Looking for commercial software to evaluate? Check out general dvd software.

IRC Channels

EfNet: #pcdvd - all about tinkering with the DVD format, including ripping
EfNet: #divx-rippers - the DivX ripping specialists

Newsgroups

DVDDigest Forum - The official DVD Digest and DivX Digest forum
FlaskMpeg Forum - The official FlaskMpeg forum
bbMPEG User Group - The forum for bbMPEG
Hydrogenaudio - Probably THE newsgroup for advanced, high quality audio encoding

DVD Ripping news

Oleg's Site - THE site for DVD ripping news (after this one of course ;)
DivX Digest - One of the most comprehensive DivX pages on the web
DivX.com - DivX News and Downloads
mpegx.com - Daily news of MP3, DVD, CD-R/RW Softwares
http://www.bestdownload.com/- The place to get all the best programs, games, mp3 and emulator, UPDATED DAILY
DVD Universe - Large collection of Articles, Tutorials and Reviews related to DivX and DV in common

Ripping Tools homepages

Audio related

AC3DEC - dos based ac3 decoder
AC3 Delay corrector homepage
AudioCoding.com - home of AAC encoding utilities
BeSweet homepage
BeSweet GUI homepage
Dark Avenger's place - home of HeadAC3he and DSEnc
Lame binary site - always has the latest build compiled for Windows
MP3Trim homepage
Morgan Multimedia - home of the Morgan Stream Switcher
Normalize
OGG Homepage
PsyTEL Research homepage
R3mix.net - THE MP3 site
Rarewares - excellent collection of audio encoding utilities
SSRC homepage
TFM Audio filter homepage
Toolame homepage

AVI Editing

AsfTools - tools to manipulate ASF and WMV files
AviDefreezer - fix freezed frames without reencoding
AVIUtl Homepage
DivX ;-) Repair Guide- read here how to repair corrupt DivX downloads
OggMux homepage
Project DivX - MM4 tool
VirtualDub - the most powerful app for linear video editing

Calculators

ABRCalc homepage

Codecs

3ivx Homepage
DivX Codec Homepage
DivX Antifreeze homepage
Ogg Vorbis homepage
OpenDivX homepage
VP3 homepage
XviD Homepage
XviD binaries

Descrambling / Ripping tools

CladDVD
DVD Decrypter

Decoders

DVD2AVI
FlaskMpeg - the easiest program to use
FlaskMpeg DeCSS
FlaskMpeg subtitlefix
Xmpeg homepage

DivX / MPEG-4 Encoders

Avirevolution
DivX4log - the DivX4 logfile editor
FairUse : www.doom9.org ;)
FUBatch homepage
FlaskQT
Gordian Knot
GUI for mpeg2avi/ac3dec/vstrip - Home of the mpeg2avi and VobDec GUI
idM4C
I-Media - home of the mpeg2avi ds filter
M4C
Mpeg2Avi
Mpeg2Avi 2 - Iker's builds
MPEG4IP - home of open source MPEG4 utilities
Morphix homepage
mov2avi homepage
Nandub - SBC encoding utility
Vidomi homepage
WME GUI homepage

Filters

Donald Graft's filter page
GreedyHMA homepage
I-Media - some really useful Direct Show filters
MoonlightSoftware
Ogg Vorbis Direct Show filter implementation

Launchers

BSPLauncher homepage
Compact Disc Autorun homepage
DivX CD launcher homepage
MicroDVD Autorun homepage
movie.exe homepage

Media Players

BSPlayer
Eugene's DVD player - a freeware replacement for the DVD station
GdivX
Micro DVD Player
PowerDivX NextGen
RadLight
Sasami2k
Tha Playa
ZoomPlayer

MPEG1/2 Encoders

avi2vcd
bbMPEG
CCE
DVD2SVCD
DVDx
SVCD Tools - home of the QT reader for TMPG and mov2avi
TMPGEnc

RegionFree Tools

DVD Genie homepage

Subtitles

Radioactive pages - home of SubCreator
Ripitall - homepage of Subadjust and synchronizer
S3Converter homepage
SubRip - great subtitle ripper
Subripper - another good subtitle ripper
SubSynch - homepage
VirtualDub subtitler plugin homepage
VobSub Plugin - add subtitles to your avis directly from DVD

Support Utils

AviSynth Homepage
AVISplitCalc homepage
CDMage homepage
CDRDAO Homepage - open source CD burning util
Homepage of the modified AviSynth versions
mpeg2dec homepage
MicroDVD Player Menu Maker homepage

SVCD Tools

mpg2mps - converts a regular mpeg2 file into an I-author compatible mps file
pulldown.exe homepage
TTools Site - home of TSCV
TSCV download site
VCDEasy homepage
VCDGear homepage
VCDImager
VCDImager GUI homepage
VideoServer homepage

VOB Tools

bbTools homepage
ChapterXtractor
DVTool Homepage - Swiss army knife for digital video
IfoEdit homepage
I-media filemerger homepage
VobSplit Homepage
Vstrip Homepage - need I say more?

General Rip Software Sites - here you might find "test versions" of commercial softwares

Apachez's site - contains a good collection of DVD related software
Anti MPAA- contains all the rippers so enter at your own risk
Q-Bert's Site
VCDSpain - spanish rip site, contains a pretty good software archive

If you can't find the soft you're looking for on these sites don't bother asking me.. these are the only places I know of. 

Other DVD ripping related sites

DivX Digest - depending on whom you ask the best/2nd best DivX site on the web (you can guess which the other is)
Purpleman's place - DivX and SVCD guides
Sarek's 1CD guide
VCDHelp.com - probably the most comprehensive VCD site out there.
Kalel's Rip Guides
Inwards SVCD Guide
Millenium Bug's SVCD Guide
SVCD Overview
(S)VCDs and how to make one - VCD and SVCD guides
DVDBackup - a Spanish site dedicated to backing up DVDs
DVD2MPG.com - a French site dedicated to DVD ripping
DVD Rip e DivX - Italian DivX ripping site
Tsunami's Parameter site
DivX IRCNet - The IRCNet DivX web site for the channel(s): #DivX, #DivXMovies, #DivX.nl, #DivX.se and many more
Inethaber : Turkish dvd-divx news and download site

Thinking about getting a new DVD Drive? Check here first to see if you can get regionfree firmware.

General DVD news

The Digital Bits
The DVD Resource
The DVD File
Area DVD - German DVD news
DVD Inside - another German DVD news site
DVDFR.com - French DVD news
The R2 Project - UK DVD news

I've tested almost every DVD player you can get on the market today. Most of them are crap. However I found 2 that really rock and I strongly suggest you get either one of them. They're also the only ones that work on Windows2000. A word about Cinemaster: Lots of people tell me that it's faster and better than any other player. Well... I tried it and it was painfully slow and crashed all the time. Besides I'm using W2Kk now and Cinemaster 2000 uses the windows region codes which is a real problem for W2K users because you can only change the region once and the patch to reset that counter does not always work.  

Beware: The above links provide full version of those players. They're for educational purposes only.

PowerDVD - Simply the best DVD Player: Geforce Motion Compensation, W2k and DTS Support, Zoom for 16:9 titles.

WinDVD - Geforce Motion Compensation, W2k Support and they'll even make a Linux DVD player <g>.

Cinemaster - the first to fully support the ATI card but now WinDVD has catched up.

DVD Hardware

Philips DVD Recorder - The Philips DVD Recorder lets you record TV shows or transfer video to DVD using DVD+RW - the new standard for DVD Recorders
DVD Writers - A site reporting the latest news on DVD recorders/writers