How To Put A DVD On An iPod

With a few hours and ample space on your video-enabled iPod, it's not difficult to learn how to put a DVD on an iPod. Apple introduced the iPod video some time ago, enabling access to hours upon hours of movies, television and music videos through the iTunes Store. While users could manage other videos on their iPod, the device was optimized for a specific video format, known as MPEG-4. DVD ripping has become significantly easier over time as well, but early ripping software did not automatically convert to an iPod-friendly MPEG-4 codec. Luckily, video conversion software has grown to accommodate nearly any possible conversion necessity.

What you will need:

• A DVD
• A computer with a DVD drive
• DVD ripping software
• Video conversion software
• An iPod or iPhone with video playback capabilities
• iTunes

1. Insert the DVD you wish to watch on your iPod. If you do not have a DVD drive, the disc will not be properly read and cannot be ripped to your hard drive.
2. Use a DVD ripping program to convert the video from the DVD into a video file accessible on your hard drive. Software applications such as HandBrake and DVD Shrink offer free, open-source support for DVD conversion. As an added bonus, the programs are very user-friendly while providing a wealth of settings and options to customize exactly what you want to rip from the DVD. Adjust your settings to be sure that you are only ripping the main video of the DVD, since the iPod is not functionally compatible to navigate DVD menus. This "file" will typically have the longest runtime on the list. Most DVD's are roughly 5gb's in size, so you need to have at least that much space on your hard drive.
3. The following steps will optimize the settings within your ripping software. The guide has been written with HandBrake in mind, but many similar applications have the same basic settings when ripping your DVD.
4. Select your file format as "MP4" and your codecs to "MPEG-4 Video/AAC Audio." This will enable the appropriate settings for an iPod-ready video file.
   
5. Under the Video tab, select "Average bitrate" and set the value to 400. Also check "2-pass encoding" to improve the quality of your video.
6. Don't forget to select a language track. If you ignore this step, you may rip an entire DVD without an audio track.
7. Adjusting the sample rate and bitrate is optional. Select whatever you like. Higher rates make for higher-quality audio, but this also increases the size of the file. An average sample rate is around 44100Hz, while an average bitrate is about 192kbps.
8. Under the Picture Settings tab, adjust the picture width to 320. The program will automatically correct the video's height to match this adjustment.
9. Wait. DVD ripping takes a very long time. You can usually expect to wait several hours and sometimes more if you want a high-quality file at the end of the process. You can set up the ripping process overnight. Also you should minimize other processes on your computer during this process. When the process finally completes, you should have a .mp4 file waiting for you inside whichever directory you saved the file.
10. Drag the file into your iTunes library, or click "Add to Library" under the File menu and select your file. If you have adjusted the settings of the ripped video file correctly, iTunes should recognize the file as an iPod-ready type. After this, all that's left to do is connect your video-enabled iPod and sync the file. Make sure you have enough space!

Tips: If you decide to use Handbrake to rip your DVD, you will need another program to bypass the copy protection on the disc. Such functionality is available through the free DVD Decrypter. Many uses of copied media are illegal. You should only be copying this DVD to your iPod for your own personal use.