"One more thing..."

In October of 2005, Apple released their newest version of the iPod. While it is technically called the Fifth Generation iPod or iPod with video by apple, it is generally known as the video iPod or iPod video. Two capacities are available, 30GB or 60GB, in either white or black.

The video iPod's screen is slightly larger than those of its cousins, and is backlit while playing video and while navigating menus. I haven't watched a lot of videos on it yet, but the few that I have played just fine. One of the best parts is that the iPod is capable of displying video on a TV, using a cable that plugs into the headphone port and converts to typical RCA plugs, allowing both audio and video output. The split is fairly close to the end however, so if you have a TV and an amplifier setup for sound, they will need to be close together or you will need to extend one of the cables. While playing externally, the iPod screen is blank. This TV out option must be set manually, though it can be set to ask every time you play a video.

After its release, the firmware was updated to version 1.1, but this brought some new bugs with it. After a few seconds of playing a video, the video would skip once, and then the sound would cut out. If you fast-forward or rewind the video, the sound would come back, but this was still pretty irritating. The other solution that I found suggested online was to update to the previous firmware version. That worked pretty well, but Apple has since released version 1.1.1 which fixed that bug, as well as a few others

The iPod video retains the Notes, Clock, Calendar and Contacts features, as well as incorporates the iPod Photo's functionality allowing the display of individual photos or a slideshow. The Breakout game is still available, as well as a Solitaire game and a music trivia game. Solitare is playable, but the click wheel isn't the best interface for it. The music trivia game is great; it plays about 10 seconds of a random song, and gives you a list of five songs to choose from. The longer you listen, the fewer points you get for guessing it correctly. This is especially challenging if, like me, you have several albums on you iPod that you only listen to specific songs from.

Video Formats

MPEG-4

• Up to 480 x 480 at 2.5 mbps
• AAC-LC up to 160kbps, 48kHz Stereo
• .m4v, .mp4, or .mpv file formats

H.264

• Up to 320 x 240 at 768 Kbps
• AAC-LC up to 160kbps, 48kHz Stereo
• .m4v, .mp4, or .mpv file formats

Dimensions

30 GB

60 GB

References:
http://www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html