I use DVDDecrypter over smart ripper, its l33t because it can rip and burn images to dvd-r, and just because its always worked for me.
DVDx isn't a standalone ripper, it rips and converts to SVCD or VCD and etc. However I'd use dvd2svcd over dvdx for that task, since it uses avisynth and thus filtering and IVTC can be performed. Also DVDx's built in encoder is far from the best and unless you use CCE as a plugin I cant see any real advantage to DVDx at all.

