so I've been working on the rather large project of digitizing my DVD collection, and i've been stuck on a couple of snags. first, i'm using Handbrake, which seems to work decently sometimes, but still has a few hangups. the first issue is that the sound for some reason seems to drop to about 50% volume, and i have no idea as to why. ive played around with multiple codecs and multiple programs, and i'm starting to worry that i have some kind of crazy hardware issue. second is that for some reason, i cannot for the life of me get widescreen in xvid/divx codecs without letterboxing. this sucks, cause then the movie wont fill up the whole screen on my computer, and eventual widescreen tv. sooooo.....

Can you guys either help me out with some settings or some magical codec pack, or have some different program that could just streamline the process or work better or what have you...jsut anything that could maybe help. the discs are taking over my living room!

You probably wont be able to get rid of the letterboxing with out zooming the image.

I have a 52 inch Sony XBR Lcd tv and ps3, and my blu-rays still letterbox unless I zoom them. 

I think anyway...its been a while since i have watched a movie....but im pretty sure like 90% of them are still letterbox.

Edit* I found the reason why....Wikipedia style.

On a widescreen television set, a 1.78:1 (ie 16:9) image fills the screen, however, 2.39:1 aspect ratio films are letterboxed with narrow mattes. Because the 1.85:1 aspect ratio does not match the 1.78:1 (16:9) aspect ratio of widescreen DVDs and high-definition video, slight letterboxing occurs

I've never even heard of Handbrake before. Do yourself a favor and torrent buy the latest version of Nero, and use the packaged Nero Recode. For copy-protected DVDs, make sure to torrent buy a copy of AnyDVD as well.