[connieiz]

I use an ibook OS X 10.4.8 computer. I have a movie saved on my hard drive. The movie is in .avi format. I want to convert this movie so I can watch it on my ipod. How do I do this? Apple customer service staff told me I need to convert the movie on my ibook to .wma or .mp4 format, is this correct? If so, where do I download the software to do this?

Thanks,

Connie

[discotronic]

I think Handbrake would do it. A quick Google search will bring it up.

[connieiz]

Originally Posted by discotronic 

I think Handbrake would do it. A quick Google search will bring it up.

Discotronic-

thanks, I'l give it a search

Can yo help me decide which format I convert the avi movie to...wma or mp4?

[kyles_mac]

mp4

[xzune]

I used Cucusoft DVD to iPod Suite

and it works great! never had any problems.

[connieiz]

Originally Posted by discotronic 

I think Handbrake would do it. A quick Google search will bring it up.

Thanks for the Handbrake tip. Another friend had suggested iSquint. I downloaded that program and it worked well.

I was able to convert the movie from .avi format to .mp4 format. However, the movie did not load into iTunes. It is saved on my hard drive; I have tried to import it into iTunes, but no can do.

Will you please suggest how I get the converted movie into iTunes.

Thanks for your help.

Connie

[walkerjs]

iSquint I have found to be a tad buggy converting AVI's (of whatever they really are, AVI is kind of a generic video codec format) and sometimes it even gives up altogether on certain vids. Plus if you need to convert any Windows format to mp4 it uses flip4mac which I haven't purchased and thus since I'm using a demo version it sticks a watermark over the video. Needless to say this is kind of distracting while playing the resultant converted video on your iPod.

Handbrake will rip DVDs direct to iPod compatible video that'll load up on the iPod, but you need the DVD.

So unfortunately (or not depending on your point of view) the one app I have found that will do it fairly painlessly is a Windows application called SUPER by eRightSoft. Probably can find it on google fairly easy. Hell, it might be a spyware app for all I know but I'm not really concerned since the Windows laptop I use is owned and maintained by my employer and I can always just give it to the IT department and say "fix this" if so, but so far it seems to just convert video from whatever .wmv format MS uses to mp4 for the iPod. This it does quite nicely so if you use BootCamp to run Windows (or Parallels) you can use that app to convert whichever videos you don't have the DVD for to play on your iPod.

Of course, now I realize you are using an iBook which won't do the Intel stuff so Bootcamp or Parallels is out of the question. Oh well, if you can find a Windows PC that windows app will convert pretty much anything to .mp4 (or H.264) to play on an iPod. Kind of sucks, but we're all kind of victims in the 'video codec wars.'

[pra9ab0y]

How do you add a description to a video(tv show video)?

I tried adding it to the comments part under get info but it dosnt show in the description when your on a tv show.

I am using windows xp but because this as about videos and ipods i thought i would post in here!

Thanks
Ashley

[analogika]

Originally Posted by walkerjs 

iSquint I have found to be a tad buggy converting AVI's (of whatever they really are, AVI is kind of a generic video codec format) and sometimes it even gives up altogether on certain vids. Plus if you need to convert any Windows format to mp4 it uses flip4mac which I haven't purchased and thus since I'm using a demo version it sticks a watermark over the video. Needless to say this is kind of distracting while playing the resultant converted video on your iPod.

a) I have never had iSquint fail on me.

b) Flip4Mac has been FREE for almost a year now - Microsoft licensed the software, killed their own WMP for Mac, and are now distributing Flip4Mac for free. No watermarks or anything.

Please update your software.

[Scott-G]

Originally Posted by analogika 

a) I have never had iSquint fail on me.

b) Flip4Mac has been FREE for almost a year now - Microsoft licensed the software, killed their own WMP for Mac, and are now distributing Flip4Mac for free. No watermarks or anything.

Please update your software.

Fip4Mac is free to view wmv files with Quicktime. You still need to pay for the pro version if you want to convert to a format compatible with the iPod. Unless you are saying that iSquint is somehow using the free codec to convert?

