Well, I got tons of non-copy protected ripped DVDs on DVD-Rs and my hard drive. What application should I get to download them onto my iPod? Cucusoft? PQ? I just got the iPod as a present, and I don't have a clue.

I use Nero Recode. I've tried the other programs out there (Cucusoft, Videora and its man clones) but they took much longer to encode than Nero and the audio and video always ended up out of sync.

I use Nero Recode. I've tried the other programs out there (Cucusoft, Videora and its man clones) but they took much longer to encode than Nero and the audio and video always ended up out of sync.

Is this the one that runs $150+? I was hoping for something <$75, but I guess if the others don't work they aren't even worth having if free. Any less pricey solutions?

Videora iPod works fine for me. Yeah, it's probably slower to get a good quality 2-pass mp4 file, but it's free...

Handbrake if you have a Mac. It's free and converts to ipod format with a couple of clicks.

I use pinacle media converter.
It sells for $29.99 and works great.
a movie takes about 2/3 the run time of the movie. So a 90 minnite movie takes about 45 minnites to n hour.

But I've converted 40 movies and all 4 seasons of family guy.
The only thing that dosent work is dvds recorded on a standalone player. The audio is out of sinc. Other wise all else works

I use PocketDivXEncoder to convert DVDs to Mpeg4 for my Archos AV700.
You can adjust the AV output brightness saturation and contrast for the quality that suits you and also the output files can be set to suit a range of players. It also has the facility to adjust the output screen dimensions.
This can also be done from the AV output connections of a DVD player or TV using the "Pod" but this has to be in real time. Conversion can be done in the background on the PC and the files just dragged and dropped to the the hard drive.

I use WinAVI MP4 converter, it was $25 and does the job fast enough for me. Some of the things that I like about it are:

1-you can batch files to convert, allowing me to que up a bunch of TV shows or movies and it will run through them all

2-it allows you to transport them to your iPod directly if it is connected to your PC at the same time.

What I do not like about it is that it does not allow me to crop the size of the movie like I can with Pocket DVD Wizard. I would like to be able to just convert the picture area of a movie in letterbox (wide screen) to save space on the file. But as I have not found a program that does it all I have to make some concessions. You can also preview the movie as it encodes, but this will slow down the conversion process.

I have used Videora and it will do the job with less frills but hey it is free.