Customer Reviews

Apple iPod Video 60 GB (5th Generation) OLD MODEL

5 star:		(137)
4 star:		(48)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

The iPod first appeared four years ago, and the features continue to grow, with each update.

The iPod with video playback was introduced on October 13, 2005. However, one should not necessarily consider this player a video player, but a great iPod music player, with video capabilities as a fantastic bonus. Nevertheless, the iPod with video playback is the most capable and feature-rich iPod ever produced by Apple.

I have owned the 60 gig iPod with video playback, for several days now, and I continue to be impressed. Its physical appearance, quality, craftsmanship, and the wide array of features are keeping me entertained!

Video Playback - The iPod plays back H264 and MPEG4 encoded video. The iPod's new display is larger than ever at 2.5 inches, giving it a resolution of 320x240. What video content can you play on your iPod? This area is limited, at least currently. You can buy music videos on iTunes at $1.99 per song, which will play beautifully on the iPod. Furthermore, Apple has made available select television shows, for download on iTunes. They cost $1.99 per episode, for titles including ABC's hits Lost and Desperate Housewives. You can also watch the episodes you purchase on your computer. If you want to put some of your own video, onto your iPod, you will need to use an application such as QuickTime Pro to convert the video to the specific requirements to play on the iPod. You can also find video podcasts, which will play on the new iPod. Even if you do not plan to view video on the new iPod, its primary purpose is to be used as the world's best music player. You can still benefit from the beautiful new display, for it will help you find your favorite music faster, and you can view the album art that accompanies your music.

Size of new iPod - Does the picture of the new iPod make it appear larger to you? Well, it did to me. The iPod looked wider, in the photos I saw. However, it is not. The height and width of the iPod are identical to the previous generation iPod with click wheel. The only change in dimensions is the depth. The new iPod is actually thinner than what came before it! Yes, even this 60 gig is thinner than the previous 20 gig photo model. What does all this mean? The iPod continues get smaller, making it even easier to carry.

Capacity - This 60 gig iPod has room, for a lot of entertainment. With storage, for up to 15,000 songs, 25,000 photos, or 150 hours of video. The great thing I love about my 60 gig iPod is that my music, photos, and video only take up about 15 gigabytes. However, I use the additional space to backup data, from my computer. This is incredibly helpful, and could be a real saver, if something happened to your computer. See, the iPod functions as an external hard drive, so you can backup all sorts of data. Furthermore, with the video capabilities on the new iPod, you may find yourself needing the extra space that this 60 gig iPod provides.

New Software Features - Apple has added features, to the new iPod besides video support. First, they have a clock feature, which quickly allows you to view the time, in up to four different time zones simultaneously. Furthermore, there is a stop watch, and a screen lock, which you can enable to keep people from snooping on your calendar and/or contacts.

Battery - The battery life is one of the most important specifications that you, as an iPod user, are going to care about. This 60 gigabyte iPod sports a battery that will last up to 20 hours, when playing only music. Also note that repeatedly changing songs manually, and turning on the backlight will use up your battery considerably faster. Furthermore, the iPod's battery lasts a maximum of three hours, when playing back video. This version of the iPod no longer includes an adapter to charge the iPod, at an electrical outlet. You will have to buy that adapter separately, or always charge the iPod via USB 2.0. The charging works fine, from your computer's USB 2.0, but if you're traveling you might want the ability to charge, with the adapter. Also note that the iPod no longer supports syncing via firewire cable. You will have to use USB 2.0.

Mac or PC? This iPod works beautifully with either a Mac or PC. The iPod syncs your contacts, video, and music via the iTunes software.

Podcasting - The iPod continues to support podcasting. Podcasts are internet radio broadcasts, and there are thousands covering nearly every subject imaginable, and more are coming out every day. Podcasts are quickly becoming popular content on iPods around the world. Check them out, for this iPod supports Podcasts out of the box. There are also video podcasts, so with the new iPod, you will be able to watch video podcasts, on the iPod's display.

Appearance - The iPod is beautiful, but the back's chrome finish is prone to scratches, and the screen can become scratched as well. It is a very good idea to protect the back of the iPod and the screen in some way. There are many cases and protectors out there, and you will surely find something you like. The new iPod is available in a black or white finish. The black color is quickly becoming the most popular, but the white iPod is still the signature color. Do note that the black may show fingerprints and scratches more than the white iPod, much as a black car shows these blemishes more than a lighter colored car. Apple is including a small sleeve-type case, with this iPod, to help you keep it in good condition.

