.

This. It can even handle 4K UltraHD discs with Dolby Vision. Provided you have the appropriate drive with the appropriate firmware, of course.

Thanks guys. ????

MakeMKV is great for getting the files off of disk but essentially makes a full image of the disk (so a MKV can be 4+ GB). If coming straight off of DVD, HandBrake is my go to.

What I typically do is rip disks to MKV using MakeMKV then encode the video down to a smaller file using HandBrake (typically a .m4v file). I've found this process goes much quicker compared to ripping straight off of the disk (as you process at the speeds of the hard drive once you get the MKV on local storage).

Ripping a Bluray disk to MKV takes up a lot of space...32 GB so re-encoding that to 2-4 GB file makes a lot more sense when you have limited storage.

Handbrake or MakeMKV.

This is what I do also.. MakeMKV to Handbrake, I recycled one of my old laptops with a bad LCD screen (plugged HDMI output to a old TV) to run MakeMKV on and save the ripped files to a folder on my Data NAS then can use my big PC to encode to the final folder on the Plex server NAS with Handbrake. I set up the queue in Handbrake with all the new files and start them when I head off to bed and they are either all done or are close to being done in the morning when I wake up.

Another vote for this.  Rip from disk with MakeMKV then run it through Handbrake and add to Plex. I find the default settings in in Handbrake to be adequate.