IPod Video Conversion Guide

This page describes how to make your Video Files playable on an iPod.

Other "how to" pages

To play on this device, the file you copy to it needs to be of the correct format. This format is summarised below:

Video Codec	h264 (H.264)
Audio Codec	mp4a (MP4 audio), aac (AAC)
Container	mp4 (MPEG4/MOV)
Size	320x240

To make the video the correct size, you can edit the preferences, or run vlc from a command prompt.

vlc "input_filename" :sout='#transcode{vcodec=h264,acodec=mp4a,audio-sync}:std{access=file, mux=mp4,url="output_filename"}' --sout-transcode-width=320 --sout-transcode-height=240 --aspect-rato=width:height

This all goes on one line, and you'll need to fill in some of the values: the input and output filenames, plus the aspect ratio of the input file. By default vlc will stretch the video to the size specified by sout-transcode-height and width, but if you tell vlc the file's aspect ratio, it will scale and put a black border around it. The aspect ratio can be written as a ratio of width and height, with a colon between the two, or as a decimal.

This has also been discussed in the forum