Audiobooks - I'm always using my iPod, to listen to audiobooks. You can store literally hundreds of audiobooks on here that you buy from iTunes, or Audible. The iPod even has a feature that can slow down or speed up the reading of the audiobook, so that you hear it at just the right pace.

Output - The iPod connects to your PC or Mac via the dock connector at the bottom of the unit. You will connect the included cable, to the computer via a USB 2.0 port. Furthermore, accessories are being made that will also connect to the bottom dock port, and you may purchase Apple's Universal iPod dock, for easy syncing to your computer. The dock (available separately) also includes s-video output, so you can show off slideshows and video, on a television. There are also iPod A/V cables available that allow composite video and audio output, for connecting your iPod to your television. This might interest you, not only to display slideshows on a television, but also to display TV shows or music videos on a television, which you purchased from iTunes.

Value - This 60 gigabyte iPod is priced at $399, which is a great value. It provides a huge amount of storage space, and more features than ever.

Overall, this is another excellent product from Apple Computer. The design is elegant, simple, and intuitive. It will provide hours of entertainment and convenience. Enjoy your iPod experience.

Actually I give the iPod itself a 5, but give Apple a 1 for how they supplied and distributed the iPod. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy on their part.

I received my iPod video for Christmas. I love it. It does everything Apple says it will do. However, there are some things you should know before you buy one.

Note: I have a computer with Windows XP, and this review is based on my experiences using a Windows based computer. I am reviwing the 60 GB version.

1. Apple provides almost no documentation with the iPod. If you want to read the owners manual you have to download it from their website or from Amazon.com. Even then, the owners manual doesn't give a whole lot of detail on things like converting video to a format which will be playable on the iPod. You have to visit the online help section of the Apple website.

2. The iPod doesn't come with all of the software necessary to connect it to your computer. The iPod does come with a special version of iTunes, BUT it does not come with the proper version of Quicktime - you need version 7 to run the iTunes software they provide. You have to download this from their website too. When I did the download, I was visiting my folks and had to use their dial up internet access to download Quicktime 7 - this took 2.5 hours.

Another thing, when you install Quicktime 7 it also installs a version of iTunes. - This is important - This version of iTunes is NOT the correct version required to run the iPod. Once you install Quicktime 7, you need to install the iTunes software provided WITH the iPod afterwards. The Apple website erroneously indicates that the iTunes downloaded with Quicktime 7 is the latest version of iTunes - not true - The iTunes supplied with the iPod is the true latest version. I tried to connect my iPod to the computer using the incorrect version of iTunes and the iPod froze completely which brings me to my next criticism.

3. There is no way to re-set the iPod when it freezes like mine did. The screen stayed lit and the "Do Not Disconnect" message stopped flashing. When my laptop freezes up, if nothing else works, I can always remove the battery. Not so with the iPod. The battery is inaccessible. If you need to get a new battery, the owners manual says you have to ship your iPod to Apple, and pay about $ 60 to replace your battery. Also, Apple says that when your iPod comes back with the new battery, all of your music, videos and pictures will be gone. You will have to re-load them all again. It also (helpfully) says to make a backup of your files before you send it in. I had to wait for the battery to run out before I could try again.

4. Apple doesn't supply a recharger with this iPod. Unlike previous iPods Apple cheaped out on supplying a recharger. You can recharge the iPod through the USB port on your computer, however this is not helpful on the road unless you happen to have a laptop or other access to a computer. Apple will sell you a recharger for $30.00, and according to several customer reviews on the Apple website, the recharger doesn't come with the proper connecting cord. Apparently this costs another $20.00

5. The iPod software doesn't come equipped to convert video files into a form which will play on the iPod. The Apple website says you need to upgrade to Quicktime 7 PRO for another $ 30.00. According to Apple Quicktime 7 PRO "easily converts video files". NOT TRUE - While Quicktime 7 PRO may convert some files, it does not convert "muxed" video files which I learned later from the Apple website (after I purchased Quicktime 7 PRO), that it will not convert "muxed" video. FYI "muxed" video is when your video and audio are integrated into one data stream. A search of the internet led me to the Ulead website. They sell a product called Intervideo CD Copy 4 Platinum, which will rip video from your home DVD's and convert them to a format suitable for the iPod video. However, the software costs $79.00 - you can download a free trial version. I ended up buying the software and it works fine. Buying Quicktime 7 PRO was a total waste of my $ 30.00

Other - Apple's website is geared towards Macintosh users. The video conversion section assumes you own a Mac. All of the screenshot examples they provide are for a Mac. If you use a Windows based computer, you are basically on your own.

