www.makemkv.com

My goal is to have a dedicated PC to be used "like" a DVD player for my TV.

I hope to put my DVDs on a hard drive and attach the PC to my smart TV. Then "remotely" select video from the hard drive and cause it to play on the TV.

I have no idea exactly what the ultimate configuration should be.
I'm ...

Is there a simple way to tell which of the DVD files are necessary (and sufficient) to copy to the hard drive?

I don't understand what "Chapters" are.

I don't need "previews", but don't know how to identify them without watching them on the hard drive.

One copied file contained comments from an ...

"You need a program that can play MKV files.
....
I use VLC."

Perfect. Thank you.

I just started using the product and I have zero experience in this area.

I had MakeMKV open a DVD movie.
Attachment (MakeMKV-display) is what I saw (after I unchecked what appeared to be superfluous choices.
Attachment (MakeMKV-hard-drive-files) shows the resulting hard drive files after MakeMKV ...