The new iPod, despite all of its hyped up new technical additions, is still just an iPod. It's not a Video iPod, a ViPod, a V-Pod, or anything else. Rather, it still goes by its original name of iPod. This new model is a 30GB device that has a screen size of roughly the same size (but much higher quality) than the current iPods. Really, without knowing what it is, most might not even be able to tell this little darling can play video at all. The new 30GB iPod is 30 percent thinner than the previous 20GB color model, but the height and width are the same. (The current 60GB model is roughly 10 percent slimmer than the older 20GB model.) This may not seem like a big difference on paper, but we were impressed with the new model's slimmed-down figure when we held the two side by side. The 2.5-inch backlit LCD, at 320 by 240 pixels, is noticeably bigger than the previous 2-inch 220-by-176 screen. The iPod's interface is mostly the same, though Podcasts and Audiobooks are now located in the Music menu. A new Videos menu offers access to video playlists, Movies, Music Videos, and Video Podcasts. The Video Settings menu (also accessible in the Videos menu) lets you enable or disable TV output, toggle between NTSC and PAL format, and turn the widescreen on and off. The stopwatch and screen lock that were introduced with the iPod nano are also present, although you can now have up to three lap timers on the screen at once, thanks to the larger LCD. The specs on the video are as follows: File format support includes MOV, MP4, and M4V (Apple's DRM-protected video content). The iPod plays H.264 (Baseline Profile) video at up to 768 Kbps, 320 by 240 pixels, and 30 frames per second, as well as MPEG-4 (Simple Profile) at up to 2.5 Mbps, 480 by 480 pixels, and 30 fps. The stereo audio portions of videos are in 48-kHz AAC-LC format at up to 160 Kbps. According to Apple, you can fit roughly 75 hours of video on the 30GB model and twice that on the 60GB version. |
