The answer is simple: Handbrake. This free, open source software (which works on MacOS X, Linux and Windows) makes it simple to load and watch DVDs on your video iPod. Here are some helpful instructions to get you started.
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I’m sure handbrake is great, only because I keep hearing about how great it is. I tried it for the first time today on my XP laptop with the following experience:
I enter the DVD source, then it says “scanning…”. Then it reads the CD for about 30 minutes only to crash and screw up my whole computer. Everything starts going slow as hell so I restart the computer, to no avail. My mouse lags behind as if the CPU is churning away at a hundred miles an hour, but when I check the task manager it shows about 3-4% cpu usage, and handbrake isn’t even running. Then I delete it and suddenly everything works great. I’m sure I’ve just had an unfortunate experience but from where I’m sitting and based on my experience I would say handbrake is a spammy piece of crap.