CNET Live: July 24, 2008 Video

CNET Live: July 24, 2008 Video Transcript

[ Music ] ^M00:00:10

>> Tom Merritt: Coming up on CNET Live, how to convert movies from your DVD camcorder into a more web friendly video.

>> Molly Wood: Plus, Brian Cooley shows us some highlights from the British International Motor Show.

>> Tom Merritt: Oh, how nice of him. And Eric Feng from Hulu.com will be joining us here, in our studio. We'll talk to him and take some of your calls right here on CNET Live. ^M00:00:29 [ Music ] ^M00:00:35

>> Tom Merritt: Hey, welcome to CNET Live. I'm Tom Merritt.

>> Molly Wood: I'm Molly Wood filling in for Brian Cooley who's hobnobbing at tea shops and eating bangers and mash.

>> Tom Merritt: Yes, and tea and scones and motor shows. We'll actually hear from him later in the show as we just told you. But it is CNET Live taking your calls at 888-900-2638: 888-900-CNET. On the phones to let you know what you need to do to get on the show is Jaime.

>> Molly Wood: Hi Jamie.

>> Tom Merritt: Hi Jamie. She's talking to somebody right now. She'll tell you things like you know turn down the speakers so you don't get feedback, all that kind of thing. And then we'll line you up to take your calls right here on CNET Live.

>> Molly Wood: Yes, but before we get to those calls it's time for Things We Crave. ^M00:01:17 [ Music ] ^M00:01:22

>> Tom Merritt: These are some of our favorite things from the Crave Blog at Crave.cnet.com. Mine is The Fujitsu ME-3PM emergency degausser...

>> Molly Wood: Obviously.

>> Tom Merritt: ...because when you really want to erase that drive, you don't want to mess around. You don't want to do...

>> Molly Wood: Only degaussing will do?

>> Tom Merritt: ...7 pass override Darik's Boot n Nuke cause you know, somebody might be able to recover that. Put it in this thing, crank it and it sends out a magnetic force that totally wipes the drive.

>> Molly Wood: So it demagnetizes the drive. The data is unreadable and it is totally unrecoverable?

>> Tom Merritt: They say it is unrecoverable by any known method.

>> Molly Wood: I like the...

>> Tom Merritt: It doesn't mean it will always be unrecoverable I suppose, but it's a pretty good way. It's a portable crank. It's developed for the military so if you're out in the field with a bunch of sensitive data and you got to get out of there in a hurry, you don't have time to boot up Darik's Boot n Nuke and do - you know - a 7 pass over write. You just put it in there, crank it, gone.

>> Molly Wood: I know I don't have that kind of time and I'm not even on the battlefield.

>> Tom Merritt: Of course, blowing it up with a grenade probably would work too.

>> Molly Wood: There you go. I don't know if people are really good at things.

>> Tom Merritt: Yes they are. Well put.

>> Molly Wood: I am craving - thanks it's my job - I'm craving the Cowon P5 Video Player. This is the successor to the Q5W: the basically portable video player that does it all. Like you can see it's got a bagillion [assumed spelling] different applications. It does music. It does video. It plays Flash. It's wonderful downloading. It's got TV out, TV in. It has Bluetooth. The one thing it loses...

>> Tom Merritt: They took something away?

>> Molly Wood: Well, okay first of all the one thing it gains is haptic feedback. And then they...

>> Tom Merritt: Over the previous model. That's cool.

>> Molly Wood: ...they tweaked the interface.

>> Tom Merritt: So that's when you press on the touch screen and you get a little feedback that lets you know you're pressing something.

>> Molly Wood: There are actually...

>> Tom Merritt: Even though it's a flat touch screen, right?

>> Molly Wood: Yeah, there are actually studies that show that, that -- people find that more psychologically satisfying. So it gets that. It loses WiFi.

>> Tom Merritt: Why?

>> Molly Wood: Kind of a bummer for me.

>> Tom Merritt: Why would you toss WiFi out?

>> Molly Wood: Yeah, I don't know.

>> Tom Merritt: A power issue or something?

>> Molly Wood: I guess maybe power. That is the only thing that bums me out about that. Other than this, it's perfect. It plays every file format under the sun.

>> Tom Merritt: Are you going to get one?

>> Molly Wood: No, because it's not coming out in the U.S.

>> Tom Merritt: I tried to trick you.

>> Molly Wood: Don't try to bait me. Not yet anyway.

