One Step DVD to iPod

I played around with converting some DVDs I own to the correct size for the new video-capable iPod this weekend. I know this process can go much faster for those of you sporting G5 processors, but on my 15-inch PowerBook, the process eats up a lot of time. Close to 5 hours to rip and convert an entire DVD following the procedures outlined here that Scott mentioned before. However, the part that didn't make sense to me was the first step using Mac the Ripper.

HandBrake is perfectly capable of circumventing the DeCSS on commercial DVDs, so there is not really much reason to first rip the video to hard-drive using Mac the Ripper before converting again using HandBrake. Maybe on G5 systems this would speed up the entire process (no need to slow down for DVD access during compression), but on my G4, I found that skipping that first Mac the Ripper step and selecting the DVD itself as the source for my HandBrake conversion sped the entire process up by an hour. Still, 4 hours is a lot of time to waste processing video. It'll be nice when movies start showing up in the iTMS for $1.99 a pop.