The fact that you asked this question tells me that you don't understand a lot about this issuse, so you need to do lots of reading before you can do this right, I too was like you at one time.
There are many ways to convert your DVD to SVCD or VCD, I have tried many methods but I think the best way is this.......
1. Rip your DVD (main movie only) with
http://www.dvddecrypter.com/ or smart ripper
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video ... ripper.cfm
2. Use DVD2AVI
http://arbor.ee.ntu.edu.tw/~jackei/dvd2avi/ to create a .d2v file so that TMPGEnc can recognize it.
3. Use TMPGEnc, load the .d2v file and the audio, set it to MPEG-1 for VCD or MPEG-2 for SVCD
4. When finished convert you can go straigth to burning at with Nero or any other VCD burning programs or you can use VCDEasy to create chapters and then burn it (version 1.1.5.2 is free)
all this sound simples but it's not you need to understand a lot about formats and setting before you can do it right with quality, the best place to read more about it is
http://www.dvdrhelp.com. they have lots of good articals on everyting you need to know.