Converting video for your iPod
I was going to give this post some funny, thought provoking or obscure title but then realized, the task at hand is to provide a little bit of useful information. So instead, this will be plain and simple.
(For those who are way too hyper to read any further, here is the download link and the screen pic show the settings I use for videos with do not exceed the max resolution of the iPod. For everyone else, feel free to keep reading.)
If you have an iPod that supports video and you have videos that are not supported by your iPod, the solution is to convert them. There are lots of tools to do the job. iTunes will do it for you but very inefficiently (slot and bloated results). You can buy software that make light work of it for you (at a cost). You can use ffmpeg if you like command-line tools (a call to all Linux users here). Or you can use SUPER.
SUPER? stands for “Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer”. (And for the record, SUPER actually uses ffmpeg but you don’t need to know what it does <grin>.)
If you need a simple, yet very efficient tool to convert (encode) or play any Multimedia file, without reading manuals or spending long hours training, then SUPER ? is all you need. It is a Multimedia Encoder and a Multimedia Player, easy-to-use with 1 simple click. SUPER? is 100% FREE to download and to use. SUPER? does NOT require any additional external codec to be installed, absolutely nothing. SUPER? can also play and save Internet Media Streams with different protocols ( mms:// rtsp:// http://).
Source: eRightSoft
While the quote looks like an advertisement, it true so I call it a testimonial. I’ve used a lot of different software to convert video podcasts, the odd TV show from my old PVR, or a funny video off the Internet. Most did a good job. SUPER did a good job with a decent user interface, batch processing, and at the magic price point of $0.00.
The only comment I will make about SUPER is their website. It has lots of good information *and* it’s hard to find the actual download link. There are a number of links that you expect to be the download, but each one takes you to the next page of information. Only after getting thru all of the pages of features, descriptions, examples, etc, will you get the actual link to download. So, I suggest you read thru all of the pages *and* here is the download link.
A couple of notes of video resolution you may or may not have read - the iPod Video (or iPod 5) officially supports up to 640×480 resolution starting with the 1.2 firmware. *But*, if you are planning to view the movie thru a TV, projector, or other output device capable of greater resolution, then what you are more interested in is the “307200 pixel” limit. With a few exceptions, if the width x height of the video will be less than 307200 pixels, you don’t need to reduce the resolution. I say “with a few exceptions” because if you are close to exceeding the maximum resolution, then you may need to understand “macroblocks”. I won’t go into them here. You can read up on that elsewhere. Suffice it to say, you can load a 16:9 widescreen video onto the iPod at up to 720×405 and it will play!
