Chapter 8. It’s Showtime: Video on the iPod
Video-playing iPods have been around since October 2005, when Apple introduced that year’s ‘Pod with a video chip on the inside and a video screen on the outside. Among the 2010 iPods, just the Touch and the faithful old Classic still play moving pictures. Of the two, one plays video especially well: With its high-resolution, 3.5-inch screen, the iPod Touch seems like it was made for video.
In fact, the Touch has become the premier video iPod on all levels. Although previous iPod Nanos played—and even recorded—video, Apple removed the video features from the tiny Nano of 2010 to recast it as the iPod that focused on music and fitness.
Touch or Classic—no matter which iPod you use, you’re not stuck watching just 2- or 3-minute music videos. As explained in the previous chapter, the iTunes Store has all kinds of cinematic goodies you can buy: full-length Hollywood movies and episodes (or entire seasons) of TV shows. Some videos even come in super-sharp, high-definition format, which looks great on both your TV and your computer screen. And yes, if you want music videos, like the kind MTV used to play back when it, uh, played music, you can choose from thousands of them.
This chapter shows you how to get videos from computer to iPod—and how to enjoy them on your own Shirt-Pocket Cinema.
Add Your Own Videos to iTunes
The iTunes Store is chock-full of videos you can buy or rent (Chapter 7 shows you how), but sometimes you want to add your own flicks to your iTunes library. No problem; you can do that in three ways. One is to drag the files from your desktop and drop them anywhere in iTunes’ main window. The second is to choose File→Add to Library, and then locate and import your files.
Finally, you can add video files (and music files, for that matter) by dragging them into the folder labeled Automatically Add to iTunes. New since iTunes 9, this folder checks a file’s extension and, based on that, shelves it in the right spot for you. You find the auto-folder not through iTunes itself, but by navigating your hard drive. In Windows, it’s usually at C:/Music→iTunes→iTunes Media→Automatically Add to iTunes; for Macs, it’s at Home→Music→iTunes→iTunes Media→Automatically Add to iTunes.
If iTunes doesn’t recognize a file extension, it dumps the file into a Not Added subfolder.
If you copy over a lot of videos from your Nano or other camcorder, you can get to this folder even more easily by creating a desktop shortcut for it. That way, you can drag files directly to the shortcut without having to root around your hard drive.
Once you add videos to your iTunes library, you can play them back right there in iTunes (see opposite page), copy them to your iPod for on-the-go viewing (Transfer Videos to Your iPod), or watch them on a big TV screen (Play iTunes and iPod Videos on Your TV).
Tip
Movies and TV shows get separate libraries in the iTunes Source list. If you import a video yourself and it’s in the wrong place in the Source list, you may need to tweak the file’s labeling info. Open the file’s Get Info box (Ctrl+I [⌘-I]), click the Options tab, and then assign it a video format from the Video Kind drop-down menu choices: Music Video, Movie, TV Show, Podcast, or iTunes U file.
Play Videos in iTunes
Cranking up your iTunes movie theater is a lot like playing a song: Double-click your chosen video’s title, and iTunes starts playing it. When you click either the Grid or Cover Flow (circled) view buttons, you see the videos represented by either a movie poster-type picture or a frame from the video (top). (Like album covers, videos you buy from the iTunes Store come with nice artwork.)
iTunes gives you a few video-viewing options. You can play the video in iTunes’ artwork window (the small pane that pops up at the bottom of the Source list to display album art); in iTunes’ main window; in a separate, floating window (bottom); or full screen on your computer.
To choose your screen, go to the iTunes Preferences box (Ctrl+comma [⌘-comma]) and click the Playback tab. Use the drop-down menus for Movies and TV Shows, and for Music Videos.
In floating-window view, you can also pick your window sizes from iTunes’ View→Video Size menu. Choices include Half Size, Actual Size, Double Size, Fit to Screen, and Full Screen.
Transfer Videos to Your iPod
Chapter 1 gives you the lowdown on syncing all kinds of files between iTunes and your trusty iPod. If you don’t feel like flipping back there, here’s a quick summary:
Synchronization. Connect your iPod to your computer and click its Source list icon in iTunes. Click the Movies tab and turn on the Sync Movies checkbox. You can choose to sync only certain movies to save space on your iPod. If you have TV programs in your iTunes library, click the TV Shows tab and adjust your syncing preferences there.
Manual management. Click the appropriate library in the Source list (Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, and so on), and then drag the files you want from the main iTunes window onto your connected iPod’s icon.
If you made any video playlists in iTunes, you can copy those over to your iPod, just as you would a music playlist (see Make a New Playlist in iTunes). In case you haven’t tried it, making a video playlist is just like making a music playlist. Chapter 6 has the details.
Video Formats That Work on the iPod
As described in Chapter 7, the iTunes Store now sells and rents movies, TV shows, and music videos. You can also import your own home movies, downloaded movie trailers, and other videos into iTunes, as long as the files have one of these extensions at the end of their names: .mov, .m4v, or .mp4. Once you can sync these files to your iPod, you can play them when you’re out and about.
Other common video formats, like .avi and Windows Media Video (.wmv), won’t play in iTunes (or on your iPod), but you can convert them with Apple’s $30 QuickTime Pro software or any of the dozens of video-conversion programs floating around the Web. (If you find you have an incompatible file type, first try dragging the file into iTunes’ main window and then choosing Advanced→Create iPod or iPhone Version. That converts some, but not all, files, and Apple doesn’t specify which ones.)