[walkerjs]

I think that's what it's doing, because every WMV file I converted (I have the free Flip4Mac to view WMV files and have since it was announced it was free) has "Converted with Flip4Mac" watermarked across the lower third of the resultant video.

[analogika]

Just tried it here with a .wmv - no such watermark. In fact, I've never seen that watermark, ever, and I've converted *dozens* of movies, starting with iSquint 0.6 or something like that (whatever the very first released version was.

I've been using Flip4Mac since the day it became free.

It sounds a bit like you might have the pay-for version installed, rather than the free one.

What does it say if you click the "About..." button in the Flip4Mac preference pane in the System Preferences?

It should say
Windows Media� Components for QuickTime
Version 2.1.0.33

[typoon]

Yes but if you have quicktime Pro You can convert stuff that you view using the Flip4mac plugin for free. Well not really free since you paid for QT pro.

[anthology123]

You don't have to move a .mp4 into iTunes to use it on the iPod Video. I just mount my ipod and drag the video right into the iPod in the playlist, or create a playlist in the iPod area and drag it into there. Never had a problem with any video converted by Handbrake, iSquint or ffMpegX

[walkerjs]

Originally Posted by analogika 

What does it say if you click the "About..." button in the Flip4Mac preference pane in the System Preferences?

It should say
Windows Media� Components for QuickTime
Version 2.1.0.33

It says "Windows Media Components for QuickTime
Version 2.1.0.33"

iSquint tells me that it is version 1.4.3 (1.4.3). It also has very cheeky buttons and menus that are both amusing and telling that the author considers this app to be kind of a peripheral endeavor. Which is quite okay, converting video from WMV to an iPod compatible format is something I consider to be a secondary thing. I know Microsoft wants to leverage its monopoly to pervade every aspect of my computing life. They won't.

But anyway, the way that iSquint has failed on me with other conversion attempts is that it tells me that it will "finish when it finishes" and I can see that there is an ffmpeg process in 'top' that is doing nothing more than consuming CPU resources and I have to kill -9, er, force quit the process.

Of course this is on a first gen Mac Mini PPC 1.25Ghz w/512 meg of RAM and the slow disk drive (or my firewire drive) so there might be resources that iSquint requires that I don't have. I will attempt another conversion with iSquint with another WMV file (haven't had the need since the Windows Media files I needed to convert to iPod format have already been converted with the Windows utility I mentioned) and report my results.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by typoon 

Yes but if you have quicktime Pro You can convert stuff that you view using the Flip4mac plugin for free. Well not really free since you paid for QT pro.

We're talking about iSquint, which at $0 is infinitely free-er than QT Pro.


BTW, the current version of iSquint is v1.5.

[connieiz]

Originally Posted by anthology123 

You don't have to move a .mp4 into iTunes to use it on the iPod Video. I just mount my ipod and drag the video right into the iPod in the playlist, or create a playlist in the iPod area and drag it into there. Never had a problem with any video converted by Handbrake, iSquint or ffMpegX

Thanks Anthology for your information. I want to confirm I use a Mac with OS X 10.4.8 operating system. I thought the movie had to be in iTunes to be loaded on to my iPod. From what you are saying, I can load the movie on to my iPod while the movie is on the hard drive, so long as it is in mp4 format, is that correct?

Connie

[analogika]

No, that is not at all what he is saying.

[ChrisB]

Try MPEG Streamclip. It's free, and has a convert to iPod video function when converting to MPEG4.

Squared 5 - MPEG Streamclip video converter for Mac OS X

[Leon Lau]

i'v collected some useful converter tools, such as xilisoft, cucusoft, imtoo and so on. u can choose anyone u like.

<deleted>

[analogika]

These ****ing Windows software spammers are REALLY starting to get on my nerves.

Now that Apple's market share is exploding, does that mean we'll constantly have to deal with these assholes?

[booboo]

OK, does anyone know how to convert RealVideo to anything else?

Is it really no-go on the Mac?

And the PC app called Streambox does anyone know if it actually works?