Put Your DVD Movies on Your IPod

The iPod is one of the great inventions of modern times. When I bought
mine off eBay, I was like a kid in a candy store. I couldn't wait to
get it, load it up with music and movies and go crazy! Being the video
60, I just knew there was enough room to store
my entire music collection (CDs purchased throughout my lifetime) and
after many hours of using iTunes, I was happy to see my 4500+ songs
residing on my iPod.

Then it came time to load up one of my favorite DVDs and put it into
my shiny new iPod. But hold on a minute. I can't just drag it into
iTunes. What's up here? What's the problem?

So hit the ol' Internet and search. Wow. I quickly learned that there
is more to putting movies on the iPod than just dragging and dropping
them.

If you have read my other iPod articles, you know that I am a
proponent of freeware; that is, software that is provided free of
charge and without any limitation. Within this realm, I did my
research and by reading this article, you will learn the easiest, free
method to copy your DVD collection to your iPod.

You will need two pieces of software. It will save time if you just
download them and install them now. They are:

1.DVD43 http://www.dvd43.com/
2.Handbrake http://handbrake.fr/

After you have installed both applications, reboot, and you are ready to roll.

Worth mentioning here is that it's important to stay with software
that is updated. Don't use old software because technologies update
and the software "breaks" by virtue of changing technology. Both of
the applications I recommend in this article are updated, and actively
supported.

In a nutshell, DVD43 defeats the copy protection and Handbrake
converts the DVD to the iPod format. When no DVD is loaded, or a
non-copy protected DVD is loaded, you will see a yellow face. When a
copy protected DVD is detected, the yellow face turns to a red devil
fact for a few seconds then to a green happy face. This means it is
ready.

Run DVD43 first. Then insert your DVD. When you insert your DVD, if
your media player starts, just close it.

Now run Handbrake. After the application starts up, click on Source.
Select your DVD and it will be read. You will also need to set the
destination. This is where the converted file will be written. A new
folder on the desktop is probably the best option here. This is the
file you will
drag into the iPod.

On the right hand side are Presets. Under Apple, click iPod. This sets
most everything for you. The only thing I recommend is clicking the
Video tab and checking the box for 2-Pass Encoding. This option will
instruct Handbrake to perform a separate analysis pass through the
video before doing the actual encoding. This helps Handbrake to
determine the best possible bitrate to encode for any given section of
the video, and will generally result in better overall quality and the
reduction of artifacts in the resulting video stream. The downside to
this is that it will double the required time for conversion. I'm only
going to run this once, and I want a good quality, watchable video
when I'm done, so I'm OK with the extra time needed. I'm also a firm
believer that the computer should not multi-task during conversion. It
is a very resource intensive operation and should be done when you go
to bed and the computer can be left to do it's thing. Your mileage may
vary.

When the conversion is complete, the resulting video can be simply
imported into the iPod via whatever your preferred means may be.

If you are still using iTunes, I would like to recommend you take a
look at another freeware offering I discovered. It offers many
advanced features iTunes doesn't, plus it lives on the iPod itself. I
welcome you to read my information about Floola at the link posted at
the foot of this article.

I hope this information will make it easier for you to get your DVD
movies on your iPod than it was for me