In this review, we are going to take a general look at four popular DRM Removal Tools on the net, complete with conversion theory, pros and cons, main functions, etc for each DRM Removal Software, so that you can choose the best one to help you liberate your DRM music and video.

Digital Music Converter

Key functions: DRM Music Converter + Audio Extractor + Music File Converter
Conversion theory: advanced recording technique
The edge: support various protected video/audio formats
The bad: incompatible with Windows Vista 64, unable to output video

SoundTaxi Pro+VideoRip

Key functions: DRM Removal + Audio Converter + Video converter
Conversion theory: recording
The edge: output video/audio copy to iPod feature, compatible with Windows Vista 64 bit
The bad: very limited output video/audio formats

NoteBurner Audio Converter

Key functions: DRM Music Converter + Audio Converter
Conversion theory: the generated virtual CD drive
The edge: the smart virtual CD burning technique
The bad: unable to input DRM video, unable to ouput video, incompatible with Windows Vista 64 bit

Daniusoft Media Converter Pro

Key functions: DRM Removal + Video Converter + HD Video Converter + Audio Converter
Conversion theory: record play and save the recording
The edge: HD video converter, abundant input (DRM) video/audio formats, abundant output video/audio formats
The bad: incompatible with Windows Vista 64 bit

Check out the detailed review here: http://www.softdiggs.com/reviews/drm-removal-review.php

In their ‘It’s only rock and roll’ event, Apple officially announced the fifth generation nano, the Apple iPod nano 5G. The new iPod nano, now rocking a video camera, a polished anodized aluminum finish, and a larger screen and also making its debut - FM radio with Live Pause - is still a terrific multimedia device for watching DVD movies, TV shows and videos.

The new iPod nano accepts MPEG-4 format, so you just need an iPod nano converter that will go from DVD to MP4 if you want to watch DVD movies and TV shows on your iPod nano. After you get the output iPod nano compatible video files, you can drag them to your iPod nano 5G with the sync of iTunes 9. Below is the step by step guide that shows how to convert DVD to iPod nano 5G with Cucusoft DVD to iPod Converter:

1. Download Cucusoft DVD to iPod Converter ( free download ) and install it.

2. Run the DVD to iPod Converter. Click the “Open DVD” button to load your DVD. Or you can choose “Open DVD” from the “File” drop-down list to import the DVD. One or several titles/chapters will appear in the list.

3. Generally, choose the longest DVD title, which is the main content of the movie. You can remove the title you don’t like to convert by unticking it. Select DVD subtitles and audio tracks from the available ones.

4. In the box of “Output Folder”, enter the full pathname for the output files.

5. Click “Convert” button to start converting DVD to iPod nano.

6. Locate the .MP4 file the DVD to iPod Converter outputed and drag it into your iTunes library. Or select “Add File to Library” from the “File” menu and select the encoded movie to import to iTunes. Now you can watch it with iTunes or Quicktime Player on your PC.

7. Connect iPod to your computer and drag the MP4 file to your iPod with the sync of iTunes.

Note 1: It is recommended you choose Cucusoft DVD to iPod Converter Suite if you want to both rip DVD and convert video to iPod nano.
Note 2: If you are using Mac OS X, you can use iSkysoft iPod Converter Suite for Mac to help you rip DVD and convert video to iPod nano compatible format on your Mac machine.

The following guide is going to show you how to rip DVD’s to all sorts of video and audio formats on Mac OS X (including Snow Leopard) using iSkysoft DVD Ripper for Mac. It also shows several tips and tricks you need to pay attention to while using this Mac DVD Ripper to rip DVD on your Mac machine.

Step 1. Launch iSkysoft DVD Ripper for Mac and add DVD Movie

Free Download ( Intel Version | Power PC Version )

Click the “Load DVD” button, and navigate to the DVD folder of the movie you want to add from your hard disc or DVD-ROM, open DVD folder, select VIDEO_TS folder and click OK.

Or, click the “Load IFO” button, find the DVD folder of the movie you want to add from your hard disc or DVD-ROM, open your DVD folder, open the VIDEO_TS folder, select all IFO files and click OK.

After you add your movie, you can choose any titles or chapters you want to convert by ticking the check boxes before them. So that you can copy and convert the whole DVD movie or just convert the selected titles or chapters. You can choose to convert certain segment of the DVD movie using trim function.

