Good-to-Go Video, Part 2

Show someone a personal media player for the first time and I guarantee they'll ask, "Can you get DVDs on that?" Well, yes -- with caveats.

InterVideo's $79.95 DVDCopy 4 Platinum H.264 Edition makes it incredibly simple to get DVD content onto your iPod or PSP. InterVideo says it's as easy as 1-2-3, and the clean interface even reflects that: pick the source disc, pick the target file, pick the output format (aside from MPEG-4, you can also output to 3GPP for LG, Nokia or Motorola cell phones), and away you go. Of course, it might be a good idea to add an extra two steps and select one of six output settings (three quality settings for for 4:3, three for widescreen), and pick which specific sections of the DVD you want to convert. Cool feature: you can specify audio and subtitle tracks if you're so inclined.

So what's the catch? Well, DVD Copy 4 can't handle DVDs that use CSS encryption, which rules out most commercial releases. There are ways around that, of course, but I'm not getting into that.