How to Get Movies from a DVD onto Your iPod

Since I first got an iPod, I have loved being able to carry my entire music collection with me everywhere I go. I used to have an iPod Nano, and since it had such a small screen I never really thought much about putting movies on it. Recently, however, I was given an iPod Touch for my birthday, which has a much bigger (and better) screen. I decided I wanted to put some of my movies on my iPod, and I was surprised you couldn't "rip" a movie from a DVD the same way you can rip music from a CD in iTunes. I wanted to be able to take a few of my movies with me when I was traveling, so I set out to find a way to transfer movies from a DVD onto a computer so they could be played on an iPod.

I did some research on the internet, and several software programs claimed they could help me in my quest to get movies off of a DVD and onto my iPod. Unfortunately, many of these DVD-ripping software packages were quite expensive, and the free ones I found either didn't work at all or would only convert a few minutes of the movie until you paid to upgrade the software. Then, as I was about to give up, I found an article about a software program called "Magic DVD Ripper," and it sounded like it might work so I decided to give it a try.

When I got the Magic DVD Ripper program downloaded to my computer and installed, I was surprised at just how simple the user interface was. After inserting a DVD into my computer, I was able to find the "track" that contained the actual movie and pick which format I wanted the movie converted to (there is a setting just for the iPod...the program can also convert your movie into other formats for the PSP, Windows Media, etc.). Once I chose these settings, I just clicked the "Convert Now" button and about 45 minutes later, I was notified that my DVD had been turned into a digital video file for the iPod.

Once the Magic DVD Ripper program converted the DVD into a file, I was able to import the video file into my iTunes library and then onto my iPod perfectly. The picture quality of the movie on my iPod was amazing, and there were no skips or glitches at all. In the end, this program was the easiest free way I was able to find to get movies from a DVD onto my iPod. The Magic DVD Ripper software is a free download available from the link in the resources section of this article...or just Google "Magic DVD Ripper" and start taking your DVDs and putting them onto your iPod!