Step 2. Output Settings

At the bottom of the main window, you can select a format according to the name of your player. For example, you can select ‘MOV-QuickTime (*.MOV)’ when you want to rip DVD to QuickTime on Mac, and the default setting works great. This DVD ripper for Mac can also rip DVD to MP4, AVI, M4V, 3GP, MPG, MPEG, FLV on Mac OS X and convert DVD from PAL to NTSC. You can select MOV or MP4 when you rip DVD to iMovie on Mac. iMovie supports MOV and MP4 video. It is easy to rip DVD to iMovie on Mac.

Step 3. Start Conversion

When output settings are done, click the “Convert” button to start converting your Movies. You can choose to shut down your computer or open the output folder after the conversion.

Tip & Trick 1. Trim movie clips

Tick the Check boxes of the chapters or titles you want to trim, and click the “Trim” button to open the Trim window below:

Drag the slider to set the starting time and ending time, click OK.

Note: You can preview the trimmed movie clip before conversion in preview window.

Tip & Tricks 2. Crop movie clips

Check the chapter or title you want to trim, and click the “Crop” button to open the Crop window.

Select an output aspect ratio and the available options are: Keep Original, full screen, 16:9 and 4:3.

Note: You can enter the crop values manually or drag the rectangular selection frame round the video to select the displaying area.

Tip & Trick 3. Merge several titles or chapters into one file

You’ll find “Merge into one file” at the bottom of the program window, after you select the titles and chapters you want to rip and finish the output settings, you can tick the check box of “Merge into one file” to merge several titles or chapters into one. This allows you to merge all movie titles into one output file so that you can enjoy a long movie without breaks.

It is recommended that you choose iSkysoft DVD Ripper Pack for Mac (discout suite) if you want to both rip DVD and convert video on your Mac machine.

The music downloaded from iTunes is DRM protected as M4P, or “protected AAC”. If you want to play this kind of music beyond Apple environment (iTunes, iPod, iPhone, Apple TV), you need to remove the DRM and convert it to (DRM free) MP3, WMA, WAV format or else.

The following guide is going to show you how to convert iTunes M4P to MP3 for non-Apple mobile players like Zune, PSP, BlackBerry, mobile phone, Creative Zen, Sansa Fuze, G1/Gphone, xbox 360, PS3. It introduces three methods for converting M4P to MP3:

1. Burning and ripping CD in iTunes
2. Convert M4P to MP3 using Digital Music Converter
3. Convert M4P to MP3 using M4P to MP3 Converter

1. Burning and ripping CD in iTunes

a. Insert a CD-R or CD-RW disc into your CD-ROM drive.
b. Burn the iTunes M4P playlist to make an Audio CD. You cannot select the “MP3 CD” option since it requires the DRM protected iTunes M4P files be converted to MP3.
c. After the Audio CD is successfully burned, insert the disc into your CD-ROM drive again. Then you can use iTunes or Windows Media Player to import the music tracks on the burned disc as MP3 files.

2. Convert M4P to MP3 using Digital Music Converter

It is very easy and fast to convert M4P to MP3 using Digital Music Converter (free download):

a. Add iTunes M4P files.
b. Choose “MP3″ as the output format
c. Press the “Start” button.

Now you can get the DRM free music by clicking the “Browse” button next to “Output path” and play it on your mp3 player, cell phone, windows media player and other portable players without any restriction

3. Convert M4P to MP3 using M4P to MP3 Converter

Unlike Digital Music Converter, M4P to MP3 Converter (free download) utilizes the virtual CD technology to convert M4P to MP3. Let’s take a look at the steps:

a. Make sure the virtual CD drive is successfully installed.

b. Choose output format in M4P to MP3 Converter.

c. Set burning options in iTunes

There is a free way of creating free ringtones for iPhone using only iTunes. However, you can only follow this method to make iPhone ringtones with DRM free music in iTunes library. If you want to custom a .m4r iPhone ringtone with protected iTunes M4P or DRM protected WMA music, you’ll have to turn to the DRM Removal Software to get it DRM free first. What’s more, if you are fond of some audio/sound clip from a video file and want to set it as your iPhone ringtone, the iTunes method fails to help too. What’s going to do next?

