Playing Ipod video to a Linux laptop
 

I am trying to rethink our families tech travel gear.

I have bought an OLAP XO http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/index.php linux laptop for my children.

I want to not travel with the DVD player so I was thinking of transferring DVD movies, TV shows, etc. to an ipod 'via analog' with http://www.irecord.com/

Then I wanted to play movies from the ipod to the OLAP XO laptop.

Any ideas on how to do this? As far as I know this laptop only has USB ports and it runs Linux.

Quality is not an issue...we could play movies through the browser.

Any ideas on how to get ride of the DVD while traveling would be appreciated.

Update...I got iRecord and immediately got 'cannot copy video stream due to copyright restrictions' and this is on DVDs of old stuff like 'Lost in Space.' Other than that iRecord worked very simply and well to record live video, etc.

The XO Laptop also does not seem powerful to run the video, but I am still at the very earliest stages of learning Linux :) other than that I am actually impressed with it.

Back to my goal of getting rid of DVDs. I think I will need to convert the DVDs to MP4s in my computer. I know the subject comes up often. Any current suggestions would be appreciated. Probably the fastest most automated way would be best.

I am not familiar with the iRecord product...

But in order to copy a DVD to another format (MP4 or other), you will first need to "rip" the DVD... there are some tools out there such as DVDFab that automate the whole process.

Here's an online guide on how to use DVDFab: http://www.my-guides.net/en/content/view/45/26/.

Thanks.

I ended going with www.slysoft.com anyDVD and CloneDVDmobile

I also bought an iTouch and hope 2 kids can share the video.

Glad you found a solution! It's important to keep the kids entertained while traveling!

Jury is still out on my solution ... will know more when we return from our trip to New Zealand.