[rmaxey1]

This probably isn't news for those who are really "in the know," but I wanted to give a plug to a great program I discovered over the weekend -- Tunebite.

This program quickly and easily strips the DRM out of iTunes Store movies and TV shows, so that I now have at my disposal the wealth of video content that I had available on my iPod Touch. I just make my purchases in iTunes Store same as always, then run the downloaded content through Tunebite, then load the new, DRM-free versions of the files it creates onto my Bold media card. It plays perfectly -- good quaility and none of the maddening audio/video synch problems I had when trying to convert movies and TV shows on my own. And if I want to watch the content on the computer in iTunes, I just watch the original version same as always. It will also capture video from YouTube and other websites and easily convert it. I downloaded a bunch of my favorite music videos and put them on the Bold. The program has a bunch of templates, so you can just choose the iPhone/iPod Touch template and it works fine for the Bold and, I assume, the Storm.

This addresses the one big drawback I saw in my Bold, which was that it wasn't that easy to find a full range of video content and be able to get it easily working properly on the Blackberry. Now, it really, in my view, has no downside in comparison to an iPhone/iPod Touch. In fact, this may be the nail in the coffin for my Touch, which I'll probably give to one of my kids.

I think the basic version of Tunebite, which will take the DRM out of audio, is free. You need the platinum verison for video, which is 40 bucks. But that one-time cost was well worth it for me.

My only limitation now is how much video I can fit on my 8-gig card. Guess it's time to buy a 16 (and hopefully 32 eventually).

[johnmorganjr1]

Wow never heard of it I'm going to go check it out.

[cafe_civet]

Wow, thanks. Being an Apple user, this is very helpful. You know, since the iPhone just doesn't compare to the Bold...for my purposes at least.

[rmaxey1]

The only drawback is that the video converts in real time. In other words, if you're converting a two-hour movie, it takes two hours to convert. So, as I'm sure iPhone users would point out, you could have watched the entire movie on an iPhone in the time it takes to get it on the Blackberry. But I don't consider that a huge problem. If I'm buying video content from iTunes --say a season of a TV show, for example -- I just queue them up in TuneBite before I go to bed. and it's converted and ready to copy to the Bold the next morning. At that point, it's ready to view whenever I'm ready.

One other note ... I doubt it'll work with RENTED iTunes movies. Haven't tried it, but I'm betting it only works with purchased content.