>> Tom Merritt: Alright, let's get to the phones. We've got a lot of people on the line. And let's start with the hardest question we'll probably get all day. Chris is on the line. Hey Chris, thanks for calling.

>> Chris: Hey, I love the show: just saying that.

>> Tom Merritt: Thank you.

>> Chris: And I have a Buffalo router and it just like keeps disconnecting randomly every like couple minutes.

>> Tom Merritt: Okay, so you mean the disconnection from the internet?

>> Chris: Yeah.

>> Tom Merritt: Wireless router?

>> Chris: Yes.

>> Tom Merritt: Alright first of all just what have you tried to troubleshoot it yet?

>> Chris: I don't know. I just tried disconnecting everything that's connecting to it such as the Wii, but I don't know.

>> Tom Merritt: Have you plugged it in directly from your laptop with an Ethernet cable?

>> Molly Wood: Just to test?

>> Chris: It's actually a USB router.

>> Molly Wood: Okay.

>> Chris: I don't know if like there's interference anywhere.

>> Tom Merritt: But I mean have you -- but you're surfing wirelessly on your laptop, right?

>> Chris: Yes.

>> Tom Merritt: Okay, so if you could take an Ethernet cable, plug your laptop in directly to the router that way and see if you still get disconnected. The next step after that I would take the modem that's plugged into your router, plug that directly into the laptop there. If you still get disconnected even with the router not in the equation, then you know it's not the router. You can call your ISP up.

>> Molly Wood: Right.

>> Tom Merritt: If you find out that you're not getting disconnected through the modem anymore, then I would go and I would update the firmware on the router. Make sure you've got the most recent that way. Any fixes that they've put in place for a known issue like this would be out of the way. After that you're going to have to call Buffalo.

>> Molly Wood: Yeah.

>> Chris: Okay.

>> Molly Wood: I agree. I knew that one too. Alright, we've got another call on the line. Which one's it going to be? You decide Tom.

>> Tom Merritt: Oh it's my turn?

>> Molly Wood: Yeah.

>> Tom Merritt: Again?

>> Molly Wood: Tom's choice.

>> Tom Merritt: Alright, well let's just go in order then. Robert's on the line from New York. Hey Robert, thanks for calling.

>> Robert: Okay, I have some Steve Jobs keynotes which are from -- which some are from 1998, 2000. And they're in Real media format.

>> Tom Merritt: Oh wow, some collector's items.

>> Molly Wood: Antiques if you will. Alright, and so what are you hoping to do with those?

>> Robert: I want to convert them.

>> Molly Wood: You want to convert them. You want to convert them to just anything. Okay well so and are you -- you're on a Mac you said?

>> Robert: Yeah.

>> Molly Wood: You need a little application called FFmpeg: FFmpeg X in fact.

>> Robert: Well I tried that and...

>> Molly Wood: Oh you did?

>> Robert: ...it apparently does not work with this type of Real files, even with the added binaries.

>> Tom Merritt: Yeah, it doesn't work with all of them. It works with most of them. This one's old enough that it's not -- it's not working with it. There are a few different programs out there -- I'm trying to remember the one that I've used before, where you'll have to play it in real time so it won't convert fast. But there's some programs that will allow you to kind of play it within the system, and then it just records it. It's a sort of exploiting an anal -- it's like an analog version...

>> Molly Wood: Right.

>> Tom Merritt: ...of doing it. And I'm trying to find the name of that one program that I've used. If you do a search for Real Time OS10 conversion, you might be able to find it that way.

>> Molly Wood: Alright.

>> Tom Merritt: Do you have any off the top of your head?

>> Molly Wood: No not for that real time conversion. Let's see sample rate conversion -- come on internet. But anyway, yeah it sounds like that is the search that you should do.

>> Tom Merritt: Yeah, so I will try to dig that up in time -- by the end of the show and stick it in our show notes at Blog.cnettv.com.

>> Molly Wood: Yes.

>> Robert: Okay.