Fortunately, I know quite a bit about computers and was, after some time to play around, able to figure out how to easily download music, video and pictures into the iPod - One word of warning - I strongly recommend that you set all of the download options to MANUAL. If you don't, the iPod will sync with your computer automatically, and if you have deleted music, video or pictures from your hard drive OR connect the iPod to multiple computers (as I do), you will find your music, video and pictures get deleted from the iPod. Setting to manual avoids the deletions. There are some minor clunks to the software too. I have been including album cover art with my music. Most of the time, the iPod diplays the cover art when I play my music, on occasion though it indicates that a picture has been added for the song, it won't display the picture on the screen. I think this is somehow related to the information line for the Album description. If this is blank or there are many albums entered at once for the same picture, it seems to get confused and not display the picture. In each case, playing around seems to have gotten the picture to show, although, I am not exactly sure which step seems to resolve the problem.

All in all I love my iPod. I am now fairly adept at using the software and can download music, video and pictures easily (and without deleting them). If you are a novice at using a computer, you may find it very difficult to use and learn the software. While the iPod itself is easy to use once loaded, if you are getting one of these for someone who is not comfortable with a computer you might want to load it up for them.

Also the iPod is a delicate mechanical hard drive. If you have very young children you might want to keep it out of their curious little hands - and don't drop it.

I hope that a piece of equipment this complex will last for many years.

Apple is not behaving in a customer friendly manner. They look like a company trying to squeeze every cent from their customer base. Raw greed is not becoming. Apple can get away with this right now, because they have the only player with these capabilities. You have to buy from them right now and they know it. They have a monopoly on players with all of the iPod features. Like Microsoft they are alienating their customers. Once a suitable competitor for the iPod comes along, Apple will be forced to make changes to how they market and package the iPod. As they will lose some of their customer base. It is marketing 101 that you want your customers to feel good about your company. Right now, I have a very low opinion of Apple, based on their money grubbing attitude. They make a really neat player, but don't treat their customers very well. This will come back to haunt them I'm afraid.

I have the white 60 GB ipod video and my husband has the black. We purchased about 3 weeks ago. We both love it.

Feedback on watching video: There has been much feedback on the product not being a good option for video. I do not have the flexibility in my schedule to watch TV. I bought the entire second season of Desperate Houswives (8 episodes at the time of writing this review) and watched it on the ipod. The clarity and experience was amazing. The video quality is exceptional. I can watch during my ride to work or at any point when I have about 15 minutes to spare. The ipod memory feature picks up at the point where I stopped watching when I click on the episode. Fun! For me, it works very well as a video device too.I have ripped my workout DVDs to the ipod. I bought the TV connector. No more excuses not to work out when I am traveling.

Scratching: Neither my husband's nor mine are scratched yet. Please dont be scared to buy because of the feedback on the product being prone to scratches. I was concerned because I read this. All it takes is a little extra care - I keep it in the pouch as far as possible.

The only flip side - the battery life is not 20 hours. Mine runs out of charge much faster (about half this). But then I use the back lighting a lot even when listening to music because I have loaded album art or pics of the artist in lieu of boring album art and I still cannot get over staring at the awesome screen when listening to songs

Edited after a few more weeks since buying to say - Still no scratches! I recently picked up up a skin with a lanyard (available in Asia). Even wothout the skin, we had both managed to keep our heavily used ipods scratch free though.

This is a good player -- possibly better than good, depending on your needs; but there are a couple things to keep in mind if you are considering this player.

