Please note: I’ve opted to skip my usual “Friday Find” post in favor of this third and final installment in my “How to Rip a DVD for Your iPod” series. The usual “Friday Find” should return next week.

In the first article in this series I identified the basic free software you need to rip a DVD for your iPod (DVD43 and HandBrake). In the second article I gave instructions how to install and use these two pieces of software. If you’ve been following the series since the beginning, you should have successfully ripped a movie from a DVD. Also, if you got that far in the process, you’ve probably already imported that movie into your iTunes library and synced it with your iPod; however, just in case you haven’t done that last step, this article will walk you through the final piece of the puzzle.

Set up the directory structure for your movies

On a Windows machine iTunes sets the movie directory to the “My Videos” folder for the logged in user, and the folder for that specific user is found under the Documents and Settings from the root of your hard drive. While I’m sure you can change the location of your movie folder for iTunes, that option is not easily found in the preferences settings. In other words, you probably have locate and edit some external configuration file to change the movie location. For now, however, I’m assuming that everyone has accepted the default movie location. Therefore, once you have completed the ripping process store the new file in your “My Videos” folder.

Note: If you’re ripping a television series with several episodes, I suggest you make corresponding series folders under the My Videos folder to make organization easier.

Import movies into your iTunes library

Getting your newly ripped movies into your iTunes library is very simple:

1. Start iTunes if you haven’t already
2. In the left hand navigation panel select “Movies”
3. Now, from the menu bar select File -> Add File to Library
4. Navigate through your computer’s directory (a.k.a folder) structure and locate your newly ripped movie
5. Select the movie and click the “Open” button

Depending on the view you selected for the movie section of your iTunes library, you’ll see your movies listed by name (figure 1) or by an image taken from a frame of the movie itself (figure 2).

Figure 1

Figure 2

Keep in mind, even though you’ve added a folder to the movie section of your iTunes library, iTunes won’t auto refresh the movie listing unless you buy a movie from the iTunes store. Therefore, when you rip a new movie for your iPod, you’ll have to repeat the process to add a movie to your library.

Sync with iTunes to get your new movies on your iPod

Now that you have the newly ripped movie added to your iTunes library, you need to put it on your iPod:

1. Plug your iPod into the USB (or Firewire) cable attached to your computer
2. Wait for your iPod to appear in the left hand navigation of your iTunes library
3. Once the iPod appears, select it to display the various iPod options
4. Select the “Movie” tab (assuming you are using the latest version of iTunes. If not, please upgrade)
5. With the “Movie” tab selected, the various sync options are displayed (figure 3). These options are fairly self-explanatory so I won’t cover them here; however, if in doubt, just sync all movies

Figure 3

6. Watch the sync progress at the top of the iTunes application
7. Once the sync is complete, right click on your iPod icon in the left hand navigation
8. From the pop-up menu select “Eject”
9. Once the iPod icon disappears from iTunes, you can disconnect the USB (or Firewire) cable and now your ready to watch your movie
10. Navigate through your iPod menu to the “Movie” section, locate your newly ripped (and recently synced) movie, and press play.

That’s all there is to it. You could make things much easier if you just bought your movies from the iTunes store; however, like I said in my first article in this series — if you already own the movie on DVD, why buy another copy. The choice is yours.

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Filed under: How-To & Tech Tips