ipod

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MiTube

February 5, 2007 in apple, applications, diversions, film, ipod, os x, tv, video | 2 comments

‘Back home after an absolutley wonderful trip to Costa Rica with family and friends.

On our way home we had a six hour layover in Atlanta. While Jacinthe was engrossed in her book, and Luca was busy with some rented DVDs, I was reminded what a great travel companion the iPod video can be. Time flew by as I caught up on episodes of 30 Rock, Rome, Studio 60 and the Henry Rollins Show ;-)

Recently, some friends and co-workers asked me about the best way of getting video on the iPod, especially given the Canadian version of the iTunes Store doesn’t sell TV shows or feature length films. So here are a few (Mac) applications I’ve come to depend on to get great looking video onto the iPod:

  • Handbrake (freeware): Converts DVDs directly to iPod compatible MP4 video files.
  • ViddyUp (US $9.95): Converts almost any video file format, such as AVI, to iPod compatible MP4 file format.
  • TubeSock (US $15): Grabs video clips from YouTube and converts them to iPod compatible file formats.
  • Also great for travel is MacTheRipper (freeware) which rips DVDs to your hard drive. Use it to move your movies to your laptop before a trip and leave the discs at home.

A friendly game of tag

January 19, 2007 in diversions, ipod, music | 1 comment

Mark tagged me in his post Tag! I’m it! which, in turn, is a response to CC Chapmans’ post If My Life Was a Movie, What Would the Soundtrack Be? (read his post for game instructions).

As Mark says, “The idea is to put your media player on shuffle and record the name of each song that comes up in sequence against a specific list of scenes in your life — also in sequence”.

Full disclosure: I used the shuffle feature in iTunes instead of a portable media player because my iPod is in vacation prep mode and is uncharacteristically laden with reggae at the moment. Also, I skipped any orchestral or obscure jazz tracks that came up.

Here’s what I came up with by pressing “shuffle”:

Opening credits
The Empty Page - Sonic Youth

First day of school
I’ll Be Your Mirror - Velvet Underground

Falling in love
Deluge - Dave Douglas

Prom/Grad
Whatever happened to? - Buzzcocks

Mental breakdown
What’s Going On? - Marvin Gaye

Flashbacks
Always Tomorrow - Bob Mould

Getting back together
Her Love Rubbed Off - The Cramps

Wedding scene
Less - Ben Harper

Final battle
Time Will Tell - Bob Marley & The Wailers

Death scene
Don’t Ask For The Water - Ryan Adams

Funeral scene
Blister In The Sun - Violent Femmes

End credits
Modal Mood - Dexter Gordon

Finale
Flying - Faces

My turn, my turn! I’m tagging Chris Lawson, Chris Dearlove, Evan Thornton, Jason Westerlund, and Hugh McGuire

Riffing on “who’s who”

January 18, 2007 in ipod, video | 2 comments

If ever I wanted to figure out how to get YouTube videos onto my iPod, it would be for this clip: The Wood Spider

Dude!

January 12, 2007 in apple, ipod | No comments

‘Member those ugly, over-priced tour t-shirts we used to buy at arena rock shows? They were usually black with white sleeves and silkscreened with the band’s logo and most recent album art. We’d wear them to school the day after a show like a badge of honour.

Well in that very same spirit, I had to don my Apple button-down shirt this morning in acknowledgment of Steve Jobs’ monumental, industry-disrupting announcement yesterday.

iPhone: 3 - Zune: 0

Fill’er up with Wikipedia

January 7, 2007 in ipod, music, podcasts | No comments

While looking for rights free public domain music files to use in the NACOcast, I stumbled across a page that corrals all the music files on Wikipedia into a single list. Very nice. All the big guns are there; from Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven through to Debussy and Janáček.

The files themselves are in OGG format. Many free players handle the OGG format and there many converters avaialble for porting the files to other formats. There’s even a QuickTime plugin that allows you to play OGG files directly in iTunes.

The Wikipedia list is a great way to fill up your MP3 player — for when you’re done with Frantic City

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