First, the good. If your primary concern is capacity, you absolutely cannot find a better combination of capacity & portability in any other player. Period. Now that Creative seems to have discontinued their 60gb zen xtra (I don't know that for sure, but I searched for months & could never find it in stock on any site), there aren't even that many other players on the market that offer over 40gb. And you are definitely not going to find another 60gb(or greater) player in such a tiny package. The sound quality is excellent & there are plenty of equalizer settings to suit your particular taste. The controls/user interface is very intuitive, not to mention stylish (if you care about such things). The battery life is outstanding (at least for music -- I don't really care about the video features, so I can't really comment on that). I'm not sure about the 14 hours mentioned in some product decriptions I've seen, but I've consistently gotten way over 10 hours, usually somewhere in the 12 hour range. More than adequate, in any case. Also, I really like the USB charging ability -- no need to worry with multiple cables if you want to hook it up to your PC but the battery is low. The iPod's battery charges through the USB cable as it's connected.

Now, for the not-so-good. First, as with seemingly all players, the provided earbuds stink. Maybe I just have deformed ears, but I've never found a pair of these that will stay in my ears. And while they are in, they're extremely uncomfortable. But, I already had a nice set of headphones, so that's not that big a deal to me. The lack of included accessories is a little dissapointing as well. Basically, you get the USB cable & the earbuds. As some others have mentioned, there's not even an A/C charger included. Yes, it charges when connected to your PC, but come on, Apple -- for $400, you couldn't include a travel A/C charger?

But by far my biggest complaint with the iPod is the fact that Apple insists on FORCING you to use iTunes to manage your library & load music onto your iPod. For those of you who missed the memo (as I apparently did), let me repeat that -- you CANNOT load music onto this player via any means other than using iTunes as your library manager. I learned this the hard way -- loading well over 5000 songs onto the player (seen as an external hard disk) via the music library manager that I had been using for years. The files transfer just fine, but when you turn your iPod on, it doesn't realize there are any songs there. I've seen some open-source programs that supposedly override this "feature" for the iPod Shuffle, but nothing of the sort for this model. Now, if you already use iTunes to manage your music library, then obviously that's not a problem. But if, like me, you already have another tool that you like & have been using, you now must either switch to iTunes altogether or keep up with 2 libraries. In my case, it's 2 libraries since the existing tool I used (Creative's MediaSource Organizer -- which, as a library manager is vastly superior to iTunes, in my opinion) is necessary for my Creative Wireless Music Server. Oh well. One other thing you should be aware of if you're not that familiar with iTunes: the "auto-sync" feature. The first time you connect your iPod, you will be asked whether you want to automatically synchronize your iPod with your iTunes library. You need to understand what saying "yes" to this means -- it doesn't just synchronize that one time. It also sets a preference (which you can change later) whereby every subsequent time you connect your iPod, it will automatically be synchronized to your library. So, if anything has been removed from your library, it will also automatically be removed from your iPod when you connect it. Personally, I turn off that feature & manage tranfers to my iPod manually.

A recording feature would have been nice, but both of my previous players (an old Archos Jukebox & an Archos gmini 402) record quite well, they just don't have the capacity of the iPod 60gb.

Overall, for what I bought if for -- the ability to store my entire music collection on a single, portable device -- the iPod 60gb is probably the best choice currently on the market. I give it only 3 stars, just because of the unholy, incestuous and entirely unecessary marriage to iTunes. I mean honestly, how hard would it have been for Apple to make this player capable of playing music files loaded onto the device sans iTunes?

Unlike a lot of reviewers who post reviews on a product they've never seen or held (Apple Stores were told they wouldn't get theirs until the end of October--per Charlotte NC store) ----- I actually have one.

I ordered mine on Oct 12, and it arrived Oct 20. I of course ordered the 60GB device.

It was easy to swap out my old 40 GB device with this new one. I'd previously installed the new iTunes and the iPod software version 10-12-05 that I'd downloaded. It was plug in, register, and download. (And I had to swap cables on my dock***.)

Some observations:

The screen is very bright when you turn the backlight on and leave it on, it's very dim if you don't (probably how they get the stated 20 hour battery life).

