How To Find Watch, Save, And Convert iPod Videos
Posted On April 9, 2012
Video Converters 101
Before watching videos on a smartphone was an everyday occurrence, for many the portable video player of choice was an iPod. Four years after Apple launched the iPod, several iterations had perfected what the device could do. It was able to carry music, photos and video that could be played in the palm of your hand then. Now, these capabilities are taken for granted – assumed to be standard, not only for dedicated portable media players, but for smartphones, tablets and who knows what else is around the corner. Still there are plenty of people who prefer to watch movies on an iPod video player. However, getting video saved on a computer isn’t always easy. There’s no need to be intimidated, it’s a lot easier than you might think.
WHERE DO I FIND IPOD VIDEOS
Assuming you’re not shooting your own videos, which you can do with some iPod models, there are many websites where you can watch free videos online. If your iPod has an Internet connection you can just stream the video. If you want to watch the videos whenever you want, you will need to download and save those videos. Many of those sites allow downloading of their content for personal, non-commercial use. Just visit those sites on your computer and then use RealPlayer to download the video in seconds If you don’t already have RealPlayer, click the orange button in the top right corner of this page to download a free version and start saving videos that you will be able to watch on your iPod.
As far as where to find iPod videos, it really depends on what you want to watch. Unusual, beautiful, and special videos by independent artists can found at Vimeo. If your search is for something more on the academic side, Khan Academy is not to be missed for an extraordinary range of subjects. For a general-purpose site with videos covering movie trailers, games, sports, television and entertainment of all sorts, Metacafe is popular. For more ideas on where to find videos, check out this post on where to download videos online free. Finding videos to watch on your iPod is just the first step. To actually get those videos on your iPod, you’re likely going to need a iPod video converter since the video format you used to download the video is likely not compatible with your iPod video player.
HOW TO CONVERT VIDEO FILES TO IPOD
You may be asking, “Where can I find an iPod video converter?” The good news is that there is a free iPod video converter included with RealPlayer. It’s so simple to use that you won’t have to spend time trying to figure out what format the videos on your computer need to be converted to, in order to play on your iPod. RealPlayer could just as easily convert videos for use on dozens of brands of smart phone, tablets or other devices.
| Get A Free iPod Video Converter |
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Use RealPlayer to download online videos and then easily transfer them from your computer to your iPod. RealPlayer even converts the video to a compatible format before transferring it to the iPod. |
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The procedure involves the same kind of video file format conversion discussed in other posts only RealPlayer does all the heavy lifting. It’s also similar to the steps RealPlayer performed to convert video to MP3. Instead of just converting audio and video format to MP3 audio, here, the source video and audio both have to be specially re-formatted to match Apple’s requirements for iPods.
For this iPod video converter example, we’re using a fifth generation iPod Nano with 16GB of storage. We are downloading a short video about old British racing cars from Vimeo.
Once you’ve downloaded and installed the free version of RealPlayer, it handles all the steps to save and convert video files to iPod. Here’s how it works:
- Go to the website and play the video you want to save.
- Hover the cursor in the top right corner of the video frame.
- “Download This Video” appears in a box on the upper right. Click it.
- RealPlayer Downloader opens and shows the progress of the video download.
- The video is automatically placed in the RealPlayer Library.
- Open the RealPlayer library and click on the clip’s thumbnail and select Convert To from the menu.
- The RealPlayer Converter opens and the clip is added.
- Click on the Convert To button and select Apple iPod as the device. Click on Details to be sure the video format is Apple h.264.
- Leave the audio at AAC, but the bit rate can be changed if you want better audio quality.
- Click the OK buttons to exit Details, and then press the green Start button.
RealPlayer works as an iPod video converter and does the rest.
HOW TO GET VIDEOS FROM YOUR COMPUTER TO YOUR IPOD
Once the free iPod video converter in RealPlayer has done its stuff, click OK to add the newly converted iPod video file to your iTunes library. A copy is also placed in the RealPlayer Library. It should have the file format .m4v listed under the thumbnail, along with the title, running time, and date. Since the video was converted to play on the Apple iPod, the .m4v file is now only about half the size of the original video downloaded from Vimeo.
To transfer the video to the iPod:
- Connect the iPod to the computer
- The iPod will sync with iTunes
- Drag the converted video from the iTunes Movies section onto the iPod icon
- The video then transfers to the iPod
In this case, a four-minute video (44MB), took four seconds to transfer from the computer to the iPod. Now there’s an iPod video to watch. Even on the relatively outdated iPod we used in this example, the results are quite nice. It plays a beautiful picture with excellent sound.
