DVD: Copy-protection fail

I personally prefer the K-Lite Codec Pack over the Combined Community Codec Pack, as being much more evolved.

K-Lite also has as a separate download the K-Lite Codec Pack 64-bit: A bundle of 64-bit DirectShow filters that can be used together with 64-bit players, such as Windows Media Center.

[EDIT]

Please note that some blu-ray copy-protections work better with Windows Media Player or with the software that was furnished with the disc.

Some more advice found in How to play Blu-Ray discs with Media Player Classic :

How to set up Media Player Classic to play Blu-Ray discs

Select View -> Options -> External filters

• Add filter "Haali Media Splitter (AR)", Set merit 00900000, Set Prefer
• Add Filter "ffdshow audio decoder", Set merit 00700000
• Add filter "cyberlink H.264/AVC Decoder", Set merit 00900400
• Add Filter "Sonic Cinemaster Audio Decoder 4.3.0", Set merit 00805000
• Add Filter "ffdshow video decoder", Set merit 00800000 (late fix to stop ffdshow taking over from cyberlink)
• Add Filter "Sonic Cinemaster Video Decoder", Set merit 00700000 (late fix to stop Cinemaster Video taking over from ffdshow video)
• Add Filter "Cyberlink Video/SP Decoder (pdvd7), set merit "prefer" (Try this for some hardware acceleration in Windows XP)
• Add Filter "Nvidia Video Decoder", Set merit "Prefer" (block cyberlink) (try this for hardware acceleration in Windows XP/Vista if you have Nvidia Purevideo)

These codecs and splitters should already be installed by your codec pack. If not, use another codec pack.

Select View -> Options -> Internal filters

• Deselect any mpeg, matroska from the source list
• Deselect any AC3, mpeg from the transport filter list

I would first start by doing the easiest thing, and storing the exact byte-for-byte copy of the discs on your hard drive in .ISO format. There are various software tools that can do this for you, although you will want to find software that can handle any read errors gracefully.

Personally, I would archive all of the media using the H.264 codec, and store the files in .MKV containers. This will allow you to store the DVDs at very high quality, while maintaining a decent file size. Furthermore, the .MKV container allows for you to setup chapters in the video stream, and you can also find tools to convert DVD chapter formats to the MKV-style chapters.

When ripping the video, doesn't this introduce additional errors (because of the decoding/encoding)?

It depends on the condition of the storage media, and what you do with the files afterwards. Most commonly, you might find a few bit errors in the source media. These can be ignored, at the expense of visual artifacts.

You could try to overcome this with software tools that support attempts to read bad sectors off of the media, but in most cases, there's not much you can do except ignore the error (it shouldn't make a huge difference when dealing with video streams). If the actual MPEG transport stream itself has been corrupted, there are software tools to rebuild/fix the stream headers.

You will also incur a slight loss in quality if you choose to re-encode the stream, although this is arguably negligible depending on the codec, encoder quality, number of passes, and bit-rate. If selected appropriately, this should not visually or audibly affect the video stream in any way.