help with .avi mpeg4 files on the mac

[pubfootie]

Recently purchased an Archos AV700 and have been looking to record some video from my own TV and convert some of my exisitng DVD's to watch on it.

As far as the TV side goes, ive got it rigged up to my sky box and recorded a movie, quality wasnt too bad. Only thing I need to is crop the end of it off.

1) I currently run a mac G4 10.2.8 - so i transferred the file to my mac and tried to crop it using 'D-Vision' ver. 2 - the crop worked but the sound on the two cropped sections did not work at all - anybody any ideas on this, or any ideas on what free mac software I would be better to use.

2) Another thing im looking to use is a fee program to convert .wav, .mpg and other internet downloaded files into .avi (mpeg4) format so I can view them on my Archos, any ideas on thsi one?

3) To convert my existing dvds to .avi (mpeg) files I downloaded handbrake and ripped the dvd using 2 pass encoding at around 1000 kbps. The result was pretty good on the Archos LCD screen but it took ages to do - 8 hours on my machine.
Is there any free program that would do this any faster or am I doing this the correct way.

Thanks for any help, im a bit of a newbie so try keep it simple, cheers!

[Case]

1) You could try Explicit Avi Cutter

2) fee or free ? I like the versatility of ffmpegX, but I wouldn't recommend it to a self-proclamed 'bit of a newbie'. It's got a steep learning curve.

3) Encoding time depends mainly on the processor speed of your Mac. 8 hours for two pass sounds reasonable. Setting certain quality options may result in longer encoding times.

[pubfootie]

Cheers for the tip offs...

Just downloaded explicit 1.3, seems a nice and simple little app, booted it up and loaded my movie in, it seemed to take an age 'generating preview' but as this wasnt essential I shut it down, re-opened the app and before loading the moving I disabled the preview. From here I entered the exact time I wanted a split and clicked 'split' it then opened up a 'browser' window and presuming this meant 'where do you want to save the files' I selected the 'desktop folder' and clicked open. At bottom of screen it said 'creating first segment' then 'creating second segment' and finished in about 30 seconds. Great I thought. But I went to my desktop and there was nothing there!!!??? Am I missing something or does the app not seem to work on my machine, I tried a few times and also with a different .avi file. arghhhh!

May try ffmpeg if a get a spare week!

anyone else get any newbie friendly 'free' (not fee!!!) apps?

cheers