HandBrake

So far both movies I've ripped (16x9ers at 640 x 352) play fine on Quicktime and on my ipod, but they play at like 1.5 fps on iTunes 7.0.2 (Mac), though the audio is fine.

Any thoughts?

Try pausing and unpausing a few seconds later using the spacebar. Do you see any spinning balls? I guess your Mac's to slow. PPC <1GHz I guess?