Kind and helpful souls
I appreciate the responses, but one or the other of us is not getting the point. Might very well be me.
I repeat that mentioned software fails the "free" test. Some apps have a free version, but it puts in a watermark or does not work. FairUse Wizard's free version, for example, always tells me "The selected encoding profile is only available if [sic] the full edition of FairUse Wizard. Do you want to open the full version download page?" That page wants $30. Am I doing it wrong?
VLC Media Player plays my discs flawlessly. It does not, as far as I can see, transcode and store them, or even store them. If it can do this, which button should I be pressing that I am not? Media - Convert / save seems obvious, but doesn't do anything. Perhaps because I am running Win7 64-bit? I will play with it some more.
Sigh. I'm willing to pay for a decent one if the free ones won't cut it, but I've had so many bad experiences testing free versions that I hesitate to pay out the money and take the risk.