FFMpeg DVD .iso to new format

Yeha initially, the guy who was supposed to get our Application coded said Iso's were not a problem... but he ended up disapearing from planet earth hehhe But I could always have someone go back and extract from those isos to their respective folders, if that's the way to go... that's not a deal breaker ;) any suggestions/ideas on how to 1- do scene selection 2- encode from the dvd files --> x264 with our idfferent formats?

[bump after re-open, user clarified rule 6 concern]

Thanks Neuron2 :) I just wanted to officially say that we have all rights to do everything we do with those dvds and that it is in no way against any copyright laws :)

actually I see libavfilter added scene detection, and it is added to the 1.0 branch of ffmpeg... I can't really find documentation yet but I'll get it updated on our servers and test.. I think I am going to be wanting to go semi/automated... If I could have a web based avsp style preview with an option to modify an AVS, then the rest automated that would be optimal :) Right now, I have built a php script, it finds the *.iso, runs mplayer to find how many titles, then mencoder to copy audio/video to avi. then I will be downloading the AVI's to our windows machine, run some .bat that will create avs files for all dvd files. then someone will open up all avs, trim where scene starts/ends , save as a new file. then edit the tweak/Levels parameters. then another .bat to generate a encode batch file to do our sources and then from there other avs/ffmpeg for our web formats. at this point, bar finding a method to easily preview avs from a web interface (wouldn't know where to begin) I guess if I could find how to accurately get scenes out of the iso's in an automated step through ffmpeg, that'd save a few steps. if anyone has an idea for avs-to-web-preview from a unix box, I'm all ears and couple probably pay for the time to dev ;)

remote desktop is a little slow , besides I am trying for a solution where we could leave all content sources/outputs on a single offsite server to help with remote workers (best case scenario off course. at the moment, we RDP and do on location at the office) I'll be honnest, it's the first time I hear of Vapoursynth (and I am also not very much used to unix with avisynth or what not) would you care to give me a bit of info on this or perhaps point me towards more info / guide or what not? I like the idea though ;) right now we've been using avisynth on our windows boxes to do color correction / manipulations for the last 5-8 years, encode back to MP4 sources (dvds or otherwize HD scenes) , which we use as new sources to encode anything for the web. Now, my goal was to send all our mp4 sources to our unix boxes and use the boxes to encode from mp4 (without avisynth , just loading the mp4 with ffmpeg to encode) But if I could do the AVS manipulation frm those boxes, it'd open a few options :) any input on this is again appreciated as I am in a learning mode again hehe