Video and dvd to ipod

[audioguy]

I just got the 30GB video ipod for Christmas. It seems pretty cool. I just have a question about what software you guys recommend that is good for video. Right now i have pqdvd to ipod, super dvd to ipod, and cucusoft. I don't think i like cucusoft. Sound isn't good. It's so hard to tell from the trial versions because pqdvd now says error after i copied a few minutes and super dvd is saying errors now too. I hope that's because of the trial version. Does anyone have any experience with this.

Also, a question about the audio. I even tried that lossless format but still sometimes you can hear a crackling in certain parts of songs and i have it at a reasonable volume. The recordings shouldn't be bad especially from the factory cd's. I solved it somewhat i think by using the eq with each song with my own adjustment and then updated the ipod and set the ipod's eq to flat. From what i understand from apple this will use the eq's setting i gave it under itunes instead of the ipod's eq other than it's flat setting. Just maybe need a little help here. I've tried all different formats and kbps and it doesn't make too much of a difference. The eq seems to do most of the trick. I don't know if better headphones would be better or not. I'm using panasonic rp-ht355 stereo headphones that look like dj phones. Any help in these areas would be much appreciated.

[leony]

I have iSkysoft dvd to iPod converter and it does a decent job. It probably takes 30 minutes to rip a full-length movie with sound and picture quality set to maximum. The iSkysoft DVD to iPod converter is $29. It was easy to use and had good speed. So far I have converted 3 DVDs to play on my iPod Touch, and each one worked brilliantly.

[uofmtiger]

I would at least try some different headphones to see if that is the culprit.

Also, a question about the audio. I even tried that lossless format but still sometimes you can hear a crackling in certain parts of songs and i have it at a reasonable volume. The recordings shouldn't be bad especially from the factory cd'sMost CDs have clipping. This is a trend related to the loudness wars. This type of "clipping" occurs when a sound wave in a song is too loud, and it exceeds the ability of the CD to store it properly, resulting in a playback defect. Therefore, on many CDs, the process of “normalization” may actually result in better-than-CD sound. This doesn’t mean that it fixes a “flattened wave peak” which was destroyed by clipping, but it will lower the average volume of a song to a level that will not clip when you play it back.

Personally, I do not use Replay Gain/normalization when I rip music to my hard drive. However, I will transcode a file with Replay Gain when a notice a clip that is really annoying on an album I listen to frequently.

If you are using mp3s instead of lossless, mp3gain is the program you want to use for this purpose.