Home> Rip DVD movies to your iPod for the holidays
Rip holiday DVD movie to MP4 for your iPod
The holiday season is coming around the corner. In preparation for my holiday vacation to California, I decided to rip a couple of DVD movies onto my iPod Touch for the flight. There are many dvd ripper tools that are capable of ripping DVD movie to iPod compatible video formats. Some of them are good tools, but they make the process a bit complicated.
Finally I find an easy-to-use yet powerful DVD ripping program, iFunia DVD Ripper for Mac, that works great on my Mac. This software is a free trial application for Mac OS X that accomplishes this task quickly and easily. It even has some preset format options to set up for different resolutions automatically for iPod, iPhone, PSP, Apple TV, etc. It converts the video in a single pass, ready for transfer and sync to your iPod.
Step 1: Download, install & run iFunia DVD Ripper for Mac
We’ll be using a very nice DVD Ripping tool for Mac OS called iFunia DVD Ripper to rip DVD movies and convert DVDs to iPod for this holiday season. Head over here and download the free trial version. Next step is to install the program.
Step 2: Select the titles you'd like to convert
A movie DVD usually has several titles. The shorter titles on the DVD are usually the video backgrounds used in the DVD menu screens and DVD extras like movie trailers. Unless you are a graphic artist, you probably don't want to convert these titles.
- Movie: If you are ripping a movie, the longest title is usually the main feature.
- TV Shows: If you are ripping a DVD containing TV shows, you should see a list of several titles all about the same length.
Step 3: Change the output settings to convert videos with best quality
iPod supports H.264 and MPEG-4 video only. I set the output video format to 'iPod Video2 (640*480) MPEG4 Video (*.mp4)', Video Codec as 'H.264', Resolution as '640*480', Bitrate as '1200', Frame Rate as '30', Audio Codec as 'AAC' by default. Remember that the output file size mostly depends on the Bitrate you set. Larger Bitrate, larger file size.
Step 4: Start converting DVD movies
Now you may click the big button "Start" to begin converting DVD movies onto your hard disk. The Convert progress bar shows you how much of the convert process is completed. The longer your movie and the larger its Bitrate, the longer the convert will take. The ripping time will depend on several variables including: the duration of the video file, the speed of your computer, what other activity your computer is currently doing, the codec you selected (H264 or MP4) and the bitrate you set.
Once the convert is complete, iFunia DVD Ripper will place on your Mac a new version of your movie that will play on the iPod. Double-click the new file and play it to make sure it looks as you expect.
Step 5: Transfer/Sync video to your iPod Touch
To get the video onto your iPod, launch iTunes 6 (or later). If you do not have it, download iTunes now. Drag your new converted video files into your iTunes library in the folder or playlist of your choosing.
Attach your iPod to your computer and sync the iPod with iTunes. If you're connecting your iPod for the first time, you'll need to name it, and choose how you'd like to manage your music and video. Check the option "Automatically sync songs and videos to my iPod" so your music and video from the iTunes library will automatically snyc to your iPod. The sync may take a few minutes. When syncing is done, eject your iPod and take your movies with you.