***No more Firewire connections. I was sad to see that, as the Firewire connection saved me from getting a new USB hub.

The Holy Grail is video here...however, converting it to iPod standards isn't easy. I have a lot of DiVX video, to which the QuickTime Converter isn't up to recognizing, much less converting. Forget about 3rd party converters that you already own, it seems the iPod only wants Apple-converted video. But rest assured, there are software developers frantically scrambling to solve this. I have a couple of beta converters I found, but with very mixed results. I'd give it a couple of weeks then good software will be available for converting video to the iPod.

The sound is as good as ever, no worries there.

It has the same width and height as my 40GB iPod, so your cases should fit nicely, and maybe a similar thickness to the old 10/20 GB iPods. It fits in my auto transmitter/charger, but I have to slightly angle it back as I'm inserting it to hit the dock squarely.

All in all, the video situation was disappointing, but with lots of money at stake, it will get worked out by all these 3rd party developers. I did manage to get a couple very short preexisting QuickTime videos converted successfully to the iPod standard, so I know it DOES play video - the problem is just the conversion process. Not necessarily Apple's fault, except that their video standard is maybe a little too rigid.

I got mine alittle over a week ago directly from Apple. (Sorry Amazon, but it's the same price, + free laser engraving & shipping) I HAD bought the iPod 60GB photo for about a week, but as soon as I saw these new ones coming out, I sold the photo on ebay and bought the 60GB video in black. I got the new one for 3 main reasons: 1: The iPod is finally in BLACK! 2: It's thinner = more portability. 3: Yes, it plays video. Now these reasons are listed in order. I didn't get this new one just for the video. I got it as a music player first and a video player second (or third).

First off, since it's the new feature, lets talk about the video. The video quality is excellent! (considering that the screen is only 320x240 pixel) I say this from putting my OWN videos on it, meaning videos that weren't downloaded from iTunes. $1.99 isn't too bad a price for a music video or an episode of a TV series, but at the same time, most of the music videos and TV series episodes they offer aren't everybodies can of beer! (I don't care for Lost and especially Desperate Housewives...unless the 4 women did the show nude!) All I did was rip the DVD of a TV series or whatever I want, then transcode it into a format that the ipod can read, and Presto! Now I know while your reading this your thinking, "If I get this iPod, how can I put my favorite stuff on it the way this guy is talking about?" No problem, I'll tell you!

First, if you want to get a movie or a TV show off a DVD, chances are it's probably CSS encrypted. (Pretty much any movie or TV series DVD you buy at any store) To rip these type of DVD's into a video file, you'll have to get a DVD ripping program that can decrypt CSS. You can find a number of them online for free or cost alittle $ to download. My experience, most of the freeware ones can't rip any decent quality video, so you'll probably have to shell out afew bucks to get a decent one. I had already downloaded one called AoA DVD Ripper afew months ago for about $25 or $30. (Do a google or yahoo search to find the site) It does a really good job of ripping the DVD's and the video/audio quality is great. (Especially using the DivX 6 codec) Next, you'll need to transcode the video file into a format the ipod can read. (Go to apple's website for video specifications) I already had Quicktime 7 Pro, which comes with a setting to save videos it can open to the proper format. I tried using it; it took an hour just to convert 5% of the video! It was only a 22 minute video! WAY TOO LONG A CONVERSION TIME! (would have taken almost a day!) So I went searching online for another program that would do this faster. I found a freeware program called Videora iPod Converter. (Again, do a Yahoo search to find the download site) It comes with a number of options and it does a great (and fast) job of converting the video to the right format. TIP: When using this program, ONLY certain video settings can be used for the converted video to work on the ipod. Check the forum of the website you download this program from to see what other settings people have tried to get it working. It may seem like a lot of trouble, but if you want to be able to watch certain videos, it isn't that bad once you get everything set up. (It only took me a total of 30 minutes to put an episode of Chappelle Show on my iPod using the process I described above!)

Now that the video is out of the way...The sound of the ipod is excellent. I read somewhere that they also fixed 3 minor sound bugs that were present in the earlier versions of iPod. (Another bonus) Overall, there isn't too much more new about the new ipod besides what I talked about. One drawback that people have mentioned, but hasn't affected me; the 4 prong connection that was on top next to the headphone jack is gone. So if you already have ipod accessories that use them, tough luck, they won't work on the new one. They'll be coming out with accessories to replace the older ones sometime though that exclusively use the dock connector on the bottom. (Already have in some cases) Also, if you don't like using iTunes to transfer music to your iPod, there's a program out there called Anapod made by Red Chair Software. It integrates into Windows Explorer and just drag and drop! Has a lot of cool/handy features, and they just put a new version out that supports the new ipod! (Namely transferring video) It costs about $25 -$30 depending on which version you get. Well worth it though, I think. Hope this review helped you out!