>> Tom Merritt: Alright, coming up Molly will be talking to Eric Feng from Hulu.com. But first, just because he's not here does not mean that Brian Cooley is off fooling around somewhere. He's probably doing that too, but he also took some time to take a spin around the show floor at the British International Motor Show which began this week in London. Here's a look at what he found. ^M00:07:14 [ Music ] ^M00:07:19 Brian Cooley: You would expect Toyota to do a green lean car, but Lotus? Well here it is: the Lotus Eco Elise Green Sports Car. First of all, check out the body panels. Those are made of a breast panel of hemp, renewable of course and they say quite strong. Up here on the roof you'll see solar panels for gathering up the sun's energy and helping to trickle charge the battery and power low current electrical systems. Let's look inside. The floor mats are made of totally renewable sisal. The seat upholstery is what they call Eco Wool and it's not dyed. I guess that means you can get the interior in any color you want, as long as it's sheep. And the stereo: a special unit made extra light, again to save weight. The paint is a water based process so none of those icky vapors and chemicals. Even the wheels are ultra light to save energy. It's part of the effort by the auto industry to recast green lean cars as non-wimpy. Now when I say Kia, you probably don't think style. You probably think something else. They're trying to fix that to make their cars more covetable. These are 3 concepts of the Kia Soul: a car that was designed at a new studio of theirs in California. Very different look than their current vehicles. Now these are concept trim packages, but they say they're going to have something along these lines available when it actually hits market in late 2008 into early 09. Look for [inaudible] 1.6 liter gas engine, but they also have diesels lined up on these, so as the U.S. market warms up to that, that could be coming our way as well. What's the most buzz worthy car here at the British International Motor Show in London? Probably this one: it's called the Insignia from Vauxhall, a division of GM we never see in the United States. So why the buzz? Look at the rearview mirror. It has a camera mounted in it that faces forward. It can detect lane divider lines and let you know when you're drifting. That's not entirely new. But the other trick it does is. It can read speed limit signs and it will flash the speed on the dashboard for a constant in car reminder. That's a very big deal in Britain where they have traffic cameras everywhere that can send you a ticket without you even realizing it happened. Now will this come to the U.S? It's possible, because Opal Vauxhall and Saturn are tightly related under the GM corporate umbrella. That could be the path to U.S. distribution of Opal Eye. Meanwhile, this debuts in early '09 in Europe. ^M00:09:45 [ Music ] ^M00:09:49

>> Molly Wood: Alright, we are joined as promised by Eric Feng, the CTO of Hulu.com. Before we get to that interview though, I really want to tell you quickly that for our last caller the program that will help you do that Real Time recording is Snapz Pro X. Snapz Pro X. Go Google it. You should be good to go. Now Eric, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for coming on.

>> Eric Feng: Thank you for having me in your beautiful studio today.

>> Molly Wood: Thank you. So I want to start by saying that I'm not just saying this because CNET is on Hulu, but I'm a big fan. A lot of people I think were skeptical when Hulu was announced. I know that I at one point was like, "Why would you...?"

>> Eric Feng: You can be honest. You can be honest.

>> Molly Wood: When it was first announced I was skeptical, but the idea of really just being able to go and find television shows and stream them - and movies - is kind of revolutionary.

>> Eric Feng: Yeah, we think that media's an impulse business and right now media is just too hard for users. It's a little bit antiquated that someone expects you who are -- is clearly a very busy person, to be home at a specific time, a specific night of the day to watch a show and that just doesn't make sense in today's day and age. So we want to make media a lot easier for users. Make it frictionless. Give it to them on their terms. And that's what we're trying to do at Hulu.

>> Molly Wood: So for the people who don't know, Hulu, Hulu.com...

>> Eric Feng: Hulu.com.

>> Molly Wood: Give us a little brief overview.

>> Eric Feng: Sure. Hulu.com is a new service. We just came out of beta on March 12th, so we've been out in the world for about 4 months now. And it's a service that allows you to watch TV shows, movies, video clips, sports, and a lot of just great video programming all online, all on demand, and all - most importantly - for free.

>> Molly Wood: And it's all streaming. That is one thing we should be clear, right? No downloads.

>> Eric Feng: That is correct. It's all streaming. So as long as you have an internet connection, a computer that has Flash support and a web browser which is 98 percent of computers online today, you can access Hulu anytime of the day, and watch anything in our catalog all for free.

>> Molly Wood: So, give us a quick rundown on the catalog. What is -- we know that you announce I believe with FOX, NBC and CNET of course.

>> Eric Feng: Of course CNET. I mean that's the whole purpose of Hulu's for CNET. But we are a joint venture company between FOX and NBC so a lot of people associate Hulu with those specific shows and titles from FOX and NBC. But we actually have content from over 80 different providers, including Sony, MGM, Warner Brothers, sports content like the NHL and NBA and also even web originals from people like Gary Vanderchuck and the Thunder Show which is a great one for if you've checked it out.

>> Molly Wood: Oh really. Okay, yeah.

>> Eric Feng: And of course wonderful programs from CNET as well so we very much believe in bringing content together and making sure that we have content for a diverse audience.

