Podner 1.0 for Getting Video into iPod--How Fast Is It?

Yesterday we posted performance results on three ways to convert movies to a video format that will play on Apple's new iPod with video ("video iPod"). We noted that ffmpegX provided the fastest encoding into the video iPod's special format among those tried but that it was a bit complicated to configure. Well it didn't take long for someone to point out that a real Mac solution existed. Splasm Software released Podner 1.0 earlier this week.

Reformatting a movie into video iPod-ready files is easy with Podner. All one has to do is just drag the movie file to the Podner window and let Podner do the work. The newly encoded files are even sent to a special "Podner" video playlist in iTunes. If one wants, one can tweak the encoding to provide higher or lower quality than the default setting with a slider control but one doesn't have to.

Here are Podner's features:

• MPEG-4 and H.264 Export to iPod
• H.264 Singlepass and Multipass Support
• Variable Quality Export
• Poster Frame Support During Encoding Process
• iTunes Integration - Processed Files Are Sent to iTunes

We used the trial version of Podner to convert the first 2:30 of the same 2:37 .mov file that we used yesterday with our 1.67GHz 17" PowerBook G4 to test the performance of various encoding methods. Podner took only 1 minute and 20 seconds at the "Best" quality setting (1:16 at "Good") to process the first 2:30 of it and place it in a "Podner" video playlist in our iTunes 6.0.1. While there were still 7 seconds left to process, Podner is clearly the fastest encoder for the video iPod that we have tried, blowing away ffmpegX's 5 minutes.

The quality of the video produced by Podner when viewed on our video iPod was excellent. We could not tell any difference in the quality of the playback of the video produced using the "Good" or "Best" settings but one should try it since that could vary from movie to movie.

Podner 1.0 is a mere $9.95. [Bill Fox]