On the mac side...
Handbreak to rip and re-encode for video ipod...one program, one step
http://handbrake.m0k.org/
isquint does the same thing for other video formats (AVI, etc)...one program, one step.
http://www.isquint.org/
On the PC side, go to store.apple.com and buy a mac
Actually, I like the TVharmony stuff and and dvdshrink is great.