So I wanted to take a select number of movies that I really like and have long had as background noise when I'm doing other things, and rip the audio off of it to put on my iPod. I've done this with ONE movie so far (The Count of Monte Cristo - 2002) but it took a really long time.

Is there a faster way to do this? I just want it in mp3 format. Just wanted to take and load the .AVI file or .MP4 or .MKV or whatever (even .FLV perhaps) and strip the audio from it as quickly as possible. I realize with files that can run over 2 hours it's not going to be instantaneous, but what IS a good fast and efficient program to do this with?

I like to have them on the iPod and listen to it as I'm going to sleep. (I always skip ahead to 20 minutes in to Count where Edmond is being betrayed lol).

Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

P.s. I didn't know where else to put this, so I put it in this section. Hopefully that is alright.

If I want to rip audio I load up the movie file in Quicktime - although I've found that older versions such as 7.6.4 will only allow this.
Window > Show Movie Properties.
Highlight & tick Soundtrack.
Hit Extract.
Select 'Save As A Self-Contained Movie'.
Then change the file type after it has saved.

I must add I do this on a Mac.

i have done similar before with programs such like dvdfab or xilisoft converters. there usually appears an option in output for different formats of sound.

If it's taking a long time to convert, you might have a slow machine.
I don't know your system specs: RAM (2GB?), CPU (2.1GHz?), cores (dual-core? single-core?), and Operating System (32 bit? 64 bit?)

I don't know what software you're using either.

But as far as faster goes, you would need to upgrade your machine because you can't really get any faster than what you're already doing.
Unless what you're doing is wrong.

Use this:
XMedia Recode 3.1.5.8 (http://anonym.to/?http://www.videohelp.com/tools/XMedia-Recode)

Import your video. Accepst a lot of formats: AVI, MKV, WMV, etc.
Set it to convert to audio only.
I suggest AAC. You get better quality for lossy formats.
Beats MP3 by miles.
You can keep it as 5.1 or downmix it to stereo.

Generally, it should take you about 30-45 minutes to convert audio only.