How do I love my iPod video? Let me count the ways. Seriously, I adore this small piece of technology. It's nearly 3 years old now -- I ordered it the first day it was available -- and this 5th generation 30GB iPod video unit is still chugging along and making our lives better.

First and foremost, it is an absolutely fab music player. Apple did it right. My iPod offers all the audio control I could ask for including my much-beloved parental controls that keep my kids from blasting out their ear drums. On behalf of parents everywhere, thank you Apple for giving my kids' ears a chance to grow up.

I'm not a serious audiophile, fussing about detailed audio reproduction. I have listened to music of every genre, podcasts, audio books and so forth on this thing and it still sounds great.

The iPod video is the perfect size. It fits in my hand and my pocket, my purse and my backpack. It's quite a bit smaller and lighter than my iPhone despite its onboard hard drive.

More of my overflowing praise for the iPod video below...

Sure, we'd all love to watch Flash-based videos on the iPhone, but until Apple actually implements Flash in MobileSafari, everything but YouTube (with its builtin player) is off limits. Or is it? Check out this little trick, in which you can use the "Download for Video iPod" option on Google video to watch almost any video instantly.

Now, my guess is that this trick presupposes a few things, first of all that you have a network connection from the iPhone that can stream video instantly. Also, I'm not quite sure where the video itself gets stored-- is there a temp directory in MobileSafari that would store this stuff? I doubt that the video itself would get added to your iPhone's videos library, but that may be the case.

At any rate, if you've got the connection (and maybe the space) for it, this is an easy, no-jailbreak way to watch any Google videos (or any other iPod-formatted web videos, I'd guess) that offer themselves up for download.

Thanks, Kit!

Starting with the infamous 1984 Super Bowl television commercial, Apple's advertising campaigns have become almost as unique and interesting as their retail products.

Check out some images of this recent campaign, created by Net#Work BBDO in South Africa to announce the functionality of video iPods. Staged in movie theaters, the campaign featured tiny boxes of popcorn that bore the slogan, "iPod: Movies in your pocket," as well as tiny movie posters and even an iPod-sized trailer on the big screen. Pretty clever.

Thanks, Ivan!

So you've got an 80GB iPod, but it's bursting at the seams with all of those movies. Wouldn't an extra 20GB be handy? Check out this hard drive upgrade from PDASmart. For $275US, you can get a 100GB upgrade for the 30GB, 60GB or 80GB iPods with video. The drive is a brand new Toshiba MK1011GAH, and includes warranties from both the manufacturer and PDASmart.

Note that the 30GB upgrade will include a higher capacity battery and a new back for the iPod, as its size will be increased to that of an 80GB iPod. They offer a mail-in service as well. Be the hippest geek on your block!

[Via iPodHacks]

More and more people are cutting back their TV watching in favor of catching their favorite shows on their computer and portable devices according to a report in TechNewsWorld.

Nearly half of all on-line viewers say they watch less traditional TV, including those who only watch an on-line show once a week. The BBC commissioned a survey about viewing habits and discovered that about 75% of those surveyed said their computer and mobile TV watching has increased from a year ago.

Apple's growing video content in iTunes is helping to feed this trend, allowing consumers to catch missed shows or take their shows with them on iPods.

I'm a big iPod video watcher. I love watching my shows while waiting on slow lines or at the dentist or at the DMV. My kids watch video when we're carpooling and my husband has a boatload of old John Wayne movies digitized that travel with us when we go to hotels. Perhaps we're not the most normal iPod users on Earth, but we use the iPod video features a lot. More than we even use the audio.

According to a recent study by Nielsen, we're completely out of step with most people.

Ars Technica reports that the demand for iPod video features is greatly overblown--if you believe Nielsen. After following 400 iPod users for a month, Nielsen concluded that a very small number of iPod users are interested in the video functionality of their iPod.

Now before you jump to any conclusions, keep in mind that those 400 users weren't all using video iPods--nearly a third didn't own or use video iPods. The Nielsen numbers suggest that only about 1% of the content played on the iPods they surveyed was video, a pretty pathetic showing. Even after restricting iPod use to video iPods, that number only rose to 2.2%.

Surprising, isn't it?

So what about you, TUAW readers? Do you use your iPod for video? Or are you mostly music listeners out there? Let us know in the comments as we conduct our own unscientific and highly skewed poll.

I'm not sure why your iPod needs a screensaver, or whether this particular effect can really be called a screensaver, but since several of you have sent us this tip, there must be some interest in it! This how-to is so short I'm going to re-post it all it here:

1. create a folder on your iPod named "Demo Mode" - this requires that you have Disk mode enabled on the iPod.
2. in iTunes, rename any video "Demo"
3. keep the iPod connected and let it and iTunes idle for 2 minutes
   
4. magically the "Demo" video will start to play

So really this isn't a screensaver so much as a tethered demo mode, which would have some usefulness in a retail or kiosk setting but not so much usefulness in any other setting. Plus, I think you can already designate videos (and certainly slideshows) to repeat or loop, so I'm not sure this is really needed it all! I may be wrong about videos repeating, though, so don't quote me.

I lost my lighter to airport security the other day. So I was resigned to being unprepared for the inevitable flame tribute to the bands at the Lyons Folks Festival tonight. That is, until I came across this post at Cult of Mac about the iScorch. I'll just hold up my iPod Video and let this video be my torch. There's also an iScorch for the Nano and the iPod Photo.

