Okay, I searched high and low for a program that would do this, downloaded spyware junk and some supposed freeware that ended up being some trial version that you have to pay 49.99 for to actually use for anything, and in the end I came up with a solution via lifehacker and this post.
So, in the interest of saving you 49.99 (if you really want to pay that, feel free to send it my way via paypal or to the people at the links mentioned above) here is the answer for copying your dvd over to your video ipod.
First of all, here are the only 2 downloads you will need:
Download Handbrake for Windows
Now let’s get down to business:
1. Open Dvdshrink, you will be greeted with a basic looking window such is below:
2. Open Disk, here you just choose which drive you are going pull the dvd image from.
your screen will then show the disk structure
3. Backup, you will be presented with the option of how you want to accomplish this task and where to save it… choose ISO to keep it all in one file (nice and tidy)
It will then start to encode the iso image
Once it is done encoding, you will be ready for the next part of the process.
4. Open Handbrake, you will immediately be greeted by a dialog asking what your dvd source is:
5. Choose ISO or Folder (depending on how you saved it… I chose ISO for this tutorial, but the option for pulling the data from a local folder is also available), make sure you set your encoder to H.264(ipod) with your width and height at 320×240 and specify a destination folder such as your desktop. Screenshot attached of the settings that work for me below.
it will then start encoding your video
When it’s done, you can just drag the generated file over to your movies in itunes and synchronize it when you sync your ipod.
The whole process took about 2 hours overall.. but I wasn’t really baby sitting it either. The video I used here was Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring on a 2 ghz dual core Dell Inspiron E1505 running 2gb of Ram, I had a 17 slide graphic intensive presentation running in Impress, a basic document in Writer, doing a post in Blogdesk and Firefox was running in the background.
Update: if you run into a particularly difficult dvd, try the also free DVD Decrypter
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3 Comments
Sweet William!
I’ve been considering doing this for a while now just for trips and stuff and with personal stuff I’ve got recorded onto DVD. Thanks!
In the black and white encoding box, it says
ETA46h16m19s, does that mean it’s going to take 46 hours to encode my video? and if it does, how can I make it go faster?
It depends largely on the specs of your computer.
One way I have found that works is this though.
If you want to make it go faster, it will basically mean shrinking the iso size in dvd shrink (which is actually what DVD shrink is built for anyway). It will mean lower resolution, but hey, you are watching it on an ipod anyway right?
Open your original backup of the iso and choose “reauthor”, DVD shrink then provides you with an option for shrinking the file size down..
Don’t worry about all the menus and etc… just shrink it down and write the new smaller iso image. Handbrake can then read the smaller iso image to create your movie.
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