>> Molly Wood: So, most of the people that I've talked with are fans of Hulu, respond pretty positively to the service except everyone outside the United States.

>> Eric Feng: Sure.

>> Molly Wood: Can we expect ever to be able to watch Hulu in Canada or in Australia or...?

>> Eric Feng: I would love nothing more than to turn the service on worldwide today. I actually lived abroad for the last few years so I completely understand the frustrations, how difficult it is to get access to great U.S. programming and great television programming and movie programming when you're abroad. However, it's a difficult issue from a business and from a legal standpoint. There's a lot of rights clearance issues that we just have to work through. So, although I can't commit to a date today I can promise that we are absolutely working on this and we will not stop until the service is available worldwide.

>> Molly Wood: Excellent. Good news. Similarly, I know people are looking for some non-U.S. content. I've gotten a lot of requests for...

>> Eric Feng: Yeah.

>> Molly Wood: ...you know [inaudible]. Personally I would love to see [inaudible].

>> Eric Feng: Yep, I'm missing some of my Chinese soap operas when I was living abroad so I'd love to see that content as well. You know our mission is just around premium content and how you define premium content certainly changes from day to day and from region to region, but we are evaluating everything. And our hope is one day to make all premium content available on our service, anytime you want it, anywhere you want it.

>> Molly Wood: So will we ever see -- now the next big thing in streaming content and purchasing content seems to be the set-top box?

>> Eric Feng: Right.

>> Molly Wood: Do you have a CNET Live exclusive for us today? Will we every see a Hulu set-top box?

>> Eric Feng: Well, actually I have the Hulu set-top box right here.

>> Molly Wood: I knew it.

>> Eric Feng: Not quite yet but as a technologist I'm so excited in today's day and age how many options you have to get content on a lot of different mediums and a lot of different platforms. You have the gaming consoles. Now I can do video. You have specialized boxes like the Rocu [assumed spelling] box that can do video. And it's really exciting to have all these options for consumers and also for technology companies like ourselves. So, the playing field is really interesting...

>> Molly Wood: So maybe partnerships is what you're saying?

>> Eric Feng: I mean we would love to do it, but it's just all a matter of sequencing and right now we have a very specific laser focus on delivering a great experience to users in the browser. And we think that that's challenging enough. It's a huge opportunity. And there are just a lot of improvements we want to make first. And we're going to do that and then after that we'll see what's out there.

>> Molly Wood: Alright, well we'll be watching for those improvements.

>> Eric Feng: Thank you.

>> Molly Wood: And thank you one more time Eric for coming on.

>> Eric Feng: It was a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.

>> Molly Wood: Absolutely. It is time to take a quick break. We will be back with the Download of the Week right after this. ^M00:14:26 [ Music ] ^M00:14:31 [ Speaking in foreign language ] ^M00:14:35

>> Hi, is Kelsey ready? Are you ready Kelsey?

>> Yeah, I'm here.

>> I love what you're doing with my cookies.

>> I'd like to discuss some of my new ideas with you.

>> What about jelly bean cookies? ^M00:14:44 [ Music ] ^M00:14:46

>> Natali Del Conte talks tech. Natali Del Conte understands tech. But Natali Del Conte is very small. How do such big ideas come from such a small person? Performance enhancers. You might want to watch out who you hang out with Kurt Shilling.

>> Paid for Tall Tech Journals [assumed spelling] who dropped out of high school. ^M00:15:05 [ Music ] ^M00:15:25

>> Molly Wood: Welcome back to CNET Live where we are still taking your calls: lining up those calls.

>> Tom Merritt: You can tell we're non-union. I get to play Floor Director.

>> Molly Wood: I know exactly. He's like "You go now." 888-900-CNET. Wanted to let you know that Eric did tell me during an earlier conversation, that they're also working with some of those networks on that problem of shows appearing and disappearing or only being clips. Not Hulu's fault. They're trying as hard as they can to just negotiate.

>> Tom Merritt: It's up to the networks.

>> Molly Wood: It's up to the networks.

>> Tom Merritt: Alright, time now for the Download of the Week. ^M00:15:51 [ Music ] ^M00:15:57

>> Tom Merritt: Download of the Week is brought to you by our good friends at CNET's Download.com, purveyors of free spyware, free video and we have had this one on Download of the Week before. Actually back in February we did Truecrypt. It is an encryption piece of software. It's absolutely free. It can encrypt your whole hard drive. It can encrypt USB drives but the newest version is out and it has this cool little feature right here. If you go up into System you can create a hidden operating system.