Cucusoft iPhone Ringtone Maker comes to the rescue! This piece of iPhone ringtone creator software can help you convert all popular video/audio files to iPhone .m4r ringtones. Unlike other iPhone ringtone makers, Cucusoft iPhone Ringtone Maker works for DRM music and video as well. It not only allows you to create iPhone ringtones with DRM music such as M4P (iTunes) and WMA, but also lets you extract audio from DRM WMV, M4V (iTunes) as .m4r iPhone ringtones. Now let’s take a look at how it performs to create iPhone ringtones with DRM music/video with this iPhone Ringtone Creator (without DRM Removal Software):

1. Download Cucusoft iPhone Ringtone Maker . Install and launch it. (free download)

2. After the main interface pops up, click the “Open File” button to import the DRM music (M4P, WMA) or video (WMV, M4V) files with which you want to make ringtones for your iPhone. The added files will be shown in the list, where you can check out the file name, file path, conversion status, etc.

3. Click the “Play” button to listen to the music/audio before making an iPhone ringtone and locate the part you really want. Drag and drop the start and end sliders to get the music/audio clip. Or you can directly input the start and end time in the “Begin Point” and “End Point” text boxes respectively.

4. Click the “Settings” button and select “Option” from the drop-down list. In the “Option” dialogue, you can choose “Audio Channels”, adjust “Sample rate” and apply “Fade In/Out” and “Fix” options (in the main interface).

5. Set output folder by clicking the “Browse” button at the right side of the “Output Path” label.

6. Click the “CREATE RINGTONE NOW!” button to start creating ringtones for your iPhone with DRM music or video files.

Apple iPod accepts MPEG-4 format, so you just need a converter that will go from DVD to MP4 and video to MP4 if you want to watch DVD movies and video files on your iPod. After you get the output iPod compatible video format, you can drag the iPod MPEG-4 video files to your iPod with the sync of iTunes. Below is the step by step tutorial showing you how to convert DVD to iPod and convert video to iPod touch, iPod nano, iPod touch, iPod video.

The guide is composed of the following two parts:

Part 1: How to convert DVD movie to iPod

1. Download DVD to iPod Converter Suite from http://www.softdiggs.com/dvd-to-ipod-converter-suite-cucu.php and install it.

2. Run the DVD to iPod Converter. Click the “Open DVD” button to load your DVD. Or you can choose “Open DVD” from the “File” drop-down list to import the DVD. One or several titles/chapters will appear in the list.

3. Generally, choose the longest DVD title, which is the main content of the movie. You can remove the title you don’t like to convert by unticking it. Select DVD subtitles and audio tracks from the available ones.

4. In the box of “Output Folder”, enter the full pathname for the output files.

5. Click “Convert” button to start the DVD to iPod conversion.

6. Locate the .MP4 file that DVD to iPod converter outputed and drag it into your iTunes library. Or select “Add File to Library” from the “File” menu and select the encoded movie to import to iTunes. Now you can watch it with iTunes or Quicktime Player on your PC.

7. Connect iPod to your computer and drag the MP4 file to your iPod with the sync of iTunes.

Note: If you are using Mac OS X, you can use DVD to iPod Converter for Mac to help you convert DVD movies to iPod compatible format.

Part 2: How to convert AVI, WMV, MKV, MPEG, RM, RMVB, ASF, MOV, DivX, XviD, MPG to iPod MP4 or H264 format

1. Launch DVD to iPod Converter Suite.

2. Run the Video to iPod Converter and load the video files you’d like to convert by clicking the “Open file” button.

Click “Output” and choose the pathname for the output video files. Click “Convert” to start converting video files to iPod MP4 or H264 files.

Tips: Before converting, you can click “Advance -> Video settings” to set “Video format”, “Resolution”, “Framerate”, “Output Quality”. If you’d like to convert video to H264 files, please set “Video format” to “H.264 FQ Variable Bitrate”. “MPEG4(.mp4) FQ Variable Bitrate” is the default value. Certainly, you can also set “Audio Bitrate”, “Channels”, “Sample Rate” and “Volume” in the “Audio Settings” page.

Generally, we set “Resolution” as “320×240″ (i.e. default settings). You can choose other video sizes according to your device as well.

3. After converting, you can open the output folder to check and play the iPod video files (.mp4 or .mov) using Quicktime Player.

4. Transfer the iPod videos to iTunes by draging or clicking “File -> Add File to Library”. Now, you can enjoy them on iTunes. Connect iPod to your computer and drag the MP4 file to your iPod with the sync of iTunes.

Note: If you are using Mac OS X, you can use Video to iPod Converter for Mac to help you convert DVD movies to iPod compatible format.

Cucusoft DVD to iPhone converter suite is an all-in-one iPhone video DVD conversion software solution. This DVD to iPhone converter suite includes two pieces of software: Cucusoft iPhone Video Converter and Cucusoft DVD to iPhone Converter. So with this DVD to iPhone converter suite, you can convert both DVD media and video file to iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS. You can enjoy your favorite DVDs and video on your iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS. Now you can get this DVD to iPhone converter suite at a very competitive price!

