Did I miss the top of your pst that read "Thanks Charlie for the great reply. May I trouble you just a little bit more as I am so much of a newbie that we even have to go back a few steps further?"

If you don't know the terms NTSC and PAL you're hardly going to make out by diving into DVD Ripping! Still, as you asked, go to http://www.epsg.homestead.com/ps2page1.html

But because I'm such a nice guy, I'll answer your questions (which I've done so many times before on this topic):

NTSC is the USA/Canada/Japan TV display system, scanning 525 lines at a refresh rate of 60Hz.

PAL is the nearly everywhere else TV syatem scanning 625 lines at a refresh rate of 50Hz.

BONUS INFO:

All PS2s will play what they see (once you get past the boot issue solved with a modchip). So you can put an NTSC backup game into a modded PAL PS2 (for example) and NTSC will come out the back. Something has to be done about this in most cases otherwise what you'll see on a PAL TV is jittery or in greyscale or both. My previous post covers this.