>> Molly Wood: Look at that.

>> Tom Merritt: Yeah. So you're able to hide a whole operating system within your operating system...

>> Molly Wood: Okay.

>> Tom Merritt: ...so that at boot up of the laptop, you can boot into either one and if you don't know it's there you can't tell it's there. It's encrypted the same way as all other data in Truecrypt.

>> Molly Wood: Whoa.

>> Tom Merritt: So if you are you know...

>> Molly Wood: So why do you want this?

>> Tom Merritt: ...being extorted by spies and they ask for the log in for your laptop with a gun to your head...

>> Molly Wood: That's totally happening to me right now!

>> Tom Merritt: You give them the fake password. They'll go into an operating system. They recommend that you put a few sensitive looking files so it looks like you've used the operating system.

>> Molly Wood: Yeah.

>> Tom Merritt: And they'll never know that there's this other operating system that actually has your real sensitive files hidden within.

>> Molly Wood: Okay, also good in the real world for...?

>> Tom Merritt: Well, I suppose if you are crossing a border somewhere and they want to see your files and you're not comfortable revealing them...

>> Molly Wood: I like it. I like it. That is cool.

>> Tom Merritt: ...that could be a way to hide them too. Alright.

>> Molly Wood: And with that it's time to get to your calls on 888-900-cnet because the phone lines are full.

>> Tom Merritt: Alright, let's go to Carl on the line. Where you calling from -- let me pick you up first. Where you calling from Carl?

>> Carl: From Connecticut.

>> Tom Merritt: Where in Connecticut are you?

>> Carl: New Haven.

>> Tom Merritt: New Haven. Oh, okay. Too bad Veronica's not here. She'd have lots of things to say about New Haven. Nice things I'm sure.

>> Molly Wood: I'm sure.

>> Tom Merritt: What's your question for us today?

>> Carl: Well, I recently restored my iPod Touch to you know set it up as a brand new iPod. And then I went back to all my games like Super Monkey Ball and noticed that my Saved Games files weren't saved. I assumed that they were saved with the applications, but it seems like they're saved on the iPod [inaudible].

>> Tom Merritt: Are you use -- go ahead.

>> Carl: So I'm wondering if there's anyway to save the Save Game files and then set up the iPod as a new iPod and then -- but still keep those Saved Game files?

>> Tom Merritt: So are you on OS 10 or Windows?

>> Carl: OS 10.

>> Tom Merritt: Okay, your applications - just so you know in the future - are saved in the iTunes folder under Mobile - you look for a folder that starts with "Mobile," I think it's Mobile Applications - and then all of the Mobile Applications that you download are backed up there as long as you sync. The other cool thing, as long as you haven't changed your account that you purchased the original game with, you can redownload for free. So if you just go to either on the iPod Touch or in the iTunes store, and say "Download that Super Monkey Ball again," it will say, "You already downloaded this. Do you want to redownload it for free?" Say "Yes." You just redownload it and you've got it again. That's one of the nice advantages of DRM...

>> Molly Wood: Yeah.

>> Tom Merritt: ...in this case, is they're able to tell that you already paid for it.

>> Molly Wood: You have a pretty good little library. So they're in a way doing the backup for you which I guess is good. As long as they keep letting you download them.

>> Carl: But does that actually save your Save Game files like you've already beat you know up to level 10?

>> Tom Merritt: I see what you're saying. Like Save Games, you'd have to go into that folder and back those up. And then you could actually use iTunes Sync to back up the entire iPod Touch. Set it up as new and then restore from that. But yeah, you go into that folder I talked about to find the Save Games. Alright? Hope that helps you out. Shall we move onto another call?

>> Molly Wood: I think so. I think we should move onto a car question in honor of the absent [inaudible].

>> Tom Merritt: Of course. Let's go to Andrew on the line also from Connecticut. Where you calling from Andrew?

>> Andrew: I'm calling from Darien, Connecticut.

>> Tom Merritt: Okay, so a different area.

>> Andrew: Yeah, I first of all want to say love the show. And just a little quick free question: I've seen these really crazy ads that I guess are anti-Natali Del Conte ads and anti-Brian Cooley ads.

>> Tom Merritt: Yeah, this political climate -- those attack ads are pretty vicious.

>> Molly Wood: Yeah, touch out there.

>> Andrew: Are you trying to get me not to watch Loaded or what's the deal with that?

