This page gives some basic information on making a file based copy or backup of a DVD. I am not supporting illegal copies here, that is clearly wrong, I am talking about making file copies for your own personal use.
A good page to start with is The Hassle-Free Guide to Ripping Your Blu-Ray Collection and this refers to some things to follow.
VLC will also "rip" a DVD, however the command line has proved to be the best way, as follows: vlc dvdsimple:///d:#2 --sout "#standard{access=file,mux=ts,dst=dvdout.mpg}" vlc://quit
but you will need to make sure you use the correct drive letter and title number, the example uses title 2 on drive D. See Rip DVD - VideoLAN Wiki for some more help.
Note that for this I have been using VLC 2.0 and higher:
If when you run MakeMKV you see "This Application version is too old..." search the forums for a new license key, this product is free while in Beta.