Everywhere people have discovered that they can get their DVD movies onto their new video iPod without charge. How do they do that? It’s simple really. In fact, if you have ripped a movie onto the PSP before, you probably already know how to get your DVDs into your iPod. The transfer process is not that much different and all you really need is some good DVD-to-iPod-Video converter software.
In our first example here we'll use Cucusoft's iPod Video Converter + DVD to iPod Converter suite.
The Cucusoft package is a top line video format converter, and has the following features:
- * Rip DVD to iPod video directly (no need to convert DVD to AVI or VOB first)
- * Convert AVI, WMV, MPEG, RM, RMVB, ASF, MOV, DIVX, XVID, MPG to iPod MP4 or H264 format
- * Easy-to-use and fast conversion
- * Can also rip DVD to AVI, DivX, VCD, SVCD, and MPEG
Here's the process, step by step:
1. Download the iPod Video Converter + DVD to iPod Converter suite
Visit GoRipper.com to get the program file for the software suite. Once there, go to the Downloads section and follow the download instructions on the page that appears. Keep the window open as the file downloads. Afterwards, install and run.
2. Load your DVD
Cucusoft’s iPod Video Converter Suit has a neat, blue user interface that is intuitive and easy to use. There should be three buttons to the right of the interface that says: Video to iPod, DVD to iPod, and Quit (for quitting the program). Click DVD to iPod converter component before loading your DVD. To load your DVD, click ‘Open DVD’ button or choosing ‘Open DVD’ from the ‘File’ drop down menu. After loading, several titles will appear on the list. Here’s a tip: If you want to rip chapters or segments you like, you can also select ‘Open VOB or Mpeg’ or ‘Open IFO’ from the ‘File’ menu.
3. Select your Files
The main file of the movie should be the longest title. If you don’t like to convert the other titles (usually the special features in your DVD), you can remove them by choosing that particular title, right-clicking and ‘Remove.’
4. Save your Video Files
At the bottom part of the list of chapter titles, you will see several more options. Look for the one that says ‘Subtitle’ beside a drop down menu box. Click on the arrow down radio button to set the ‘Subtitle’ to what you like. To ‘Output Folder’, enter the full path name or choose the path where you want to save your video files by clicking ‘Output Folder.’
5. Convert to Video iPod format
To start ripping DVD to iPod video files, just click on the huge circular ‘Convert’ button at the bottom right side of the user interface. You do not need to set ‘Input settings’ and ‘Output settings.’
Of course, the cucusoft way is only one way of doing it. If you find that converting DVDs to iPod using cucusoft’s suite is too tedious, check out the alternatives. There are numerous video-conversion suites available and the list is growing. If you're technically capable, there is certainly software avaiable that gives you more control over the conversion process than the Cucusoft suite, but if you feel you've got better things to do than study video codecs and bitrates, the simplicity of the Cucusoft solution makes it very attractive.