Customer Reviews

Apple A/V Cable for iPod Photo (iPod 4G)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Thanks to S. Clark I saved myself some money by not having to buy an Apple A/V cable since I already had a standard A/V cable. I had tried it in the past and found it didn't work, but now we know why. Just swap the yellow and red cables and your in business - it does work. However, in a discussion on this topic a person pointed something out that may explain why Apple has done this, and there is then good reason for it. Apparently on a standard A/V cable the video channel is on the center ring of the mini-plug. The problem is then that you have to use an A/V cable, because if you used an audio-only cable you'd lose one of the audio channels because it as at the bottom ring! That would mean you couldn't plug in standard headphones without an adapter, and so Apple changed the A/V cable so that both audio channels are at the top and the video channel is at the bottom. That way you can use either an A/V cable or a straight left/right audio cable and both work. Makes sense! Of course Apple could have opted to tell you that you can just switch the red and yellow wires on a standard A/V cable, but that's a lesser evil - you could even argue that that would just complicate matters and so they may even be justified in not revealing that info.

In any case, I had previously purchased an Apple A/V cable for my Mom's iPod and it works fine and seems very well made, if being a bit overpriced. One nit, though, is that the plug colors are only on the inner end of the plugs. That is, when looking at the cables from the side you can't see which is which color, you have to look at the inside ends. Minus one star for that.

This cable performs just how it should. If it seems you are experiencing signal loss, it is probably just because of the type of cable you are using. Get the dock and use an S-Video cable if you need better quality. Instead of getting this cable, you can use a regular AV (3 RCA - 1/8 mini) cable, but there's a catch. Plug the red plug into your video in, and the yellow plug into your audio input. Apple says that "other AV cables are not compatible with iPod with color display" but all they did was switch signals around to try to make you unnecessarily buy more stuff from them.

I bought this adapter as an alternative to lugging my laptop or portable DVD player w/ me. I downloaded all my movies on my iPod and now use this. The only problem I had at first was trying to figure out how to get the video on my TV, the audio was there right away. Make sure you go into video settings on your iPod and set "TV Out" to ON & "TV Signal" to NTSC. Then you're set to go. This is the best price I have seen on this adapter as well. They make these w/ a retractable cord. I would definately buy this 10X over!!

So far I haven't had any problems with the cable. The picture is very clear also. It's maybe a little pricy, but I would recommend getting it if you have a lot of videos on your iPod.

This product works well and allows for you to view pictures and videos on your TV. The resolution was very good on an average sized tv, for larger TVs the video quality suffers a bit but it is still worth purchasing the cables.
When I first recieved the cables I was unable to get them to work and was very frustrated. The key is to make sure you'r Ipod settings are configured right. Go into the Video and Audio displays, go to Video Settings and Photo settings and make sure you turn the "TV Out" option to on. Once that is done the video/ photo will display on the screen. If this is not done all you will hear is the audio playing through the Tv.

it's a great cable, but keep it on the box when finish of using it.. the surround heat (32°C) skratch the surface of the connector.. and your fingerprints as well.. FOREVER!

I experienced a fair bit of signal loss from this cable. It is certainly a lot better than those $5 AV cables but I would not recommend this cable to an audiophile.