GET A FREE IPOD VIDEO CONVERTER
Turns out getting video on an iPod isn’t as hard as you might have thought. You don’t even need to know what video format works with the iPod (well, if you must know, its .m4v). There’s no need to pay for an iPod video converter when a free iPod video converter is included with the free version of RealPlayer. Plus, RealPlayer provides a way to download videos from the Internet with just one click. For some, the hardest part of adding videos to their iPod is narrowing down the video list.
What type of videos do you watch on your iPod? Is that your portable device of choice when you travel? Let us know in the comments below. As always, if you have any questions just let us know in the comments and we’ll get right back to you.
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My realplayer doesn’t want to load in where it says library. It says something about error & doesn’t let me drag videos to convert in my iPod
I’m guessing you may be trying to convert to MP4 for your iPod. RealPlayer won’t do that. RP+ will. A workaround for the free RealPlayer is to download and install QuickTime for Windows. You’ll also need iTunes for Windows in order to put the converted file into the iTunes Library, and then move it into the iPod. Let us know if that works for you.
…TV
These instructions are very helpful, and they worked! The only difficulty I found was that it took RealPlayer converter eighteen minutes to convert a five minute clip. Should it take this long? It may just be because I have the free version of RealPlayer, but really, eighteen minutes? It didn’t take that long to download…
You didn’t mention what you were converting from and to. But, Wow! 18-minutes for a 5-minute clip is a long time. To be honest, RealPlayer Converter isn’t known for being a speed-demon when it comes to conversions, or transfers to certain devices. However, there are several factors which might be bogging down your performance. Your system configuration of CPU speed and cores, amount of RAM and HD speed are the first considerations. I’d also quit any other applications you have running so the full power of your computer can be devoted to the conversion. Third, the format you’re converting from or to can make a different. MP4/H.264 is a very efficient format and codec to play, but it does eat up resources during the encode itself.
RealPlayer Plus does have special acceleration features which would speed things up. Oh, don’t use download speed as a comparison to how fast the conversion should be. Two completely different things. Downloads are just sucking down bits from online in more or less a constant stream. Your network workload can have an impact though. Conversions or transcoding is reprocessing the data from one format to another. Very different. Lots more horsepower required. You might also double check the specific, detailed settings you are using for the conversion. What is the video resolution, audio and video bit rates, and so on. Setting them at the highest quality (which you may want) will simply take more time to process.
…TV
Converting to my iPad doesn’t go well; often the converted files will stutter during playback — as if the framerate has been seriously diddled (imagine watching a 6fps video stretched to 30fps) — although the original downloads play just fine in RealPlayer. Am I just running an obsolete version of RP, or does this have something to do with peculiarities of OS X?
Ahh… so you’re one of the guys that uses a Mac to the conversion! I run Mac too, but have BootCamp and Parallels installed so I switch back and forth to run lots of Windows s/w. I always do my transcoding conversions on Widows. Although Compressor has some nifty features. Also the Window version of PR is superior to the Mac in many ways.
All that said, the Mac should convert to iPad fine. There’s even a special selection for it. Just to cover the bases, UNinstall your version of RealPlayer and go through the drill of uploading and installing fresh version. Uninstall any other RP apps you have have on your system just to be safe. I think there was a update of RP SP recently. Unless you’ve really got some ancient computer (although RP SP will run on a G4!!!) it shouldn’t prevent the proper conversion the the iPad device.
Having said that, there isn’t any reason it won’t run an iPad transfer just fine.
Maybe check the “detail” setting your have deeper inside the converter dialog window. Everything should be Apple H.264 and AAC audio. Even then, your resolution quality and bit rates for audio and video may be more that the iPad can handle. Maybe the 15Mbps video could be causing things to balk. Back off to 10 Mbps to see if that helps. Could depend on iPad 1 vs. iPad 2 (faster processor), and how much memory is installed. I have an Ipad 2, and have never seen the problem you’re describing. If you’re luck enough to have and iPad 3… then all bets are off. You shouldn’t have ANY problems with the. I’d take it to an Apple Store for help then.
BTW: Just because a video plays fine and dandy when you’re downloading it, doesn’t necessarily mean all the conversion business it has to go through to put it in the correct file format, codec, bit rates and so on will insure playback on the new target device will be a breeze. Lot’s more processing going on. That’s a big deal going on in the business right now with everybody trying to provide all video, everywhere, all the time and all platforms.
OS X shouldn’t have anything to do with if you’re a least running 10.4.11 (whatever cat that was) 10.5.8 with Intel processor is recommended.
Let me know if any of this help.
…TV
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Heya, memory card (cool handle) thanks for taking the time to take a look. Come back again – lots of interesting stuff.