Alright i got my 60gb 5g Apple iPod about a month ago and so far it's doing pretty well -

Pros:

Great screen resolution
Long battery life (with music)
Good Quality
Looks nice/high tech
DVD/Movie converters are out there for it and they are cheap
ALOT of accessories
Good OS
Easy to use.

Cons:

Occasionally locks up
Scratches WICKED easily
Battery life is short (With Movies)
Doesn't like to turn off
Costs $400!

End Review:

Overall it's really good with some minor flaws it's worth buying. For DVD converters i suggest PQ DVD to iPod video converter.

The 5th Generation iPod 60 GB from Apple is the perfect video and music player for anyone with enough movies or music to fill it up. So, first things first, I recommend searching for a smaller-sized model if you don't have a very large collection.

I have owned a 5th gen 60 GB iPod video for almost a year now and felt that it was a good time to write a review about it. I've read reviews from people who have complained about their iPod breaking and freezing, and I have my own input regarding this.

One of the abilities of the iPod is to play videos. The iPod will only play .mp4, .m4v, and .mov format videos, so be careful! iTunes DOES take care of converting videos for use with an iPod, but I'm not reviewing iTunes. Assuming you've converted your home movies for the iPod and have downloaded the latest season of your favorite TV show, it's now time to put it onto your iPod. Once you've got it sitting nicely on the 60 GB hard drive, you can access it in the menus and begin to watch. On a fully charged iPod, video playback is noted at up to 3 hours, and I've found no problem with this, though over time that length might decrease just like most electronic products over time. The video quality is superb on iTunes purchased movies and shows and the audio quality for those shows is just as good. With your own movies, it can be a different story. Basically you just need to make sure that the audio quality is good enough and the video resolution is good enough for the iPod. If you've succeeded in those two areas then the video should view GREAT! I have found that, over time, my iPod was filling up with shows and movies and I had little room to store other new videos. I would recommend regularly updating your iPod. This means that once you've watched a movie, if you have no future plans to watch it again, delete it off of your iPod. This way you can always save space for videos you may want to put on your iPod in the future. But remember: ALWAYS make sure to keep a "hard copy" of the video on your computer. Otherwise you may find yourself an unhappy camper.

Music has always been the main focus for the iPods ever since day one. My music has always worked GREAT on my iPod and I've never been failed. Many people have complained about the lack of an option to use alternative audio formats with the iPod. Unless you're looking to put all .wma files on your iPod, you won't be disappointed. The iPod works well with most usual audio formats. Just as long as you keep your non-iTunes Store music as mp3 audio you shouldn't have any problems. Audio quality is great for great quality audio. It all depends on the kpbs. 160 kbps is nearly indistinguishable from CD quality for most people. 192 kbps is a much larger file but is just the safer route. iTunes Store music sounds great at the quality they have set for all the music.

Podcasts work great with the iPod and work very similarly to music on the iPod, as they are all audio files. The only difference is that the iPod treats podcasts as they are and they have a separate folder within the iPod.

Photos work fantastic with the iPod too, and the picture quality is great for the most part. The size of the image you upload to the iPod has a lot to do with the quality. But for the most part, your standard digital camera pictures will look great.

I have not played any of the iTunes Store games that are available for the iPod but have heard good things about them all. I don't think this is a relevant feature for the 5th generation iPod at this point seeing as how there are so few games available for purchase. No outside source games are compatible with the iPod to my knowledge.

My only complaint with the iPod is the occasional freezing/slowing down of some media when playing it. This is largely due to the fact that this is a hard-drive based player, and most problems can be solved with a reset (pressing the menu and center click buttons at the same time and holding). My iPod has also been scratched a bit on the screen, even with a case. With proper care and treatment, this should not be a huge problem after prolonged use, and the scratches on my own iPod are due, for the most part, to my carelessness with where I put the iPod. If you put the iPod in a backpack that has dirt or sand in it, it WILL get inside the case you bought for the iPod, and WILL scratch the iPod if you do not remove it quickly. This is just common sense.

