Free movie to iPod conversion tools for Mac
Submitted on October 31st, 2005 by admin
Filed under The Mac Side and Portables and Software and Video
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Are you a Mac user still looking for a quick, easy, and free way to convert some of your movies into iPod format? I recently put up a guide to doing this using Handbrake, but it involved quite a few steps. If you don’t want to go through all that trouble- and who does, right?- then here are two great options, both of which are totally free.
First up is a little AppleScript which will add a new menu option to Quicktime Player (Quicktime Pro is not required for this to work) which will help you convert the frontmost movie into iPod format, then sync it to your update upon next sync. You can download it right here. The second tool is a program called MoviesForMyiPod (formerly MoviesToGo) which will do the entire conversion process by simply selecting a movie and clicking one button. Both of these tools are completely free and require Mac OSX 10.4.
[Via Podcasting News and Lifehacker]
Automatically create torrents for your podcast
Submitted on October 26th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Storage and Audio and Services and Software and Video
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Those of you who do weekly (or sparse for us lately) podcasts, know how much of a toll audio or video content can take on your bandwidth for your site. Fortunately, there is now a tool which will automatically check your RSS feeds and create a torrent for any media content you add to your site. All you have to do then, is give your readers the new link and they can download a torrent of the content, saving you precious bandwidth and probably money.
The tool is the freely available Prodigem tool/hosting service, and you can find instructions on how to do it over at Torrentocracy. The application checks your site’s RSS feed once an hour for the latest 5 posts, and if it finds an enclosure, will create a torrent. It couldn’t get much easier.
[Via Boing Boing]
Backing up DVDs on a Mac
Submitted on October 25th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Storage and The Mac Side and Video
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Own a Mac and looking for a way to back up your DVD collection? Using some free (and almost free) tools, you can do it easily. All you need is MacTheRipper (freeware) and DVD2OneX (shareware, 49.95 Euro), it couldn’t get much easier. Download the video with full instructions over at DiveIntoMark’s how-to page.
Using del.icio.us to manage movie rentals
Submitted on October 25th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Productivity and Video
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I always like to see people find innovative uses for current services and technologies and this post I found a couple of days ago definitely fits the bill: using a del.icio.us account to track movie rentals. Of course, this is not limited to del.icio.us nor any particular movie rental place.
The idea is simple: by using the IMDB bookmarklet, you can add movies to your del.icio.us account with a toRent tag, and after viewing it, simply delete it or tag it with something like rented. It just couldn’t get much simpler. When you’re ready to go to the movie store, just access your account with a portable device, or print your list out.
[Via Lifehacker]
Run Apple Front Row on any Mac
Submitted on October 25th, 2005 by admin
Filed under The Mac Side and Audio and Software and Video
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Apple recently released Front Row, a media center application, with their new line of iMacs, and I must say, it looks terrific. Now only does it offer some great functionality found in other types of media center like MythTV and Windows Media Center, but does so in a superbly well integrated package (along with a handy remote). The trouble with the application is that it’s only released for iMacs, but if you can get a hand on a copy of the application, you can easily make it run on a Mac mini or any other Apple computer by simply copying a couple files over. You can find a detailed guide over at The Fifth Rule. If you’d like to see some videos, check out The Unofficial Apple Weblog’s post on the topic (it’s only about 13MB). Looks like you can even control the thing via a Bluetooth cellphone if you have one…pretty cool!
[Via TUAW]
Playing videos on a non-video iPod
Submitted on October 24th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Portables and Software and Video
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Sure those new video-enabled iPods are cool, but you already have an iPod and don’t want to have to buy another, right? Fortunately for you, if you install iPodLinux on that iPod, you can play videos with a bit of a catch. Since the older iPods have greyscale screens, you’ll be seeing videos this way. Additionally, you can only play uncompressed videos, so that each movie will probably end up being about 4GB in size. I’ve had no problems running this on my iPod and you don’t have to get rid of your original iPod firmware to use it. You can find full details on the iPodLunux video player at the wiki page, as well as instructions on how to convert videos to view on an iPod. Get the iPodLinux installer for 4G ipods, right here.
Yahoo! Video feed for your iPod
Submitted on October 24th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Resources and Portables and Video
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Over at the Yahoo! Search Blog you’ll find a pretty cool tip to get a customized RSS feed for Yahoo! Video which you can subscribe to via iTunes. Enter the video search terms you want, paste the URL into iTunes, and you’ll be treated to tons of short video content from Yahoo!’s directory. Of course, you don’t need an iPod to view any of these, they can just be played on iTunes.
[Via Yahoo! Search Blog
Full list of video podcast for iTunes
Submitted on October 24th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Video
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Ok, today is going to be a heavy iPod tip day, but don’t worry, there will be other content too for you non-iPod having folks. This first one is nice and quick, a nice list of 24 video podcasts so you can have some content for your new video iPod! Click on this link to see what’s available. Some of my favorites are listed there including Rocketboom (I love you Amanda Congdon!), Digital Life TV, Systm, and Diggnation. The list isn’t complete but should get you started. Since it’s not on the list, be sure to also check out CommandN.
[Via Digg]
Videora iPod video converter
Submitted on October 19th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Portables and Software and Video
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Those new video-enabled iPods sure are sweet, but there just isn’t enough content on the iTunes Music Store to make it worth buying one. We’ve already written a few articles on how to convert your media, but there’s a new application which makes it super easy to do it, the Videora iPod Video Converter. With this free Windows tool, you can convert your videos to an iPod-compatible format in just a couple of easy steps. If you’re looking for some video content, also check out Videora’s flagship product, a video downloading application which uses RSS feeds and BitTorrent to quickly download video content from around the web. Now I have an easy way to download the latest Digital Life TV shows!
Get TV shows from your TiVo into your iPod
Submitted on October 18th, 2005 by admin
Filed under The Mac Side and Portables and Software and Video and Windows
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So Apple announced the video iPods last week and everyone’s excited about it, though it’s a little disappointing that it only supports h.264 and MOV formats for video. After all, most of us are used to converting our movies into Divx or Xvid format. Many of you also have TiVos, and wouldn’t it be nice to be able to transfer those videos onto an iPod? Engadget has put together a nice guide with details on how to do it. You do need a series 2 TiVo and a TiVoToGo subscription, but it definitely looks like a worthwhile project to get into. All the software used for the conversion is completely free and readily available though for Windows only (at least DirectShow Dump is).
[Via Engadget]
