Reviews
DVD
to Pocket PC
No-brainer tool rips almost any DVD to your PPC
While there
are several tutorials on using freely available software to make
Pocket PC-sized movies from DVDs, none are as easy to use or as
reliable as Makayama Software's DVD to Pocket PC ($24.95). In
the short time it has been available, DVD to Pocket PC has built
a semi-rabid following of very happy customers. Best of all, it
appears to be legal to use, since the extreme compression derived
from the video stream coming into the licensed copy of Windows
Media Player falls within the bounds of fair use, or at least
that's the way I read the law. If you started uploading these
onto the net, though, things get questionable in a hurry, so use
this software only to create low-res copies of DVDs you own and
use them for your own personal use. Doing otherwise puts you right
into the crosshairs of Ashcroft's goon squad. End of sermon.
Now that we
have that little bit of unpleasantness behind us, let's look at
the process 
this
software uses to create movies for the four-inch screen. First,
you insert your DVD into your Windows PC's drive, begin playback,
then stop. You've now unlocked the media for legit playback on
this computer. Next, launch DVD to Pocket PC and click on Open.
This will show you the media files on the disk. Choose the longest
one (it's the actual movie you want), then choose either Normal
or Best encoding. Normal will fit most 2 hour movies onto a 128MB
memory card, while Best requires a 256MB card. Try both to find
your viewability threshold. Either way, don't expect to use your
computer for three to six hours, as it's a two-pass process that's
best run overnight.
I found the
results to be completely satisfying for casual viewing, but I
definitely would not want to watch a major new release in this
format. With the incredible depth of great non-fiction, documentary
titles coming out at reasonable prices, the best long-term use
of these low-res files is catching up on all the ălittleä movies
on your list. Another great use is to carry items captured by
your Tivo that you've burned to DVD-RW. (See my Replay column
elsewhere in this issue for details on an inexpensive DVD recorder
that makes this easily, and legally, possible.)
Watching
movies on a handheld has become something of a running joke around
our editorial office. The butt of the jest is the ultra-nerd who
just can't tear himself away from his idiot box long enough to
have a life, so he takes it everywhere in his pocket. My response
is that people like to make pocket movies for two reasons: because
it's cool, and because they can. There is something edgy about
it, like you are beta testing the future of media delivery. Of
course, someday soon pocket-sized movies will look a lot better
than these heavily compressed renditions; hi-def originals, smarter
codecs, faster devices, denser displays, and multi-gigabyte flash
media will make it happen in a couple of years. Until then, kick
back in your favorite chair in the dentist's waiting room, jack
a pair of noise blocking in-earphones, and try to ignore the other
patients' stares. They don't think you're cool, they think you're
nuts. But you and I know better ÷ in a few years, everyone will
be doing it. Can you say MoviPod?
-Edison Carter
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