Features of Cucusoft DVD to iPhone Converter Suite

1. The latest version includes three running modes, the first is “Direct Mode”, the second is “Batch Mode” and the last one is “1 Click Mode”. “Direct Mode” means that user can directly click the DVD Menu to select the movie they want to rip. This mode is very easy for ripping a movie DVD’s. “Batch Mode” means that user can select the DVD titles/chapters they want to rip via checkbox list. This mode is very easy for batch ripping Music DVD’s, MTV DVD’s and Episodic DVD’s.

2. Support almost all kinds of DVD to iPhone format.

3. Support almost all video file including DVD, vob, DivX, XviD, MOV, rm, rmvb, MPEG, WMV, AVI, dvr-ms, etc. to iPhone video (MP4 format)

4. Support “Drag and Drop” in Apple TV Video Converter software.

5. Support for Subtitle Selection in “DVD to iPhone Converter”, eg. English Subtitle, French Subtitle… Under “Direct Mode”, through DVD menu. Under “Batch Mode”, through DVD Title list.

6. Support for Audio Track Selection in DVD to iPhone Converter, eg. English audio track, French audio track…
Various kinds of video crop mode. eg. 16:9, 4:3, full screen and so on.
Various kinds of video resize mode, eg. “Keep aspect ratio” and “stretch to fix screen”.

7. “DVD to iPhone Converter” support splitting output video by DVD chapters, and titles. Fully support MTV DVDs and Episodic DVDs.

8. Support customize output video file size and video quality.

9. Provide flexible output profiles, user can easily customize the video properties.

10. “DVD to iPhone Converter” Support DVD to MP3 audio conversion.
Support Dolby, DTS Surround audio track.

Cucusoft Ultimate DVD + Video Converter Suite converts DVD’s and videos to play on almost any portable device including iPod touch, iPod nano, iPod classic, iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, Zune, PSP, video capable MP3 players, video capable mobile phones, Pocket PC, PDA, etc. Plus, it supports almost any output audio/video format including H264, MP4, WMV, AVI, MOV, RM, 3GP, FLV, SWF, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, VCD, SVCD, DVD (video) and AC3, AAC, MP2, MP3, WMA (audio). You can enjoy your DVD and video with this all-in-one Cucusoft Ultimate DVD + Video Converter Suite

Notable features of Cucusoft Ultimate DVD + Video Converter Suite

Three Running Modes

–>>In Direct Mode, you can directly click the DVD menu to select the movie you want to rip. This mode is very easy for ripping DVD movies.
–>>In Batch Mode, you can select the DVD titles or chapters you want to rip via a checkbox list. This mode is very easy for batch ripping music DVDs, MTV DVDs and episodic DVDs.
–>>In 1-Click Mode, you just need one click to open a DVD, after which the rest of the task will be done automatically. This is a “designed-for-dummies” mode.

Language Selection for Subtitles and Audio Track

In Direct mode and in Batch mode, you can select the subtitle and audio track language. (In 1-Click mode, the default language is chosen automatically).

Video Cropping

You can crop your video to 16:9, 4:3, full screen, etc.

Input Types

You can convert almost any kind of DVD format, as well as almost any type of video file format, including DVD, vob, DivX, XviD, MOV, rm, rmvb, MPEG, WMV, AVI, dvr-ms, MP4, TiVo, .mkv, etc., to iPod video format.

Video Resize

You can resize your video. For example, you can set it to “Keep aspect ratio” or “Stretch to fit screen”.

Output Splitting

You can split your output video by DVD chapters and titles. Fully supports MTV DVDs and episodic DVDs.

File Size and Quality Adjustment

You can customize the output file size and corresponding video quality.

Flexible Output Profiles

You can easily customize the various video settings such as brightness, bit rate, etc.

Audio and Video Outputs

You can convert DVDs/Video to any audio format, including AC3, AAC, MP2, MP3, MP4, RA, and WMA.
You can convert DVDs/Video to any video format, including H264, MP4, WMV, AVI, MOV, RM, 3GP, flv, SWF, mpeg1, mpeg2, VideoCD, SuperVideoCD, and DVD.

Portable Devices

You can convert DVDs/Video to any portable device including iPods (iPod video, iPod touch, iPod video nano), Zune, PSP, iPhone, Apple TV, PPC, PDA, PS2, PS3, and Xbox, and Xbox 360.