Well I ripped a few of my DVDs to .mkv, and I want to play them on my iPad. I don't want to use a third party app (AVPlayer) so I would like to convert them to .mp4. What is the best (free of course) converter to be used with iPad 2's resolution?

and is there a way to make my widescreen movies (16:10) to the iPad's screen (4:3) ? Reason being is that I don't want to loose almost half the screen size when I want it to fill up the iPad's screen.

Hi, you can try ANY VIDEO CONVERTER PRO.. Its kinda slow conversion speed but you can adjust almost any screen size n sorts. I use it for any conversion for my ipad and other tablets.

I love handbrake. Totally free and has SOOOOOO much control on just what your result will be. Great quality.

you can refer to the post to convert mkv to ipad 2's resolution:

Play mkv HD movies on iPad/iPad2 even iPad 3