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Their goal is to enable you to buy a DVD and move the content to their devices (iPod, iPhone, Apple TV). The MPAA has shut down every application that allows their users to do this...

You know what would really kill the iPod? A better product! iPod has one heck of a marketing campaign, but let's face it that isn't the only reason for it's sucess. I'm a techie just like most of you, and I'm borderline anti-Apple. I been wanting an mp3 player for a while now. After about 18 months of researching it, I went with the iPod for numerous reasons.

1)It has by far the most accesories of any portable player.

2)It's by far the thinnest of any Mp3 player. The closest resemblace to the iPod is the Samsung Z5. The only problem is the 4Gb Z5 isn't much smaller than my 30Gb video iPod.

3)Quality. Before video was a factor, the only serious competitor to iPod was the Creative Zen Sleek. I'm glad I didn't get one. It started out nice, but let's just say it wasn't built for durability. Consumers were posting all over the net (it should still be on CNet and Amazon) about rattling noises. It seems that the earphones jack wasn't soildered properly, and thousands of people where having problems about it comming loose and falling inside the player. That's a great way to steer people away from Apple.

But it wasn't only hardware quality that was in question. The "Plays For Sure" nonsense was wreaking havok, and several people weren't able to install the software on Windows 2000. If that wasn't bad enough, the people that COULD install the player complained about being forced to keep the songs on their harddrive (no manual update like the one present in iTunes).

Now before I hear any of the usual iPod propaganda, let me dispell some of the most common rumors:

1)You do NOT have to purchase music from iTunes. It sounds obvious, but I actually heard a saleman in Radio Shack tell someone that the only way to get music in the iPod was to buy it. You would think he was just trying to sell more pre-paid cards for iTunes, but once I spoke with him, he actually didn't know. As a matter of fact, you don't even have to use iTunes at all.

(Disclaimer: I must warn you that I've heard stories of 3rd party software corrupting iTunes.db. It works fine with everything else, but once iTunes detects the .db file has been edited by a 3rd party, it might not recognize the file anymore.)

2) You do not have to buy QuickTime Pro to import movies. That was true once upon a time, that was changed in iTunes 6.02. However, iTunes is still slow, and neither iTunes or QuickTime can encode muxed videoes with audio, so you're better off using a free alternative.

3)There is an easy way to get your music back off of your iPod, but it isn't free.

Let's face it people : The iPod isn't perfect by anyone's standards, but it's the best player on the market by a landslide. If you want to bring Apple's domination of the mp3 market to a halt - give it some decent competition. Creative started now, so hopefully after a few years they'll have all the kinks ironed out. Until then, I can't recommend anything else.

I shouldn't have included the link to what I used: http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/

Videora ipod converter

Easy to use and very useful, free as in beer, check it out.

Well, if your're crazy, then HackADay.com is your asylum: that's precisely today's hack.

I don't have neither gadget, but looks like that Videora iPod Converter is using PSPVideo9 codecs to prepare video for the iPod. Donate if you enjoy it!

The actual Videora site can be found here

The poster linked to an interview of the Videora Author. The actual website is here:
Videora