iPod Video: Update - All that glitters ain't gold

Coming off the buzz of recently procuring a video iPod, I've embarked on the seemingly common task of converting digital video content to a format that will be accepted and played by the device.

And here, dear reader is where the problems began. You see, you can't simply add any video to iTunes and have iTunes do the work (cause iTunes is free right?). No, you must purchase a registration key to activate QuickTime Pro which will then allow one to export a movie to the accepted standard of MPEG-4, which the iPod uses.

"Well no problem," I thought to myself. "My many years in multimedia production have endowed me with a working copy of QuickTime Pro." Wrong. You see, the latest version of iTunes - the one that a user must download and install to operate a video iPod requires the purchase of the most current version of QuickTime Pro (7.0+). So I dropped another $30 at the Apple Store (online) and got myself a new registration key to activate QTPro 7.0.4

"Great, I'll be watching all the television that my computer TiVo's in no time," I naively thought to myself.

Wrong again.

You see, Windows uses this stupid ass format (.dvr-ms) to save any television content the Media PCs record. So I had to find a program that would first convert the Windows DVR content into something that QuickTime Pro would understand. (Are you still with me here? It gets better, I promise.)

I downloaded DVRMSToolbox from Download.com (shareware, natch) and thought, "Okay, I'm on my way..Although this 2-step process is kind of a pain in the ass." DVRMSToolbox was touted as an application that "allows you to convert DVRms to more accessible formats."

I (quickly) converted an episode of "Little Britain" into an mpg movie. No problems there.
I then attempted to open the resultant .mpg in QuickTime Pro (ha! What a misnomer) only to be notified of the following:

Hot.

After hours scouring the web, tech forums, and even hitting up my useless graduate program's alumni list (thanks for nothing), I discovered from the apple website:

QuickTime has the ability to play back MPEG-2 content via the QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component. It is available as an add-on to QuickTime 6 or QuickTime 7 for $19.99 in the Apple Store online.

"Huh?"

So ultimately, I dropped another chunk of change on the mpeg-2 converter so that QuickTime Pro would allow me to open the converted DVR video and then export it "for iPod". Whew! Well at least that got sorted out.

Sort of.

I mean, I guess I should have read more carefully about whether or not the television programs I was interested in viewing on the iPod needed audio with them, because after a long, slow export

I added the file to iTunes, 'updated' my iPod (named iNinja, nice right?), and sat back ready to watch hysterical British sketch comedy on a teeny tiny 2-inch screen.

Silent.

So, my faithful reader (yes you), I am now re-outputting the mpg (that's mpeg-2 class, and you will be tested on this later) in the hopes that I can actually hear the fucking video.

Mind you, this process has taken upwards of 4 hours total. Thanks crApple.

It's a good thing I've got a lot of free time.

Update: I've installed and run *3* different programs (DVRMSToolkit, Videora, & 3GP Converter) in a pathetic attempt to accomplish this. Check out this article [Engadget] and the comments that follow - the task is not resolved and you'll see a number of posts towards the bottom where users have followed all the recommendations only to have their iPod resized/compressed video not have audio. . It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

Update #2: I think I've sorted it out and it's actually a sweet solution..
1. Use DVRMSToolkit to strip out commercials (from the pulldown menu)
2. Use 3GP Converter to convert those to MP4 for iPod and BAM! they show up automatically in iTunes when the conversion is complete.
Suck it Apple. You to Microsoft.
Email me if you're interested in this.