>> Tom Merritt: No, no, no, no. In fact, there will be attack ads on pretty much every person at CNET.

>> Molly Wood: We'll all be attacked equally I'm told. That's just a fairness in advertising law...

>> Tom Merritt: Yeah.

>> Molly Wood: ...that happens during political season.

>> Tom Merritt: It just gets nasty here during the election season.

>> Molly Wood: Rough.

>> Tom Merritt: What's your main question?

>> Andrew: I see, okay. So I have a brand new Jaguar XF.

>> Molly Wood: Congratulations.

>> Andrew: Thank you. And I understand that -- well, there's an iPod connector in there. When the first iPhone came out, I had heard a lot of stories saying that the iPhone was not compatible with the in car iPod connectors. And I'm thinking about getting an iPod Touch and I just want to make sure before I actually go out and get one, that it will be compatible with the Jaguar.

>> Molly Wood: That -- so what I had heard about that - and I will double check - but it sounded like the iPhone was not compatible with some older iPod connections. Like I have a 2004 BMW and it's not compatible apparently with that car. And it's something about the older connection. I think that if you have a brand new Jaguar, that you should be fine. There is a -- if you just sort of do a search for it, it sounds like Acura, Audi, BMW, Ford -- let's see, let me look specifically for Jaguar. You might want to check specifically because it does look like not every car's new models are compatible. I think the new ones should be though, to be perfectly honest. You might want to do a little bit of searching, but it sounds to me like those problems with the iPod connection were all in older vehicles.

>> Andrew: Cool, thanks.

>> Molly Wood: Okay, sure.

>> Tom Merritt: Alright, Blaze wrote in to CNET Live at Cnet.com. A lot of people have written me other places and said, "I don't know the email address for CNET Live." It's CNET Live at Cnet.com. So if you're watching this portion of the show now you know. Blaze said, "I have a DVD camcorder. It records to VOB which is the most annoying unusable file format I've ever stumbled upon. Do you have any tips for a conversion tool to get those VOB files into MPEG or something else I can edit? I found a lot of programs but all of them have some sort of catch like water marks, 5 minute limits, seem to be the most popular." Well yes, Blaze. We actually shot a video on this awhile back on how to convert those VOB files into useable forms for the web. And that should work for you too. It's today's Insider Secret. ^M00:22:32 [ Music ] ^M00:22:44

>> Tom Merritt: Want to share a home movie? Record it on DVD and I'll put it up on You Tube. I'm Tom Merritt, Editor from Cnet.com. On this edition of Insider Secrets I'll show you how to convert your DVD into a web video. In this litigious world in which we live a lot of people told me I can't do this video. It's illegal. Let's be clear. It's not. I'm not talking about circumventing copywrite protection to copy Hollywood movies. I'm talking about your own home movies: stuff you've recorded on a camcorder; maybe a DVD recorder. So here's how to take those home movies and put them up on the internet and embarrass your Uncle Bob. Now I've got here a DVD a friend of mine back in Greenville, Illinois gave me of baseball coaches talking at a clinic that he puts on. Now he wants to take these DVD videos and put them up on his website. The first thing we'll need is a program to convert the DVD video into a smaller, more web friendly format. There's hundreds of programs that do this: some you pay for, others are my favorite price; free. I'm going to use the free Auto Gordion Knot 2.27 because I know it works. However, the person who wrote it - Lenox - has stopped developing it. If you use Mac or Linux, try HandBrake and maybe by the time you watch this video, they'll be a stable version of HandBrake for Windows. There's an unstable version right now you can give a shot. The idea in all of these programs is the same. Tell the program where to find the file. Files on DVDs are called dot VOB: that's what you point to. Then tell it where to put the converted file when you're done. Remember, video files are big so make sure you have enough space on your hard drive. Select the audio track you want in the final file. There's often only one. Then select the output size. Now remember, the smaller the file size the worse the video might look. So you have to balance it. If you don't know, use the target quality as a guide. Web video can be much smaller than DVD video because it's meant to play in a small box on the web, rather than up on the big screen. Now let's look at the advanced settings. The output resolution settings are important. You Tube asks for 320 by 240. Choose your preferred audio type. I'd suggest MP3. The codec is how the video is encoded. It's different from the file type: XviD or DivX are quite common codecs for AVI, the output format here. Other programs like HandBrake might use the H dot 264 or MPEG codecs and output QuickTime movies. Now if you want to make sure your movie will look right, you can do a preview. My preview for the large DVD chunk I have here will take about 20 minutes. That's still less time than the full encoding. Now, hold on while I speed up time. Magic of video and I'm back 20 minutes later. Preview looks good. Alright, let's start the full encoding. Time to use my time machine again. An hour later, and the video is fully encoded. Yeah, this stuff takes time. Let's take a look. Check it out, a lovely small web ready piece of video just waiting to be embedded on my friend's webpage. If you've got a second, let's fast forward to a couple days from now when I finally get around to putting this on You Tube. Ah, fantastic. You're still here. And I've finally put that video up on the web. Look at that. One thing to note, your video may be longer than you want - you know, to put on the web - so see our Insider Secret on video editing if you want to chop it down. That's it for this edition of Insider Secrets. I'm Tom Merritt for Cnet.com. Use your new found conversion powers for good. ^M00:26:07 [ Music ] ^M00:26:10

