Software Downloads

The first and most important step to this process is to download the necessary software. You’re going to need two separate programs – Mac The Ripper and iSquint. Bascially, Mac The Ripper rips, or extracts, DVDs to your hard drive, and iSquint converts the video to be compatible with iOS devices. Mac The Ripper can be downloaded here and iSquint can be downloaded here.

Note: You can also use Handbrake to do rip your DVD into iOS compatible format. The only issue is that Handbrake does not support copy-protected DVDs while Mac The Ripper does.

Using Mac The Ripper

The first step is to insert the DVD of your choice into the Mac. Open Mac The Ripper. It will read and recognize the disc in your DVD drivet. Now you must click on the “Mode” option and change the “Full Disc Extraction” option to “Title Only Extraction”. Below these options, you want to make sure you have selected the title that is the longest and says “(MF)” or main feature. After you’ve completed this, you can return to the Disc tab and press GO!. In some cases, the program might prompt you to select a RCE Region. If it does, select RCE 1 and then click GO!. Finally, choose a location to save the file and let Mac The Ripper do its job. It will take some time.

Using iSquint

Once the DVD has been ripped, you can remove the movie and close Mac The Ripper altogether. Now open the file that was created, go into the “Video_TS” file, and drag the item into iSquint. Be sure that you have selected the “Optimize for iPod” option and have “H.264 Encoding” enabled. If you want to, you can select “Add to iTunes”. In my experience, this has given me a few problems, so you might want to avoid it. Personally, I disable it and just drag the file into iTunes manually when iSquint has finished. Choose the location for the movie to be saved in and click Start to begin the conversion process. Now all you have to do is wait until the file is converted into an iOS compatible video.

Wrap-Up

Finally, once iSquint finishes, open up iTunes and find the new video file. Click and drag it into your iTunes library and add it to your iOS device just like you would for any other video. Now that you’ve added the movie go ahead and quit iSquint and go enjoy it on-the-go with your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad!

Do you know any other ways to convert videos? Better, faster ways maybe? Give us all your comments below!

Video File Conversion

We’ve touched on video encoding with VLC here before, but VLC has been updated since then and the process is FAR simpler now. To convert a video file from one format to another, choose Media -> Advanced Open File. Make sure you pick Advanced, as the simple file opener dialog does not display conversion options. Add your file or files using the Add button, and once finished move the mouse cursor to the arrow next to the Play button to choose Convert.

At the second dialog, simply choose your output format and filename, click Start, and you’re all set.

DVD and Audio CD Ripping

While playing DVDs is common enough in VLC, many people don’t think of it when looking for a ripper. There are certainly more feature-rich DVD rippers out there, but VLC can always be counted on if you’re unwilling or unable to use a dedicated ripper program. To start, you use a process very similar to the Encoding section above. Click Media -> Open Disc to get the disc screen, and you’ll find buttons at the top to choose the DVD or Audio options.

Choose Convert instead of Play Then simply choose output name and type, just like the Video File Conversion section above.

Jump to Time

This is a great example of a tiny, simple feature that can come in very handy. If you find yourself hitting the wall in Hour 9 of your Star Wars marathon, you can take note of the current play progress and jump back there tomorrow once you’ve had a chance to eat, sleep, and rethink your life. Just tell VLC where you left off and it’ll jump right back.

Last.fm Scrobbling

While mainly for video, VLC is a fairly capable music player as well. If you’re a Last.fm user, you can use VLC to submit your tracks. The option to enable this is in the same place as the normalizer function, Tools > Preferences > Audio.

Automatic Audio Normalization

Many people and programs who encode video don’t always respect good practices when it comes to audio volume. There are few things more annoying while running a video playlist than to have to jump out of your chair and crank down the volume because someone didn’t respect decibel limits. Fortunately, VLC includes a live audio normalizer that detects and suppresses sudden jumps in sound. To access it, choose Tools -> Preferences -> Audio.

It’s worth noting that there is a slight delay in the normalizer. If you’re watching a video where a gunfight breaks out, the first shot might be missed by the normalizer but it will kick in shortly after. Also, it seems that if you enable this function while a video is playing, you will need to restart the video for the normalizer to take effect.

If you’ve got a useful tip for getting the most out of this excellent application, let us know in the comments below.

It seems that a good video converter is already a necessity for every computer. And while I was out on the quest of finding one, I stumbled into this free application from The Little App Factory called Evom. (The name is the backward spelling for the word ‘move’, maybe they deliberately gave the app that name to make it memorable.)

The small preparation

Before downloading this app, please make sure that your system is Mac OS X – Leopard. If you have no problem with that, go and download the latest version (0.94b at the time of writing).

Another thing to prepare before running this app for the first time is the internet connection. Upon installation, Evom will ask users to download video components required for the converting process.

After the download process finished, you are ready to go.

Move Formats Easily

The first thing that you would notice from Evom is how simple its interface. It’s like a dropbox where users can send their video files to, either from the hard drive or from a video link.

Evom provides users with a bookmarklet to enable one-click-downloading of their favorite flash videos from sites like YouTube. To use the bookmarklet, drag this link to the bookmarks bar of web browser.

Then users can choose where they want to save (or ‘Send’) the video and what format the video will be. I think the first choice – even though it’s located at the very right – should be Folder because here you have the most choices of format and quality.

Another possible saving location is:

- YouTube, as a web video. Don’t forget to fill in your username and password in the ‘Login Credentials’

- iTunes and iPod. Here you have the option to save only the video sound as MP3 file.

- Apple TV.

After choosing the location, click ‘Convert’,

and wait for the process to finish.

The one little thing that’s missing

Evom does its job smoothly and the conversion process is quite fast. But I think there is one little thing missing from this app.

It is the “remaining time” indicator in the conversion process. Most users – like me – would like to know how much longer they have to wait for the process to finish. But maybe that indicator would pop up in the final release, as the one I tried the beta version.

I think Evom is a nice app and a good free alternative to all of the other paid video conversion apps out there. Don’t forget to check out another article here in MakeTechEasier about other free video converters for Mac.

What do you think? Share your opinion in the comment below.

sudo apt-get install vlc

Open VLC (Applications -> Sound & Video -> VLC media player)

Select File->Wizard

Click Trancode/save to a file

Select a stream: point to the movie file that you want to convert

Check Transcode Video. Choose the format that you want to convert to. If you want to transcode the sound, check Transcode Audio and choose the format.

Set the encapsulation format. If you are not sure, leave it as RAW

Determine the output filename

Click Finish. VLC will start to transcode the file.