DVD to iPod

[TheNorm]

My daughter went and bought an iPod yesterday, 30GB with a small screen that can (apparently) play movies. She is keen to transfer some of her DVDs to the iPod to watch them when she goes to Italy at half term.

Can anyone recommend a relatively easy transfer application? Price is a consideration, especially if it goes over £50.

I have XP, an 80GB hard drive... and plenty of patience!

PS. I am aware of copyright laws - the personal backup copy of "Mean Girls" would not be distributed to friends.

[jellybaby]

Here's a nice guide

http://howto.diveintomark.org/ipod-dvd-ripping-guide/

[altis]

This might work, I'm not sure:

http://cpc.farnell.com/jsp/endecaSea...?SKU=CS0942027

[jellybaby]

I forgot about this little program. Use it myself to convert things for my phone

http://www.erightsoft.net/Superdc.html

And its free !!!

[Stephen]

Its hardly worth watching full movies on though as the batt will only last around 5hrs at a time. I watch some TV eps that I d/l and don't have time to watch at home.

[popper]

Originally Posted by TheNorm

My daughter went and bought an iPod yesterday, 30GB with a small screen that can (apparently) play movies. She is keen to transfer some of her DVDs to the iPod to watch them when she goes to Italy at half term.

Can anyone recommend a relatively easy transfer application? Price is a consideration, especially if it goes over £50.

I have XP, an 80GB hard drive... and plenty of patience!

PS. I am aware of copyright laws - the personal backup copy of "Mean Girls" would not be distributed to friends.

this one:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardw...deo-ipod.ars/3

these are some of the official sizes
"
H.264 video: up to 768 Kbps, 320x240, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats
MPEG-4 video: up to 2.5 mbps, 480x480, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats"

the easyest and free one to use to get AVC aka H.264 is probably HandBrake and theres a windows version and the message board is good too.
http://handbrake.m0k.org/
http://handbrake.m0k.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1262

http://howto.diveintomark.org/ipod-dvd-ripping-guide/

if your Encoding to AVC/H.264 pick the biggest format and then it will look really good if you push it through a tv-out to your tv.

this clip plays fine in vlc to give you an idea of the quality
http://handbrake.m0k.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1262
"5'24" clip: 24 fps 640x352 @ 1720 Kbps ffmpeg MPEG4 (66.6 MB)

I haven't bought my video iPod yet, so I can't test it myself."

[TheNorm]

OK, time for an update.

Thanks for your suggestions. Unfortunately none were entirely suitable (e.g. didn't run as stated, didn't overcome copy protection, etc.)

However, the links you gave me had links to other sites, and I eventually managed to find a suitable application. AoA DVD Ripper (http://www.aoamedia.com/dvd_ripper.htm) turned "Mean Girls" and "Sleepover" into mp4 files in "real time" (a couple of hours each), and look very good on the iPod. The application had a free trial (10 minutes of converted video) and cost me less than £20.

Oh, and my daughter is happy!

A good result all round - reps to all who helped. Thank you!

[dilli-theclaw]

Originally Posted by TheNorm

Thanks for your suggestions. Unfortunately none were entirely suitable (e.g. didn't run as stated, didn't overcome copy protection, etc.)

I'd suggest you have a look at dvd shrink....

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/t.tarn/DVDSHRINK/

[popper]

Originally Posted by TheNorm

OK, time for an update.

Thanks for your suggestions. Unfortunately none were entirely suitable (e.g. didn't run as stated, didn't overcome copy protection, etc.)

However, the links you gave me had links to other sites, and I eventually managed to find a suitable application. AoA DVD Ripper (http://www.aoamedia.com/dvd_ripper.htm) turned "Mean Girls" and "Sleepover" into mp4 files in "real time" (a couple of hours each), and look very good on the iPod. The application had a free trial (10 minutes of converted video) and cost me less than £20.

Oh, and my daughter is happy!

A good result all round - reps to all who helped. Thank you!

glad to help, yeah the copy protection is a problem for any app ,there exists several free copy protection removers that work as you save the cd/dvd to disk and they allow you to be selective in what you copy to save space etc,then just run the encoder app over that dir.

you say its realtime, and that implys single pass encoding and not AVC ,probably the old divX/Xvid codec in single pass low bitrate/quality mode.

any chance of putting a 5 min sample of your encode somewere to show the quality/size of this app's output, on your ntl:tw webspace perhaps?.

free YAMB should work fine for cutting the mp4 http://yamb.unite-video.com/