Good afternoon,
After receiving a black 60 GB video iPod from my GF as an early birthday gift and doing a little research and testing, thought I'd start a new thread to explain assorted dorama related iPod topics. First of all...

YOU CAN WATCH DORAMAS ON A VIDEO IPOD!

Presently, I'm watching Gokusen episode 1 as I write this message.

While the screen is only 2.5" diagonal, the clarity, sharpness, color, brightness, and contrast are beautiful. The subtitles are small, but still large enough to read without straining.

To watch doramas, you'll need a video iPod, which come in 30 GB and 60 GB varieties.

Next, you'll need a dorama that you want to watch.

For this example, I chose Gokusen, which I have on my PC in DivX format courtesy of the awesome Buruburu.

You'll need to convert the episodes to Mpeg 4. To do this, I recommend the FREE iPod Converter software from Videora.
http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/iPod/

For a standard dorama recorded in 4:3 (non-widescreen) format, almost no configuration is required -- simply utilize the default settings (MPEG-4/320x240/768kbps Stereo/128kbps). All you have to do is hit the One-Click Transcode button. Choose the file(s) you want Videora to convert and let it rip. Note that conversion time will vary depending on the episode's file size and horsepower of your PC.

Next, go launch iTunes and choose File --> Add File to Library... and it will import the video to your library.

Go to the Preferences --> iPod -- Videos and select Automatically update all videos and hit the OK button. The video file(s) will commence uploading to your iPod.

From there, you should be good to go. Battery life is supposed to be 16 hours on the 30 GB model and 20 hours on the 60 GB, but that sounds optimistic. Purchase an optional external battery pack and you'll have enough juice to get you through an entire dorama for you night flight to Japan!



Cheers,
PCM

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--------------------EDIT
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YOU CAN WATCH DVDS ON A VIDEO IPOD!

First, you'll need a DVD you want to watch, put it in your DVD drive.

For this example, I chose The Fellowship of the Ring, which I have on DVD in widescreen special extended edition.

Second, you'll need to decrypt the DVD, which copies it to your hard drive. This takes around 20 minutes using DVD Decrypter, which you can download here:
http://www.doom9.org/

You'll find it in the the Descrambling / Ripping tools link.

Next, convert the DVD to Mpeg-4. To do this, again I recommend the FREE iPod Converter software from Videora.
http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/iPod/

Launch DVD Decrypter. The steps are listed here:
http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/guides.html

Go to the Mode menu and select IFO I mode. This will give you access to two new tabs; Input & Stream Processing.

Go to the Tools menu, select Settings, go to the IFO tab, then under Options, change File Splitting to None and press OK.

Go to the main screen and click the Stream Processing tab. Enable it and only select the first video listed. Note that home encoded movies do not support subtitles of any kind and that your file can only have one type of audio, so generally you choose the first audio selection listed.

Before you begin ripping your video, note the destination of the video file. This is where your raw DVD rip is going to go and it will be rather large in size. If you want to change the directory that DVD Decrypter will output to, click on the Browse button and navigate to the folder you want and press OK.

Now that you know where the movie file is going, click on the Decrypt button to start decrypting the DVD to your hard drive.

Once it is done, close DVD Decrypter. Expect a 4 GB to 6 GB movie to take about 12 to 18 minutes.

Next, launch Videora iPod Converter.

Click on Convert (1) and click Transcode New Video (2). Then locate the file that you ripped using DVD Decrypter previously and click Open (or locate the file on your computer you already have, like MPEG or AVI, etc).

Once video is loaded into the program, change the Title to what you want the video title to be (3) and then press Start to begin (4).

Once the transcode is complete, your video is ready to be moved to your device. The finished file will be located in the Output Videos to: folder specified in the Setup seciton. Simply copy the file using Windows Explorer to your device, or if your device is an iPod, import the video into iTunes.

Fellowship of the Rings Part One came out to be 679 MB.



Cheers,
PCM

pcmodem wrote:

Good afternoon, After receiving a black 60 GB video iPod from my GF as an early birthday gift

That's cool, man. A techy present.

Ah, it's just like the PS2 I received from my wife (then GF).

pcmodem wrote:

From there, you should be good to go. Battery life is supposed to be 16 hours on the 30 GB model and 20 hours on the 60 GB, but that sounds optimistic. Purchase an optional external battery pack and you'll have enough juice to get you through an entire dorama for you night flight to Japan!

The times are for listening to music, right? I would assume it would be much less when video watching is involved.

dang, i need to find better life partners.