Overall the iPod is an extremely fun player to use and can be very easy to use, given that you actually read the instructions. Make sure that your bases are covered and you will be fine.

I would also like to add one last bit of information that will help some people, I'm hoping.

The Apple iPod has a TV-Out feature that is extremely useful for when you would like to hook it up to a TV and watch it at home with the family. Apple has a sleek little RCA cable that you can buy for a pretty penny to be able to hook the iPod up to your TV, but be assured that YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BUY IT. With these steps, you can have your iPod playing on your TV in NO TIME:

1) Go to a local electronics store and buy a standard RCA cable with the red, yellow, and white plugs on one end and a 1/8 inch plug (headphone jack) on the other. Again, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BUY THE APPLE BRAND RCA CABLE FOR THIS. Don't waste your money. You can pick up a great RCA cable for a few dollars that will work fine for this feature.
2) Turn on your iPod and select your desired settings concerning TV-Out. I enjoy the Widescreen format and the "Always Ask" option ON. This ask option is just so that whenever I choose a video to play, the iPod will ask me if I want to turn TV-Out ON or OFF.
3) Once you've selected your desired settings, grab the RCA cable and plug the 1/8 inch end into your iPod's headphone hole.
4) Locate the analog input holes on your TV (red, white, and yellow) and grab the RCA cable. Here's the tricky part that Apple "accidentally" forgets you to tell you. Instead of matching colors and plugging the RCA cable into your TV, you've got to switch colors around. Plug the RED END into the YELLOW INPUT, the YELLOW END into the WHITE INPUT, and the WHITE END into the RED INPUT. Apple switched the way the composite video signal and analog audio signal comes out of the iPod on us! Once you've switched the colors around and you're plugged in, switch the TV to the channel or mode that matches with where you've plugged into, select a video to watch, select TV-Out ON if you haven't already, and sit back and relax!

It's a GREAT device. On a Mac, it's a snap to load videos to watch on the go, and has the usual superb iTunes management system for music, not to mention the iTunes Music store for downloads, music videos and limited at this point TV episodes.

A few downsides keep this from being a 5 star device...It scratches from the moment you pick it up, which you will do a lot to watch video...In a week waiting for an Invisible Shield (which does protect - albeit in a cumbersome fashion) it had dozens of scratches on the black finish and screen. When more cases are available, this should get better, but Apple's stock case is suprisingly shoddy for the usual Apple elan...And besides looking horrible, the case doesn't allow you to use the player, at least for video. Accessories are pitiful, and you will probably need at least one or two besides a halfway decent way to protect this. So add another hundred dollars for a charging unit, and a dock...But whatever you do, DON'T buy the Apple remote. At least as of this writing, it's not designed to do anything other than turn the unit on and off, volume up and down and skip to next music track. NO video controls, NO menu screens, NO playlist management. It's also a surprise for Apple to be so irritatingly poor. But this is another groundbreaker...Not the first Video player, but the elegance, ease of use, and absolute superiority of the iTunes management system are all top notch. Highly recommended.

There are some good reviews here already on this great product. I want to address the case issue. The iPod WILL scratch. It comes with a crappy, discardable sleeve (along with discardable earphones, but they're another issue!) that will provide some false assurances of scratch protection. However, if the tiniest bit of a foreign substance with a Mohs Scale of Hardness number of 2 or greater gets inside the sleeve, your 'Pod is scratched.

I recommend the purchase of the "invisibleSHIELD" (google it) to protect your 'Pod. I installed it on mine and couldn't be happier. This product is a tough plastic "decal" that is almost bullet proof! There is a video of guy using a car key to try and scratch a protected iPod. This stuff is tuff!

Application can be a bit tricky, but I got excellent results the first time. The screen is still crystal clear, but I'll have to admit that a "protected" iPod is slightly less beautiful than a new, "bare" one. However, it's still way more beautiful than any case can be and it will stay scratch free!

When it's time to sell your iPod, it will still look new. InvisibleSHIELD says that their product is removable, but I can't attest to that personally. I would think that a buyer would want to keep it on anyway.

Bottom line: I love my iPod. I would never want it to be without this protection.