The Colorado Rockies are using iPods (with video) to help their players improve their batting skills. It seems that one iPod can hold five seasons worth of at bats for a particular player, letting the ball player review his performance at his convenience. The Rockies also plan to equip their talent scouts with iPods containing videos of potential draft picks.

[via iLounge]

Our friends at macTV let us know that they now have a special section devoted to only to iPod ads. This way you can all every iPod ad on your iPod (in case you need to let others know about the wonders of the iPod). You can subscribe via iTunes or simply subscribe to macTV's RSS feed.

Alternate title: If Agent Mulder were a Mac geek.

Sometimes it's necessary to break the wild speculation and rumor mongering with a bit of humor, and jyunderwood's poster does the trick. This is also a good opportunity to address what's inevitably going to happen tomorrow. Legions of Mac users are going to cry foul when the device of their dreams isn't announced. That's the problem with these rumors: They look so good, and we get so excited about "...how cool that would be" that we are disappointed when it doesn't happen. Well, it was a rumor in the first place, but we can lose sight of that in our fervor.

So, tomorrow, clear your minds, drink some herbal tea and forget about all that crazy stuff that's been swirling around your head for the past seven days. We're still getting some cool stuff.

Well, well, looky here: Turns out that widely-distributed image of the supposed 6G "true video" iPod was a total and utter f-a-k-e fake. MacRumors points to this video (YouTube) that documents the creation of the original image, and this blog post right here shows why the second pic is also a fake.

That's too bad. I really wanted one of those.

Update: Readers are posting links to various sources (link, link) that point out discrepancies in the video vs. the actual image, hinting that the video itself may be the fake. This whole thing is starting to hurt my head. How about you compare them yourselves and make your own judgement -- and then we'll wait to see what Apple actually announces, making all of this speculation pointless anyway.

Adding more fuel to the rumor-fire that is the new video iPod ThinkSecret rumored yesterday, someone calling themselves "bud62" (probably not affiliated with Apple in any way) posted new mock-up images today.

All I have to say is that this is a very sexy looking prototype! Even if this doesn't end up being a new iPod, it definitely should in my book.

[via Engadget]

CNET News has a really interesting perspective piece highlighting the video iPod's potential for being a catalyst for DMCA reform, specifically: the (outlandish) portion that makes it illegal to sell or distribute DVD-ripping software.

The idea behind the article is that, until now, these measures of the DMCA haven't really hit the radar of an audience outside the comparatively small segment of digital-rights advocates. Declan McCullagh, the articles author, believes that the video iPod could finally be the spark large enough to get a much greater portion of consumers interested in (and angry about) the non-DVD-ripping limits on today's software. While McCullagh mentions a few DMCA-reform bills that are already floating around, he's also quick to point out that none of them, at present, have a very bright future.

The video iPod, according to McCullagh's logic, might be able to help all of this. With its wide popularity, he thinks more and more users are going to start questioning why it's so easy for iTunes to rip a CD to their library (and iPod), and yet the software balks at a DVD movie. Yes - before you start firing up the comment form, there are still ways of getting a DVD off a plastic disc and onto your favorite media player, iPod or otherwise. But for the greater community of users out there, DVD ripping is still a thing of mystery and magic.

I recommend you check out the full article as I think it's a really interesting read, but there's one thing I want to add to the discussion; a factor that neither the industry nor these politicians seem to examine: price. I wholeheartedly believe that if these companies cleaned all of their "market research" and "value perception" statistics out of their ears, they would realize that people are stealing content because they know the providers are taking them for a ride - and they won't put up with it anymore. Everyone knows CDs cost pennies on the dollar, and DVDs cost even less than VHS tapes to produce, yet they retail for a far higher price. The rampant (and as-yet unstoppable) success off the iTMS is real world proof that people will pay for the content, maybe even more content, as long as it has a fair price.

But alas, as with all other political affairs, our ability to copy DVDs that we own will only change at the speed of bureaucracy.

Apps that convert video for portable devices just keep getting smarter, and Forty-Two DVDVX Plus v3.0 is a prime example. Recently updated to version 3, I think this just might be the perfect tool for the job, whether you're rolling with a 5G iPod, a PSP, a Nokia series 60 phone or a handful of other devices. They main feature that makes Forty-Two DVDVX Plus (could that name get a little shorter, please?) so appealing in my eyes is that, on top of encoding for all these different devices, it also handles batch encoding of both movies files and individual chapters from a DVD. But wait, there's more: its UI has that easy-to-use "inspired by iLife" feel to it, and it offers a bunch of other goodies like automatically adding  files to the iTunes library and Automator actions, as well as a choice of format, quality, resolution and more.

I'm encoding some stuff into H.264 with the demo right now, but just from playing with it I'm really impressed. This should definitely give both iSquint and that Automator action I found earlier a run for their money - which, of course, is the only ding here: Forty-Two DVDVX Plus will set you back a cool $19.99 (upgrades are only $9.99). But if you're serious about all this video on the go stuff and are looking for one app to encode everything from local files to DVD folders, chapters and DVD's themselves - Forty-Two DVDVX Plus just might be the app for you.