Sunday, March 25, 2007

Watching movies on an iPod

Recently, Lifehacker, a blog on Productivity, had a post on converting DVDs to an iPod playable format. I downloaded the software (all free) and have started on a few. My thoughts on the process:
  • Pretty darn easy to do
  • End to end, it is pretty slow
  • Pretty cool to have a movie on a video iPod
The instructions that the posting include are easy to follow and there aren't really that many settings to change. I did once pick the wrong audio track and got the director's comments on Star Wars, but hey, I was learning.

The ripping process is pretty quick, about 30 minutes for a DVD, but the encoding process takes some time. On top of that it is a two step process, and you have to manually start the encoding process. I've just let it run overnight and had great success with that. The Videora encoding software will also queue movies to convert, so that can be a time savings.

Then, I'd have to say it was pretty cool to be watching a movie on a video iPod. I don't actually have one, but I was borrowing my son's (while he had lost the privilege of using it). I was a little uncertain about watching a movie on that small of a screen, but what ended up being weirder was watching Blue Velvet before 8 in the morning at a swim meet!

I've got to get one of these video iPods!

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