Videos for non-IPod

[AgustusM]

First off, I am looking for a legal option where I can purchase videos. I know I could probably find a good deal of what I am looking for on bit torrent, but I am trying to stay legal here.

I can and have purchased music videos from ITunes - However I don't have an IPod I have a Creative Vision Zen. Bottom line I am philosophically opposed to the restrictions that ITunes and IPod put on my music when ALL of it is legal - over 9,000 songs with most painstakenly ripped from the over 1,000 CD's I have.

So anyway I have the Zen and not the IPod and I would really like to purchase and sync some videos to this thing, however I can't seem to find any place to purchase videos other then ITunes.

this community seems to have a pretty wide knowledge base and I would love to hear of any sites you guys use to purchase videos or even if I am juts out to luck.

[JimboJ]

I'm looking to buy one of these too. Is it possible to rip DVD's to your computer and copy them onto the Zen? Or is there some kind of copy protection on them? I'm talking about music and/or movie DVDs.

[Daimyo]

Bottom line I am philosophically opposed to the restrictions that ITunes and IPod put on my music when ALL of it is legal - over 9,000 songs with most painstakenly ripped from the over 1,000 CD's I have.
You know that iTunes/iPod can play regular mp3s just fine and can even rip CDs in mp3 format right? Copy protection only enters the picture when you purchase music from the iTunes store.

[SackAttack]

You know that iTunes/iPod can play regular mp3s just fine and can even rip CDs in mp3 format right? Copy protection only enters the picture when you purchase music from the iTunes store.

And even then you can burn the content to disc, and then re-rip from the disc so that it's compatible with your Zen. It's not totally unusable, it just has a few extra hoops to jump through.

[AgustusM]

And even then you can burn the content to disc, and then re-rip from the disc so that it's compatible with your Zen. It's not totally unusable, it just has a few extra hoops to jump through.

this is what I do now when I purchase music from ITunes - I burn a CD and then rip it into Windows Media Player (I use to use the Creative Software on my old Jukebox, but I like the new beta 11 of WMP)

Also I am aware of the ITunes ability to play "pure mp'3s", like I said it is more philosophical then practical preference to not use ITunes other then the occasional purchase. I understand the copy protection issues, It is just that I have obtained my music legally and given the choice I would rather not have the big brother aspects of ITunes.

I just wish there was another option for purchasing video, but it appears as of today there isn't.

[AgustusM]

I'm looking to buy one of these too. Is it possible to rip DVD's to your computer and copy them onto the Zen? Or is there some kind of copy protection on them? I'm talking about music and/or movie DVDs.

I think this would be fairly easy to do as long as you have the right DVD ripping software. It has been awhile since I have tired but a couple years back most of the attempts I made at ripping any content from DVD's was usually frustraing and not very productive.

As far as getting the content onto the Zen, I have quite a few home movies type things that go on the Zen great - most of which I put together with the windows movie maker.

[Daimyo]

You can use the paid version of Quicktime to rip DVDs to iTunes compatible video format... now sure how compatible it is with other players. There are also a few freeware alternatives that are good, but I can't recall their names right now. There is also a utility that will copy video from a TiVo and convert it to iPod or other formats without protection. (official tivo support for this function is imminent, but probably will have some copy protection)