Good job on the post though.

that sounds cool, how many episodes does it fit in your ipod? i wonder how many One Piece episodes i can put hehe i guess if im on a trip like going to PI i'd probably need one of those to keep me company, hows the battery life? have you tried watching it straight til the battery dies? sorry too many questions
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MixxDreamer wrote:

that sounds cool, how many episodes does it fit in your ipod? i wonder how many One Piece episodes i can put hehe i guess if im on a trip like going to PI i'd probably need one of those to keep me company, hows the battery life? have you tried watching it straight til the battery dies? sorry too many questions

Since they are encoded in MPEG4 and with 60GB, I'm sure you can add many episodes. How long the battery will last? Not sure, but I know it can't be 20 hours.

krim wrote:

dang, i need to find better life partners.

Me too.

MixxDreamer wrote:

that sounds cool, how many episodes does it fit in your ipod? i wonder how many One Piece episodes i can put hehe i guess if im on a trip like going to PI i'd probably need one of those to keep me company, hows the battery life? have you tried watching it straight til the battery dies? sorry too many questions

The DivX episodes convert to Mpeg-4 at roughly a 1:1 ratio.

A typical DivX episode is 300 to 450 MB; a dorama 4 to 6 GB.

Hence, there's plenty of space even a 30 GB iPod to store multiple doramas.

Haven't let the iPod run on batteries all the way down, so can't tell you how long the video playback would last.



Cheers,
PCM

Taken from apple.com


# Holds up to 150 hours of video
# Video capacity is based on 4 minutes per H.264 750-Kbps video combined with 128-Kbps audio.
# Up to 20 hours of battery life refers to 60GB model and music playback.


There's a review here at iPod Lounge.

Click on "Battery Performance and Transfer Speeds". There's a picture of someone you might know.

Quote:

Apple similarly claims that the new 60GB iPod will play music for 20 hours, photo and music slideshows for 4 hours, and video for 3 hours. In our tests, it missed the music claim by 10 minutes, playing for 19 hours, 50 minutes, but exceeded Apple's photo and video claims, playing a music photo slideshow for 4 hours, 47 minutes, iPod-screen video for 3 hours, 23 minutes, and on-TV video for a hefty 5 hours and 24 minutes.

PCM!! Youre sugoi!!
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pcmodem wrote:

The DivX episodes convert to Mpeg-4 at roughly a 1:1 ratio. A typical DivX episode is 300 to 450 MB; a dorama 4 to 6 GB. Hence, there's plenty of space even a 30 GB iPod to store multiple doramas. Haven't let the iPod run on batteries all the way down, so can't tell you how long the video playback would last.

thanks, im planning to get one of those cuz im going to PI over the summer, i cant stand being in the plane doing nothing for more than 8 hours

tabana wrote:

# Up to 20 hours of battery life refers to 60GB model and music playback.

idk if that'll hold for 20 hours, i have an ipod shuffle that supposely says it'll play for 12 hours straight when it dies down for 8 hours w/o fast-forwarding songs.
_________________

sweett.


i'm planning to sell my 60 gig ipod photo for the video one. but theres a prob.

how can i rip song off from an ipod to my computer?
_________________

As an update, on average when converting from DivX to Mpeg-4, it ends up saving HDD space.

Mpeg-4 seems to save about 15% per episode, on average.

This is nice, 15% is enough space savings to allow one to fit a typical dorama series onto a single 4.7 GB DVD.



Cheers,
PCM

kuroyume wrote:

sweett. how can i rip song off from an ipod to my computer?

It won't allow you to transfer the songs to your computer in iTunes? Of course, you would need to connect the iPod to the computer first.

what's the difference between an ipod and an mp3 player?
perhap it's time to upgrade from my mini disc player.

kuroyume wrote:

... how can i rip song off from an ipod to my computer?

www.ipodlounge.com should have all the tools/faqs/tutorials you'll need.

kenjilina wrote:

what's the difference between an ipod and an mp3 player?

Both will play MP3 files, but the iPod also plays AAC files, like the ones you buy from the Apple Store. A typical MP3 player will not play AAC. But the iPod won't play WMA files, while the MP3 player might. Confused?

kenjilina wrote:

perhap it's time to upgrade from my mini disc player.

I still have me one of those portable MD players. Got it in 2000.

dochira wrote:

Both will play MP3 files, but the iPod also plays AAC files, like the ones you buy from the Apple Store. A typical MP3 player will not play AAC. But the iPod won't play WMA files, while the MP3 player might. Confused?

thanks. i might treat myself for christmas to an mp3 player... or perhaps an ipod.... i'll toss a coin.

kenjilina wrote:

thanks. i might treat myself for christmas to an mp3 player... or perhaps an ipod.... i'll toss a coin.

Yep, but if you get the Video iPod you can also watch doramas!
-PCM

pcmodem wrote:

Yep, but if you get the Video iPod you can also watch doramas! -PCM

now there's too much choice!

Want to watch those iPod videos on a TV without buying a dock?