I think you'll love AVPlayerHD. I refuse to use anything else and def not the vid player Apple provided. I don't want to have to convert anything to watch on my iPad. Plus, I like having subtitles supported and you can manipulate the size of the text. And if you only want to send a small file to your iPad, no wires required. Do it via wifi.
And Mac's aren't for everyone, nor do they fit everyone's needs. I hate having to use Windows now (been using Windows, and DOS, since 1984.) In 2008, finally had enough. I hate 3rd party driver loading and the conflicts it can cause, leading to BSOD. Can't stand the constant security updates, codec issues, and server failures. Hate that office .pptx and .docx files can cause conflicts with 1998-2003 doc and ppt files. My work hasn't shifted to Office 2010 yet.
Of course my MacBook Pro has both OSX and Windows 7 Ultimate on it. I can boot into either OS. I find that emulators just aren't the same.