If you own a video Ipod and use Beyond TV, Sage TV or Windows MCE you have likely been using different software tools to get your shows from your PC to your Ipod. Lifehacker.com highlighted one way to transfer shows and dvd’s to your ipod using videora ipod converter and I’ve tried out a free way to do it using the windows version of handbrake with great success. My problem with these solutions is that they take a lot of extra work and they aren’t as integrated into Beyond TV as I would like. My ideal solution would be something like the Btv2Ipod plugin written by lex148 where a button is added to BTV and you just select a show and click on “copy to ipod” and you’re done. Unfortunately, this plugin doesn’t seem to play nice with BTV 4.5 and higher and I haven’t seen any updates to that plugin since it was first published.
I came across an interesting solution recently that might just be the answer. If you’ve ever used Sage TV in the past you may have heard of a plugin called SageToIpod. That plugin was originally written for SageTV by Geoff Gerhardt. He has since continually updated the plugin and now calls it Ipodifier to signify the evolution away from being only for Sage to one that will import a variety of video sources like BTV, MCE, bittorent etc. The gui has been improved and it looks quite nice. This plugin can transcode a few videos you have on your PC, but it can also work with BTV. Ipodifier will monitor your DVR application for new video and automatically transcode the video into a format compatible with your video ipod. It then adds that video/s to Itunes and syncs to your ipod. With the proper settings, it will even organize the video in your Ipod into categories using video playlists.
The gui reminds me of the BTV webadmin screen and looks nice. If you have an Ipod and use BeyondTV or any other windows PVR app, give it a try. While I still hope for a totally integrated (with copy2Ipod button) solution, this is pretty close and has features that can automate the process more than the BTV2Ipod plugin did.
http://ipodifier.com/
For my other posts about the Ipod, click here
For my other posts about the HTPC, click here
