Hi galwaytt,
Do you mean that you want to put a DVD movie onto your ipod? You are going in the right direction - with the cucusoft and iTunes - although from what you said about taking so long to convert an 8 minute video I presume the pc/laptop you are using is a couple of years old?
Here's a rough guideline for you:
1. Start the cucusoft software. On the right hand side select the output folder to a folder which you will use to store the ripped DVD to (eg C: My iPod Movies)
2. In cucusoft in the Profile on the right hand side select iPod MPEG-4 Movie (.mp4).
3. Put the DVD which you want to convert into the DVD drive.
4. In cucusoft select Open DVD
5. In the window that opens select the DVD drive
6. When you press ok it will fastforward to the main menu of the dvd.
7. Select play movie and then once the movie starts to play press the Convert button in the lower right hand corner.
8. A new window will open, allowing you to change the quality of the ripped DVD - I usually set this so that the ripped DVD will be about 500 MB.
9. Press start and the conversion process will begin (as mentioned the length of time it will take to convert the DVD will depend on the speed of you laptop/pc)
10. When the conversion is finished you will be prompted to open iTunes or Open the folder to view the output video). Select to open iTunes.
11. Within iTunes in the menu select File - add file to library.
12. In the window that opens navigate to the folder selected in step 1 (eg C: My iPod Movies) and select the file you require and press ok - the movie will now be added to your library.
13. Connect up your iPod and after it syncs with your iTunes library the movie will be on to your iPod
Hope this helps!