Once upon a time, if you wanted to make sure you caught your favourite TV serial, you'd have to schedule your time around the television guide. Nowadays you can watch your favorite movie or serial episodes on your Ipod anywhere and anytime!
Ipods with the storage capacity of 30GB and 80GB can store about 20,000 songs, 25,000 photos, and up to 100 hours of video or any combination of each. You can either convert your DVD (though you'll want to chec if this is legal) into an Ipod-compatible format or you can browse for your favourite movie and download it from the iTunes stores and sync it to the Ipod. Voila! Your favourite movie or TV show can be watched directly in your Ipod.
Ipod can play onlyH.264/MPEG-4 encoded videos with AAC audio tracks with certain limits to the resolution and bit rate of the video files. According to the Ipod's tech specification the video should be either:
H.264 video: up to 768 Kbps, 320x240 resolution, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 KHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats.
MPEG-4 video: up to 2.5 mbps, 480x480 resolution, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 KHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats.
H.264 is generally considered a better video format because it offers high quality and smaller file size when compared to MPEG-4. On the other hand it may take longer time for H.264 video to encode than the standard MPEG-4 that is H.264 will take longer time to convert a two hour movie to ipod video.
If you want to watch movies in TV then with a special video cable, you can output your Ipod videos to the TV through the Ipod's headphone jack. In this case one should opt for MPEG-4 format as it gives higher resolution than the H.264.
There are many great Ipod compatible videos that are both free and legal. Many types of software are available in the market which can be used to convert any cd or dvd into Ipod video, and some of these are available as free downloads.
No matter where you are, if you feel bored, all you need to do is to switch on your Ipod. If you're feeling blue, you can listen to your favorite collection of songs that can soothe you. If you missed your serial last week, you can watch it right on your Ipod. If you are feeling homesick then you can take a look at your parent's or kids through the photos that are stored in your Ipod.
There is much about modern life that is confusing and burdensome, but an application like the video ipod does demonstrate teh value of modern technology. Now there's never a reason to miss your favourite movie or television serial so long as you have your Ipod video with you. An entire theatre and multimedia suite is in your pocket!