>> Tom Merritt: That was me.

>> Molly Wood: I like your new...

>> Tom Merritt: And I would say a HandBrake if you're using OS 10.

>> Molly Wood: Oh yeah.

>> Tom Merritt: There's a HandBrake for Windows, but I like Media Coder better for Windows.

>> Molly Wood: Okay.

>> Tom Merritt: Alright, let's go to the phones, shall we? We've got time for a couple more calls if we squeeze them in here. Nick has been waiting almost the entire show. Thank you for your patience Nick. What can we help you with?

>> Nick: I'm wondering, are there supposed to be new iPods in September? Like I've been hearing a lot of you know rumors and stuff that there's going to be a price drop. And then I'm hearing rumors that there's actually going to be a generation of like the Touch.

>> Tom Merritt: Yeah, what do you think?

>> Molly Wood: Right, well what happened basically is Apple had its earnings call and they basically said that they were going to have some product transitions coming that might affect their revenue. And in the past that has meant either new products or price cuts. It sounds like from most of the speculation I've read the most likely option is a price cut for the iPod Touch which would make perfect sense because that thing is looking really expensive right now with subsidized iPhones out there. I wouldn't be surprised if you saw higher capacity iPod Touch.

>> Tom Merritt: New iPods tend to come in the fall too.

>> Molly Wood: They tend to come in the fall.

>> Tom Merritt: Just kind of historically.

>> Molly Wood: Yeah, it's pretty common. I would think that they'll probably - you know - they'll drop the [inaudible]. Very few places are still selling the 8 gigabyte version so I would suspect that that one's on its way out. Would they go to a 64 gig iPod Touch? Could it be?

>> Tom Merritt: It could happen.

>> Molly Wood: I mean it's 499 right?

>> Tom Merritt: MacRumours.com keeps a buyer's guide where they say they give buy or don't buy recommendations. And right now on all forms of iPod they're like, "Don't buy."

>> Molly Wood: Yeah.

>> Tom Merritt: Updates are coming soon.

>> Molly Wood: Yeah.

>> Tom Merritt: So, take it from a triangulation of sources there.

>> Molly Wood: Minimum updates for sure.

>> Tom Merritt: I'd say hold on.

>> Molly Wood: Yeah.

>> Tom Merritt: Alright thanks Nick. Appreciate your patience. And let's move onto Anthony out it Gilroy: Garlic Land. Hey Anthony.

>> Anthony: Hello, how are you guys doing?

>> Tom Merritt: Are you there Anthony?

>> Molly Wood: I can hear him.

>> Anthony: Yes, I'm here. Hello?

>> Molly Wood: Yeah hey, how are you doing?

>> Anthony: Okay, hello. How are you?

>> Molly Wood: Good, thanks. You're calling from Garlic Land. What's your question?

>> Anthony: Yeah, so I have an iPod Touch and I recently downloaded Winpone [assumed spelling] and I'm attempting to jailbreak it, but it wants me to locate the 2.0 software file. And I'm unable to find it on my computer.

>> Molly Wood: You're unable to find the 2.0 software file.

>> Tom Merritt: Oh you mean the firmware? Cause yeah...

>> Molly Wood: The firmware.

>> Tom Merritt: ...cause the way the new ponage tool works, it takes your firmware and then makes a new firmware out of it.

>> Molly Wood: Right. Now I don't mean to insult you but you've definitely already updated your iPod Touch to the 2.0 firmware?

>> Anthony: Yes, yes.

>> Molly Wood: Okay, just checking.

