iSquint

Apr 27 2009

iPod must-have Freeware

I couldn’t believe that in the history of Freeloader Friday we’ve only covered iPod freeware twice. It’s time to set the record straight with free essential software for your Mac’s best friend.

This week’s I’ve chosen quality over quantity. All of these picks have found their way to daily use on my Mac, and I think they will on yours.

Yamipod iPod manager

This (Yet Another) Manager for your iPod is the only one you’ll need outside iTunes. Despite the dull name, this free app digs into your iPod’s hidden music database (which is also home to your videos, if you’re that fortunate) and allows you to copy music from the iPod to your Mac. It also allows you to import, create and manage playlists, import and export songs and add and edit lyrics.

yamipod iPod must have Freeware

As if that wasn’t enough, Yami also copies RSS feeds and other notes to your notes folder. For those of you who aren’t real excited about using unsupported software with your iPod, you’ll be happy to know that Yamipod isn’t as careless as some. It records a backup of your music database (one of the most vulnerable parts of your iPod) on every launch. So, its easy to revert if something goes wrong.

iSquint iPod video encoder

This one will only be on interest to iPod with video owners. But if you have one, you want this. There are a million lame iPod video encoding apps out there, and most share one big problem: encoding time. Even iTunes suffers from long encoding times. Enter iSquint.

isquint iPod must have Freeware

In my experience, iSquint is about twice as fast as EyeTV or iTunes. The author has built in easy presets that create great looking movies. iSquint gives you control over file sizes and format. You can optimize your video for iPod only viewing or TV via iPod viewing. The software queues encodings and is regularly updated for performance.

Fetch Art album art importer

You can rip your entire Pink Floyd collection, and iTunes will give you track names. But when you load them on your beautiful new 60 gig and they just look naked in the “Now Playing” display. Don’t let your ripped or otherwise acquired music play second fiddle to iTunes Music Store purchases.

FetchArt iPod must have Freeware

Get artwork not only gets album art for your songs, it automates the process. Highlight the song, choose Fetch Art from the script menu in iTunes and the AppleScript application finds the image on Amazon. Highlight multiple, or all, and the application will return art for the list, letting you select which to import.

Adding video, art and newsfeeds is easy. And the search for an alternate iPod manager is done. Rock on.

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Apr 27 2009

Apple TV Must-have Video Utilities – Free

In honor of the new Apple TV I’ve gathered together a list of must-have Mac video utilities (free of course). Get ready to get video in out and all over your Apple TV (or iPod with video, or even your Mac).

Getting it out:

Video Flash Downloader

Pull down hours of entertainment from YouTube and other Flash-based web video sites with Video Flash Downloader. This application replaces code-hacking and Firefox extensions, and supersedes their function with batch downloading capabilities.

iSquint

Nothing new to most iPod video users, this powerful application encodes video for use on the iPod with video – a format the Apple TV just loves. Under advanced options you can massage the settings for your Apple TVs increased resolution. Growl notifications supported.

TiVoDecode Manager

Have a version 2 TiVo? This application will decode your video files into MPEGs compatible with Apple TV (adjust your settings). This application supports Growl too and preserves video meta data like description. The application accomplishes all this as a GUI to a command line application.

Copernicus

If you’d like nothing more than to watch yourself work (or record anything else you might have going on your desktop) then this motion-screenshot application’s for you.

Getting it in:

HandBrake

The celebrated king-of-all DVD rippers has received a long awaited update. Better than ever, the application will rip your DVDs to MPEG 4 video files, just like your Apple TV likes them.

Lostify

Have a TiVo or EyeTV full of television? Once you get these episode’s converted, you’ll want to add the requisite meta data (like series title, season) so they show up just like a purchased episode in iTunes – and on Apple TV and iPod. Get this done with this great meta tag editor for iTunes video files.

Now sync, stream and enjoy. With these great utilities you can enjoy heaps of entertaining video from a plethora of free sources.

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Jun 2 2007

Elgato turbo.264

Elgato makes some of the coolest consumer video hardware for the Mac (or anything). So we were pleased to hear that they are out to speed the arduous process of conversion to the latest-greatest in codecs: H.264. Elgato’s EyeTV hardware has packed countless hours of programming to high-quality files for EyeTV. With the turbo.264 dongle, get ready to compress video for your iPod and Apple TV twice as fast as your processor.

Those who use it know that hardware is the way you convert video. Software-based conversions do nothing but make your new Mac seem slow. So the question becomes: get a new Mac or invest in far cheaper hardware to do the work. the turbo.264 is all about the latter.

I’ll be honest, there aren’t many features to talk about, and given that this thing will hang off the back of your Mac, I’m not going to visit much on aesthetics. This review is all about speed. So, before we get to the numbers, a word about the purely unscientific, real world test I conducted:

The machine is an old 500 MHz G4 dual with an after-market USB 2 card (required for the turbo.264) running Tiger. I chose an older machine so illustrate the potential in reviving old “slow” hardware. The clip I used was 5 minutes of commercial recorded at 640×480 in EyeTV.

In the test, I encoded the MPEG with EyeTV 2 (using the export function), iSquint (free open source encoding) and then with the turbo.264. I was not able to match exactly the output because the utilities’ options didn’t match up – but all three encoded with the same dimensions and bit-rate.

turbo264compare Elgato turbo.264

As you can see, the turbo.264 id , as promised, halved the conversion time of EyeTV, and came in well under iSquint’s time as well. Your mileage will vary, but it is clear that the turbo.264 dramatically sped the conversion, making my old box a mean video compressor.

So, game over? Not entirely. There were a couple things that did surprise me about the turbo. First of all, my original file was encoded with DivX and while iSquint and EyeTV converted it without trouble, turbo.264 flat out rejected it. I guess DivX isn’t among the supported video formats.

As you can see above in the stats, the turbo’s file was larger, which isn’t a total shocker, since the conversion was accelerated. However, this could be an issue for video podcasters who are using their lunch money to pay the bandwidth bills.

The turbo.264 requires Tiger, which shouldn’t be a big deal these days, but will affect you if you’re using older hardware. Installation was very easy – plug, drag and compress. I was a little surprised it didn’t hate my Iogear USB 2.0 card, since other Elgato products I have tested didn’t work with it. Again, I’m not promising it will work on your non-Apple USB 2 card – Elgato requirements specify built-in USB 2.

turbo264exp Elgato turbo.264

All told, the turbo.264 is another powerful its-almost-too-easy product from Elgato. For many of you interested in getting content to your Apple TV or iPod quickly (including reviving your old Mac to do it) you will very much appreciate this easy-to-use converter. If your video comes is a compatible format and you are okay with larger files, the trubo.264 will not let you down.

Pick up a turbo.264 at Amazon ($99 at press time).

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