Wouldn’t it be great if your home-ripped movies looked the same in your iTunes library as their expensive iTunes Store–bought brothers?

We already showed you how to convert your DVD collection into iPod-compatible clips using MacTheRipper and HandBrake (“Hardcore How-Tos: The Digital Media Edition,” Apr/08, p23). This time, we’re going to take this process a little further and polish up those files to make them look just like iTunes Store purchases, complete with named chapter markers, poster artwork, and a description field containing a film synopsis as well as a short list of its cast and crew.

If you followed our directions in the April issue, you’ll have to re-encode your film in step 1 below if you want to name the chapters. But the rest of these steps can be done to the files you already have. Most of the information for the description field can be gleaned from your DVD covers, but if you don’t own a scanner and don’t feel like typing all that information, the Internet is the best place to search for alternative content. Time to get your DVDs out and start creating a beautiful digital film collection.

The Princess Bride is one of those movies that's loved by everyone. Go ahead, ask the person next to you if they like The Princess Bride. See, it's universally adored.

Now Mac users can re-enact the adventures of Wesley and Buttercup with The Princess Bride Game released for OS X today. The game features five casual games, animation based on the movie, and the voices of two of the original film actors.

The game, developed by WorldWide Biggies, can be downloaded from PrincessBrideGame.com.

For a limited time, Mac|Life readers can get 30% off The Princess Bride Game by following the directions after the jump.

AT&T announced today they have developed software that allows iPhones to recognize voice commands.  The software is called AT&T WATSON Speech Mashups based on AT&T’s WATSON technology. WATSON is hosted on the web allowing iPhone access to the software “without the need to install, configure, and manage speech recognition software and equipment” according to AT&T.  

Check out the video after the jump.

Apple and Adobe's inability to come to terms on how to get Flash on the iPhone didn't stop Belgian coder Thomas Joos.

The designer/coder ported Flash Lite to the iPhone using b.Tween and eyeGT in order to create an interactive guide for Rock Werchter 2008. Watching the video above, it makes you wonder how long Apple can hold out putting Flash on the iPhone.

Oh, and copy and paste.

Via 9to5Mac

In the August issue of Mac|Life Magazine, I explain how to shoot a sequence of still photos to create a high-definition time-lapse animation for a video. In this video, I combined hundreds of photos from a Whistler ski trip into a demonstration of the technique.

I stuck mostly with the basics for this sequence, usually leaving the camera alone while letting a timer take photos every few seconds. However, in the chair-lift shot, I subtly zoomed out as I took pictures. And since the shot with clouds flying over the mountain wasn't as dynamic as I'd hoped, I took advantage of the high- resolution files by blowing up and panning across the view in Final Cut Pro.

These shots could establish the pace of a longer video or act as an interlude between scenes captured with a video camera. But however you end up using the footage, try to capture extra clips. It takes patience to set up creative time-lapse scenes, but any extra effort in the field makes a difference in editing. 

Check out the video after the jump.

University of South Florida Students, Rodrigo Guiterrez and Jeff Craig, created a native iPhone app to control iRobot's Packbot over Wi-Fi.

Check out the video after the jump.