>> Tom Merritt: Okay, if you go to Sleepers.net you can find a link to the previous firmware, if you poke around in there. They have the link to the firmware that you could download if you just can't find it on your desktop. But I'm trying to remember off the top of my head here actually and I shouldn't do that. Let me see if I can dig it up on Windows. I know where it is on Mac right now because I just did it. Are you using a Mac or a Windows?

>> Molly Wood: ...to download a file?

>> Anthony: No, Windows XP.

>> Molly Wood: Okay.

>> Tom Merritt: Oh okay, Windows yeah. So you've got to go into Program Files and go into iTunes. And I believe it's secreted away in there.

>> Molly Wood: In the iTunes program files.

>> Anthony: ...looking for awhile. I can't really...

>> Tom Merritt: Yeah, you've been poking around for awhile? You know what you could also do is go to Sleepers.net and find the name - the full name - it's really long. And then do a find on that.

>> Molly Wood: Yeah, that's a good idea. Just do a desktop search for that filename.

>> Tom Merritt: And that's another way to dig it up.

>> Anthony: Okay, alright. And I'll give that a try.

>> Molly Wood: Okay.

>> Tom Merritt: Alright.

>> Anthony: Okay, thank you.

>> Molly Wood: Alright.

>> Tom Merritt: Thanks for calling.

>> Molly Wood: Thank you. Good luck. And now it's time for the Best of the Web. ^M00:29:35 [ Music ] ^M00:29:40

>> Molly Wood: Best of the Web is of course brought to us by our good friends at Webware.com. Today I have got crime on the brain possibly because I live in Oakland. So I'm looking at 2 new sites that were spotlighted on Webware.com: Crimereports.com and Criminalsearches.com. Crime Reports basically lets you type in an address -- so let's do 235 Second Street, San Francisco, California. A well known high crime area.

>> Tom Merritt: Did you say you have crime on the brain because you live in Oakland?

>> Molly Wood: Yes.

>> Tom Merritt: Oh man.

>> Molly Wood: He lives in Oakland too. I'm not trying to bash Oakland. I'm just saying that. But so you can see...

>> Tom Merritt: Yeah see?

>> Molly Wood: [Laughter] ...that San Francisco for example is way worse. But this is great if you -- this is wonderful if you're house hunting, if you're looking for an apartment rental, if you're looking for a daycare. You can easily get a report of the crimes and what kind of crimes are in your neighborhood.

>> Tom Merritt: It can overwhelm you too because you know, a lot of these crimes are car theft or...

>> Molly Wood: Or fights.

>> Tom Merritt: ...you know.

>> Molly Wood: No weapons.

>> Tom Merritt: Public urination. So you've got to poke around in the filter and find out exactly what was going on.

>> Molly Wood: Yeah, it will tell you.

>> Tom Merritt: But it's a very useful tool.

>> Molly Wood: But it is a really useful tool I really think especially if you're house hunting because before you could only [inaudible] cop web sites and they were really hard to [inaudible].

>> Tom Merritt: You could also look for people too, right?

>> Molly Wood: You can also look for people at Criminalsearches.com and this is just like trouble waiting to happen. You literally enter a person's name, put in a state, and try to find out if they have a criminal record. It sounds like the worst kind of snooping that's so really fun.

>> Tom Merritt: Did you look me up?

>> Molly Wood: I'm going to look you up after the show.

>> Tom Merritt: Yeah, that's what I thought.

>> Molly Wood: Yeah.

>> Tom Merritt: Alright, next week we'll be talking to Mike Hudack and Justin Day from Blip TV. Brian and I got a chance to sit down and chat with them about the future of video: kind of a good companion piece to Molly's talk Hulu guy today, Eric Feng.

>> Molly Wood: Yeah, thanks for having me on by the way.

>> Tom Merritt: Yeah, thanks for filling in. I appreciate that.

>> Molly Wood: Yeah, good times.

>> Tom Merritt: We'll talk to you next week: 4 pm Eastern, 1 pm Pacific. Today I'm Hawaiian. ^M00:31:29 [ Music ] ^M00:31:44

>> You eating enough? You look a little thin. [Laughter]

>> Yeah, that's a very mom question. But yeah, yeah I'm eating enough.

>> I miss you baby.

>> I miss you too.

>> Love you.

>> Yeah, we love you.

>> We tell everyone about the relief work you're doing you know?

>> Of course you do. I love you guys.

>> We love you son.

>> Welcome to a network that's bringing countries and families a little closer. ^M00:32:06 [ Music ] ^M00:32:11

>> Cisco. Welcome to the Human Network.