I was on holiday last week and spent it in lovely Seattle, WA.  The flight from Atlanta to Seattle is about 5 hours long, so I decided to bring my own entertainment with me to help pass the time. 

In anticipation of my trip, I purchased a Transcend Ultra-Speed 8 GB CF card and an 2880mah Extended Lithium Ion battery for my hx2415.

In the last three years, I've become a big fan of the television series "24." Since I missed the first couple of seasons of this great show, I decided to get the DVDs for the first season, rip them, and then copy them to my 8 GB CF card.

Last Fall, I discovered and purchased AoA DVD Ripper.  At the time, I wanted to copy specific chapters of a movie and place these chapters into a PowerPoint presentation that I use in one of my lectures.  Searching the internet, I found several different software options, and after trying out a few, I chose AoA DVD Ripper.  I looked at software applications that were Pocket PC-centric, that is, the applications were designed to rip DVDs so they would be optimized for the Pocket PC, but decided I wanted a software that would not limit me to Pocket PCs.

There are 6 DVDs, with each DVD covering 4 episodes, for the first season of "24". I ripped the DVDs into AVI format since that format creates a smaller file size than the WAV format.  I used the step-by-step instructions provided on AoA's website entitled "How to create a DivX/XviD file from a DVD," to get the DVDs into this format.  I deviated from these instructions on Step 10 where, instead of selecting a Resolution of 720 / 480, I selected a Resolution of 320 / 240 to match the resolution of my hx2415 (it also makes a smaller file).  I also found that I needed to download and install the XviD MPEG-4 Codec, which I got from the Xvid.org downloads page (select Xvid for Windows).

Since Windows Media Player (Pocket version) is quite limited, I had already installed CorePlayer, an excellent multimedia player, to each of my Pocket PCs.  Windows Media Player does not recognize AVI files, but CorePlayer handles them beautifully.

Waiting 'til the Last Minute is Not Adviseable!
I am a true novice here, so I was overly optimistic about how much time it would take to rip over 17 hours of DVDs and about how many episodes my CF card could accommodate. 

Each episode was about 43 minutes long and each DVD included 4 episodes.  It took approximately 2-1/2 hours to rip a DVD, and another 20 or 30 minutes to transfer each ripped DVD to my CF card.  So the whole process took about 18 hours to complete.  I got the DVDs the day before my trip, so I ripped DVDs all night long, setting my alarm clock in 2-1/2 hour increments!  As it turned out, I was only able to copy 8 episodes over to the CF card before running out of space (8 episodes x 43 minute = 344 minutes or 3 hours 440 minutes - probably 4 hours since there was a little room left on the CF card).  I think I'll need to buy another CF card before I fly to Alaska in August (at least an 8 hour flight from Atlanta)!

If you've got the time, rip 2 minutes and check the output
When I originally purchased the AoA software, I tested the software by ripping one DVD from my collection of DVDs and found that everything worked great on the Pocket PC.  Since I had limited time to rip these videos, I didn't check as carefully as I should have after ripping each video to confirm that the output was fine.  When I was on the plane watching the videos I discovered the audio did not line up with the video.  There was a definite lag when I would hear the audio and then see the actor's lips move.  This was rather distracting, but still better than sitting idle for 5 hours. 

When I returned from Seattle, I looked around the AoA website for a solution to this problem.  I found the solution when I took a second look at AoA's step-by-step guide, "How to create a DivX/XviD file from a DVD." Step 11 shows the Advanced Options configuration screen that addresses potential Audio Problems, with a recommendation to rip 2 minutes of the DVD to determine if there are any audio problems.  If there are, the Audio Problem options can be set to "Auto," "Enhance," or "Force."  I haven't tried these settings out yet to confirm that they will resolves the issue, but I will be sure to check this when I rip the DVDs for the second season of "24." I'll let you know how it turns out (ripping the videos, not how the season ends!  )

Did you enjoy this Post? Subscribe to From My Pocket