convert itunes files m4v to a playable MP4?

[stockyg]

Is there anyway to convert the Itunes shows that are in .m4v to a playable mp4 that i can put on a sony psp or burn to a dvd. I payed for the shows, i should be able to back them up. please help. i am using a mac and tried using ffmpegx and also mac the ripper. they woudn't work. please help.

[AntnyMD]

You can back them up by saving them to another disc drive or burning them to a data disc. You cannot however decrypt them to make them playable on Sony PSP.

Well ... actually you can, but its convoluted at this point. The audio in the files is encrypted with FairPlay 2, and the video is encoded with some sort of Macrovision. You can pass the video through a filter like the Sima GoDVD! device, record onto any video recorder, then convert that to Sony PSP. The quality will be nasty though, since they currently only sell video in a resolution of 320x240 and below.

[terryj]

I downloaded and burned the pilot of L&O: Conviction to a VCD
by first using QT Pro to make a .MOV of it, then through Toast 7
to MPEG-1 and it worked fine.
I didn't do full DVD because (a) I wasn't going to keep it,
and (b) I just wanted to move to the living room.
Maybe Lost and the others have something else, but this went ok.

[AntnyMD]

Thats interesting. I have a copy of Conviction as well, so I'm interested to see if its copy-protected.

My post is based on my very first video I bought in iTunes, a Madonna music video. It flat-out would not convert through any means I tried, except for the analog route.

[AntnyMD]

Just as a follow-up to making DVDs of your iTunes Music Store video purchases .. If you have a Canopus ADVC device, you can copy the purchases that way as well and the quality is not bad at all. I mean, its watchable.