…TV
The only part I am lost , in getting my videos from my pc to my I pod? I di not get the part when u mentioned dragging I tuned movies into I pod, can u explain more about that please , thanks
Hansen,
After you’ve had RealPlayer convert your media to a format for any Apple device, you’ll get a prompt asking if you want the converted media moved to the iTunes library. Yes, you do. Then, with the iPod or whatever Apple device attached to the computer and recognized by iTunes, select and drag the media into the Apple device, which iTunes sees.
Get back to me if that doesn’t work for you.
…TV
When I click the “Start” button I get a window about getting RealPlayer Plus 16, and the conversion doesn’t start as far as I’ve seen. Help?
Luke,
What formats are you converting from and to? It may be one that the free RealPlayer is not compatible with, requiring. If MP4 is involved, you first might want to download and install QuickTime for Windows. If that doesn’t help, you may need 16 Plus.
…TV
I bought a new computer and downloaded Real on it…on my first attempt to convert a video, I got a popup that asked me if I wanted to upgrade to Real Pro…when I clicked “no thanks”, I got another popup that said I could get real pro free by accepting other offers…when I clicked that popup off, the video did not convert, but real converter simply sat there with the start button still green…so I clicked the start button again and went through the popup sequence again…
Fortunately, I have my old computer which still works fine, but is there any way to get real converter to work without accepting an offer of an upgrade?
Darryl,
Yup, you can do that.
The problem you’ve bumped into is common — trying to convert to or from a file format/codec the free RealPlayer doesn’t handle. That’s why you’re getting the prompts to upgrade to RealPlayer Plus — because it will. There can be a few layers of those prompts, including discount offers before you can get out of that loop.
You didn’t mention specifics, but since MP4/H2.64 is currently the most popular online video standard, I’m speculating that’s the problem. The free RealPlayer ‘PLAYS’ MP4, but won’t Convert in either direction. The work-around is to download and install QuickTime for Windows. This will enable RealPlayer Converter to work with MP4.
If it’s not MP4, then try the K-Lite codec pack. There are several increasingly more capable versions (Basic may be fine, but there are more), but like QuickTime, are all Free. Do a Restart after you install any of the above.
One or both of the above should enable you to use your brand new computer just fine with RealPlayer 16. IF those solutions don’t work for you, let me know exactly what you are converting from and to.
…TV
Will this work for the iPod touch?
Dear Customer,
RealPlayer is not currently compatible with the iPhone, iPod Touch, or BlackBerry. However, it is possible to convert audio and video files for playback on iPod, iPhone, and select BlackBerry devices.
it wont show the download thisz video thing
Hi,
Please make sure the RealPlayer Plugin is enabled in your web browser by following this link:
http://real.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/8883
If that doesn’t work, send an email to help@real.com so that we can help you further.
Hello,I’m trying to convert a video to my itunes and every time I press start,the Realplayer plus 16 advertisement keeps poping up.It won’t let me convert anything.
Hi Mora,
Try installing QuickTime/iTunes to enable the necessary codec for RealPlayer to play/convert .mp4 files.
1: QuickTime : http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
or
2: iTunes http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
After installing QuickTime/iTunes, try converting the files through RealPlayer.
If that doesn’t help, send an email to help@real.com to assist you better.
Everything goes fine except when i play the video on my ipod/iphone ,it only gives me part of thr movie? Anyway to fix that?
Please provide us some more information to assist you further.
when I press start- to start the conversion to ipod format- it immediately redirects me to offers for full version and does not start the conversion. how do I get it to start?
Some file requires Plus feature to play/convert. Try installing QuickTime/iTunes to enable the necessary codec for RealPlayer to play/convert .MP4 files.
1: QuickTime : http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
or
2: iTunes http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
After installing QuickTime/iTunes, try playing/converting the files through RealPlayer.
If this doesn’t work, please send an email to help@real.com, include a brief description of the issue, copy and paste the link to this thread within the email for further assistance.
Every time I press the start button to convert a video from realplayer to my apple device, a box pops up giving me an ad telling me to download realplayer plus 16 for only $39.99. What do I do?? It works for every other device but not apple. If this is some cheap plan to make money its pathetic..
Some file requires Plus feature to play/convert. Try installing QuickTime/iTunes to enable the necessary codec for RealPlayer to play/convert .mp4 files.
1: QuickTime : http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
or
2: iTunes http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
After installing QuickTime/iTunes, try playing/converting the files through RealPlayer. If this doesn’t work, please send an email to help@real.com, include a brief description of the issue, copy and paste the link to this thread within the email for further assistance.
Can I convert mp4 files to mpg format, required to be displayed on Sony TVs ?
No. You can convert a .MP4 files to these videos formats using RealPlayer Converter:
1. 3GP
2. H.264 for iPod and iPhone
3. H.264 for non-Apple devices
4. RealVideo
5. WMV
If you have an additional question, please send an email to help@real.com