MoviesForMyPod - Mac software

[Rasheed]

MoviesForMyPod
by: Digigami
URL: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19731
version 0.9.9.3 (freeware)
Requirements: Mac OS X 10.3 or later, iTunes 6.x or later

This is a batch processing application for converting QuickTime movies into iPod-friendly Podcast Movies, 320x240 MPEG-4 and H.264 movie files.

I've tested the single file conversion on a 3s and a 30s Moho animation:

3s animation
21 MB uncompressed QT movie file (.mov)
176 KB Podcast QT movie file (.mov)
260 KB MPEG-4 high quality (.m4v)
212 KB H.264 ultra high quality (.m4v)

30s animation
215.6 MB uncompressed QT movie file (.mov)
1.8 MB Podcast QT movie file (.mov)
2.7 MB MPEG-4 high quality file (.m4v)
2.1 MB H.264 ultra high quality file (.m4v)

Both the Podcast and MPEG-4 compressed really fast, but the H.264 took a lot longer to compress. I haven't tested it on a 5th generation iPod (5G iPod), but the resulting files were displayed in very good quality in the outlook window of iTunes 6.0 (with QuickTime 7.0.3).

The files were compressed by MoviesForMyPod at roughly 1% of the size of the size of the original QT movie file. As a comparison I compressed the 3s file using Moho. Moho couldn't compress smaller than roughly 5%.
3s animation
21 MB uncompressed QT movie file (.mov)
844 KB H.264 compressed QT movie file (.mov)
1.1 MB Sorenson Video 3 compressed QT movie file (.mov)

Most video podcast use videos of 30s - 5 min in length, with file sizes between 2 and 20 Mb. It seems that the files resulting from MoviesForMyPod fall into this category if you keep your you animation between 30 seconds and 5 minutes.

I haven't tested the batch processing, nor played the sample on a 5G iPod (which I don't yet have). I gladly leave that to others.

[cribble]

i'm confused a little bit by what format this new iPod can except. Is it a mov, mov with pod-compression or m4v file types?

[Rasheed]

Before I answer your question I should go into the technical specifications of the 5th generation iPod (5G iPod, aka video iPod).

Here are the tech specs from Apple's website (see here):

H.264 video: up to 768 Kbps, 320 x 240, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats
MPEG-4 video: up to 2.5 mbps, 480 x 480, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats

Note, the phrase "Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3" for the H.264 format means not all H.264 videos will play on a 5G iPod. The MPEG-4 video format is less pickier. Also note the low bitrate of 768 Kbps of H.264, as compared to the 2.5 Mbps of MPEG-4.

Most people who convert existing movie files into files the 5G iPod can display seem to prefer MPEG-4, because the encoding is so much faster than H.264. However, with H.264 you can achieve a higher image quality.

To answer your question, the allowed file extensions are .m4v, .mp4 and .mov. I guess this means the file extensions are more or less exchangable (a mov can be an ordinary mov, but also a m4v or a mp4; however, m4v and mp4 cannot be ordinary mov).

[BA]

I have the new Ipod and have found that it will not play .mov files that I put on it - only m4v. Haven't tried H.264 yet...

I have to say, the Moho looks pretty sweet on the Pod...

[Rasheed]

I've made some sample animations to play on your 5G iPod
catrocker.m4v (2 MB, 60 s, 12 fps)
zman.m4v (500 KB, 30 s, 12 fps)
My provider's server doesn't recognize the mime type '.m4v', so please download from the webpages in the above links by right clicking and selecting "save file as" (or similar) from the quick menu. I have put the source files here (only the Moho files, no music files).

And I know, the "music video" isn't lipsynch.