IPad – What’s the best way to deal with wmv files on iPad

I have bunch of training videos, mostly in .wmv format on my computer.
Well, I tried to find a player in appstore to watch those videos right away, without converting them – I couldn't find any good one. Anyway I thought that converting all that files would be a solution. Then I could watch them in default player.

For many reasons it's turned out not to be that straightforward and in reality is quite arduous task.

First of all folders hierarchy – itunes just ignore that. I needed to find a way to put all that files into one directory without loosing their order (remember it's training video lessons, so it's very important). I've managed to put all files into one folder and named them like 0001_lesson.wmv, 0002_lesson.wmv and so on.

Converter. I tried four different ones, I tried different settings, tried to convert into different formats. And still the folder that initially contained about 350Mb data after conversion grows into something huge with almost 1Gb data.

How come? I don't believe that wmv is so good, that it can be several times smaller than other video formats.

Maybe converters I'm trying aren't the good ones. Which one do you think the best? Is there any easier way to solve that problem? And please don't tell me to use streaming and airplay stuff. I watch those videos mostly when I'm in the subway.