Ipodifier is a video to Ipod conversion software that can be scheduled to scan user-specified directories for video files and, when found, convert these to Ipod mp4 videos. Once the conversion is complete it can transfer the resulting video to iTunes and your Ipod.
The basic premise is that if you capture videos from a source such as TiVo, SageTV or another device or download through Torrent or any another source, Ipodifier can be set up to work with these files once they become available and take them through all the necessary steps to get them on your Ipod without any user intervention.
Picture this: you’re sleeping, but your favorite TV show is being saved on your computer’s hard drive from TiVo or Torrent. As soon as the download or capture is finally completed, Ipodifier starts converting it based on your pre-defined conversion settings. When done, it transfers the files to your Ipod. In the morning your TV show is ready for you to watch on the bus ride to work.
At least that’s the basic idea. Here’s what you need to know about this program:
- Setup is extremely easy to do using the video-source wizard.
- It will run in the background and monitor any folder you specify for video content. You can specify the length of the period between each scanning of the directory.
- You can tell it exactly which file extensions to look for (e.g. “*.avi,*.mpg” to look for all AVI and MPG files). Can convert WMV files as well as DVR-MS.
- You can limit actual video encoding/conversion to specific times (e.g. only encode between 2am to 8am). You can also set the priority of transcoding process (normal, high, or only when idle).
- Setting up the video encoding settings is a breeze using the wizard. Choose from 3 quality settings (good, better, best). Can encode using 320×240, 320×180, 640×480, or original video resolution.
- Itunes integration: can add TV shows to iTunes as podcasts. I do not use iTunes and cannot evaluate this, but apparently this allows different people to subscribe to the show feeds they want even on different computers.
Here are a few notes on my personal experience using Ipodifier:
- Video conversion works really well; very fast/efficient conversions. I selected the ’best’ quality setting and got excellent quality results.
- Cannot say much about the iTunes integration. Sorry. (What do I use instead of iTunes? Floola, of course).
- May be a bit buggy: I told it to look for all files (*) in my video download directory, however torrent downloaded a non-video file before my video was complete. Ipodifier spent the whole night trying to convert that file, erroring out, and re-trying. I am certain this and any other bugs will be eventually ironed out.
This program is a rarity: its original, its interesting, it looks good, it works well, and its free. Enough said.
Version tested: 1.0.0.8
Compatibility: WinAll.
The program page no longer exists, but you can download ver.1.504 of the program here.
