Video for your iPod.

iHate iTunes!

How to get the most of web video and your iPod.

By Gordon Reeder

Know what I hate about iTunes? It so limits what you can do with video for your iPod. There is a whole World Wide Web full of video out there, and iTunes won't let you at it. This article is about getting video from that web onto your iPod. Let's take a quick preview of of the necessary steps.

First; you need to find the video on the web.
Then; you need to be able to down load it onto your computer. It would be nice if you could load it directly from the web to your iPod, but for a variety of technical reasons, that is not possible. The biggest reason is that very little web video is directly iPod compatible.
The 3rd step is to convert the video to iPod format.
The fourth and final step is to load the video onto your iPod.

An easy solution

Free FLV Converter. by Koyotesoft and Internet Video Converter by IVCsoft.
Now, before you go thinking that this is all too complicated, you need to know about these two great little free programs. Their built in search engine will let you search most public video sites like; YouTube, DailyMotion, MetaCafe, Google, Megavideo, and many others. No web browser needed. You can preview the videos using the built-in video player. You can easily grab and save any video. The video is then converted to Avi, iPod, iPhone, 3GP or Psp format.
As a bonus, they also convert all your videos (divx, xvid, mpeg, dvd, avi...) to FLV video (Flash video) with an automatic HTML page creation. You will only have to place the files on your web site to share your videos with the entire world.
These are both nice programs, with search, download and convert functions well integrated. The only thing they don't do is load the video to your iPod. They don't always work with evey web site. But that is improving as they continue to evolve. Either of these programs would be great for the casual user.

Use your web browser

A better solution is to use your web browser to find and download videos. But most web browsers are not optimized for video search and down load. That is where a couple of helpers come in.
Web Video Capture by nirsoft.
This very simple program allows you to capture .flv (Flash Video) files and RTSP/MMS video streams. Once you start it, just tell it to capture video. Any internet video you watch in your browser, or any other internet video viewer, will be automaticly captured and saved in a folder that you selected. It works with any browser or internet video viewer.
Download Helper.If you use Firefox, you should get and install this program as a Firefox extension. It will place an icon on Firefoxe's Tool Bar. Now, simply surf the Web as you did before. When DownloadHelper finds a video, it's icon will get animated. Click on it, a menu will pop up with files or groups of files you can download. Firefox's regular download utility will then get the video file and place it in the folder you selected. It also comes with a huge list of video web sites for you to explore. If you buy the upgrade, Download Helper will also convert the video files as it downloads. Your Web browser now does everything that Free FLV Converter does, but over the entire web. Install both these tools and the advanced user will be in internet video heaven.

Making it play with iPod

Now that you can find and download videos, the next step is to convert them to iPod format. Free FLV Converter, Internet Video Converter and the ugraded version of Download Helper can be setup to do this step automaticly when the video is downloaded.
Other possibilities for users of Web Video Capture and the regular version of Download Helper exist. Nirsoft, maker of Web Video Capture; koyotesoft, maker of Free FLV Converter; and Download Heper; all offer conversion programs for this task. But, if you have Free FLV Converter or Internet Video Converter installed, you already have the necessary converter. Just start Free FLV Converter, then click on the Flav2VideoX icon, or select the Transcode tab in Internet Video Converter. Feed it your downloaded Flash video, and out will come an iPod compatible Mp4 file. Note: Free FLV Converter isn't set up to convert to iPod by default. You have to select iPod as the output format. But you only have to do it once.
But the best and most complete stand alone format converter is Format Factory. It's a multifunctional media converter that converts between just about every known media type. All video formats to MP4/3GP/MPG/AVI/WMV/FLV/SWF; All audio formats to MP3/WMA/AMR/OGG/AAC/WAV; All image formats to JPG/BMP/PNG/TIF/ICO/GIF/TGA. It will also rip DVD to video file, Rip Music CD to audio file, repair damaged video and audio files, reduce multimedia file size, supports iphone, ipod, PSP and BlackBerry multimedia file formats. It's everything the advanced user could you ask for. But casual users may find it a bit daunting.

Sync it up

The final link in the process is to load the video to your iPod. Unfortunately, none of the above programs provide an iPod interface. So you have to use your iPod manager for the task. If you insist on using iTunes, then add the video to iTunes library. Then transfer it over to the iPod. It's best to not use the Sync function for this. Instead set iTunes to manually manage the iPod and drag and drop the video to the iPod. Otherwise you may find that autosync has deleted your video from the iPod.
For those of us who hate iTunes, there is Winamp. It is a great media player in it's own right. But it also has support for portable devices, including iPods. The best way to use Winamp is to open the media library and set it to watch your video folder. Then, when you download and convert a video, it will appear in Winamp's media library. Then just right click on the video and select Send To... iPod. Easy.
For a lighter weight solution try CopyTrans Manager it is one of many 3rd party iPod managers. The latest version is one of the few that will manage iPod video and is a reasonable alternative to iTunes or Winamp. It is a faster, lighter and smaller. CopyTrans Manager is a good iTunes replacement for your iPhone or iPod. It doesn't have a media library. It Presents the Windows File Open dialog to select the files to load. Or you can drag and drop files. It has never been this simple!

Be organized.

Nothing is more frustrating than searching around on your computer looking for a file that you need. This is especially true with Web video because you will be using three different programs for search, download, convert and transfer. All of these programs have a different idea of where to put their files, but they allow you to override it and set your own working directory. I suggest that you create a folder called My Video (if it isn't already created) and have all these programs use it as the working directory. Having all the programs playing in the same sandbox makes things a lot easier.

Suggestions

For casual users, a good place to start would be to use Free FLV Converter or Internet Video Converter to find, download, and convert web videos. Then pair it with either iTunes, WinAmp (if you have it) or CopyTrans Manager to uplink the videos to your iPod.

For wider access to videos on the entire web, advanced users will want to use Download Helper with the Firefox web browser. Use the upgraded version to eliminate the need for a separate flash video converter. Again, pair it with iTunes, WinAmp or CopyTrans Manager to handle the iPod.

If you want more control of the flash conversion process, or don't want to pay for the upgraded version of Download Helper. Then use the flash video converter built into Free FLV Converter or Internet Video Converter any flash video converter mentioned above. But, Format Factory offers the most conversion options and control. The DVD rip function gives you another source for videos. Again, iTunes, WinAmp or CopyTrans Manager provides the iPod link.

Visit my site soon for more updated information!