Here are a few popular video-conversion tools:
PQ DVD to iPod Video Converter Suite. This $40 program for Windows converts TiVo recordings, DVD video, DivX movies, Windows Media Video, RealMedia files, and AVI files to the iPod’s video format (www.pqdvd.com).
Videora iPod Converter. With this free software, you can gather up all those .avi and .mpg video clips stashed away on your PC and turn them into iPod clips. Find it at www.videora.com.
iQuickConvert. Something of a work in progress—but free—this program lets Mac OS X owners convert several video formats, even .avi files, into iTunes-friendly versions (http://iquickconvert.tk).
HandBrake. Now available in versions for Windows and Mac OS X, this easy-to-use bit of freeware converts DVD movies and other files for your iPod. You can get it at http://handbrake.fr.
Play Videos on the iPod Touch
Watching video on the Touch is a breeze. Just tap open the Videos icon on the Home screen, flick to the movie, TV show, or video podcast you want to watch, and then tap the title to start the show.
Want to fast-forward, jump back, pause, and perform other video-playback moves? Just tap the screen to call up the touch-based controls. Want to dismiss the control panel? Tap the screen again so you can watch your show without the clutter. Apple has crammed a lot of buttons into a small space, so here’s what each one does:
When you finish watching a video, tap this button (in the top-left corner) to stop the show and return to the Videos menu.Scroll slider. The bar at the top of the screen shows you how much time has elapsed in your current video—and how much more you have to go. Stuck in a boring part or want to see something again? Drag the white dot forward or backward to move through the clip.
Zoom/Unzoom. Full-screen or widescreen playback? Tap the
or 
icons in the top-right corner of the screen to zoom in or out of the picture. The next page explains a bit more about the zoom levels.
Some videos have alternate audio tracks for other languages or subtitles. Tap here to see your options.Play/Pause (
/
). These buttons start the show—and pause it when you need to take a break.Previous, Next (
, 
). Press down to zip through the video in the chosen direction; the longer you hold down the button, the faster you rewind or fast-forward.You can jump around the film between major scenes in iTunes Store–bought movies or in any other video that has DVD-like chapter markers embedded in them; just quickly tap the
or buttons.Volume. If you don’t feel like using the volume buttons on the side of the Touch, tap the screen and drag the white dot in the volume slider at the bottom of the screen up and down the scroll bar to raise or lower the sound level.
Zoom/Unzoom
The 2010 iPod Touch has a bright, razor-sharp screen—Apple’s high-resolution Retina Display packs 960 x 640 pixels into the 3.5-inch screen. That’s 326 pixels per inch, four times as many as earlier Touch models.
The screen, however, is still rectangular. That means that TV shows in the squarish standard-definition format (also known as the 4:3 aspect ratio) don’t fill the screen from side to side, so the Touch fills in the gap with black letterbox bars. Conversely, TV shows and movies in the high-definition widescreen standard are a bit too wide, which means you get black letterbox bars on the top and bottom of the screen.
Some movie lovers are used to this and ignore the letterboxing, because they want to see the film as the director originally envisioned it. But other people want their video to fill the screen in all directions, even if it means cutting off the edges. The Touch tries to satisfy both groups. With the playback controls onscreen, tap the or buttons to expand the video to full screen, or shrink it to its original size.
If you don’t want to hunt around for the buttons, there’s an even quicker way to zoom in and out: double-tap the video while it’s playing. If you decide you hate the way the picture looks, double-tap again to reverse course.
Tip
Both iTunes and the iPod Touch and Classic can play videos that have closed-captioned text onscreen for the hearing impaired. To turn it on in iTunes, open the Preferences box (Ctrl+comma [⌘-comma]), click the Playback tab, and then put a checkmark in the box next to “Show closed captioning when available”. On the iPod Touch, tap your way to Home→Settings→Video to get to the controls. On the Classic, choose iPod→Videos→Settings→Captions.
YouTube Videos on the Touch
Since it first graced the Web in 2005, YouTube has become a huge online vault of video from around the world. From news clips to movie parodies to cats playing the piano, YouTube (now owned by Google) offers some of the best—and worst—of the human experience caught on video. And you can see it all on your iPod Touch with its built-in YouTube app.
Well, most of it, anyway. While many YouTube movies come in a format called Adobe Flash that the Touch doesn’t play, many of its finest clips have already been converted to the H.264 standard, which happens to play quite nicely on the Touch.
Find and Play Videos
The Touch loves to present you with lists of things to choose from, and its YouTube app is no exception. Tap the YouTube icon on the Home screen and here’s what you’ll see:
Featured. Selected by YouTube staffers, this list shows you newsworthy clips of the moment and other videos of interest. Flick your way down the list and tap a tile to play the video.
Most Viewed. Tap here to see what The People are watching. You can view the most popular videos Today, This Week, or All (as in “of all time,” to be precise). When you get to the end of the list, tap “Load 25 More” to see the next batch.
Search. Keywords make everything easier to find, and YouTube’s videos are tagged with bits of info like titles, descriptions, names, and other descriptive text. When you tap Search, the Touch’s keyboard slides up, ready for action.
Favorites. If you have a YouTube account (it’s free, and it also means you can upload your own clips), you can mark videos as your faves so you can find them easily in the Favorites list.
Tap YouTube’s More button to see six additional menu options:
Top Rated. As with App Store apps and songs, everyone’s a critic and can apply star ratings to express an opinion of a particular clip. Here you can see what’s earned the most stars. (When you sign into your YouTube account, you can rate videos yourself.)
History. Like a web browser, the YouTube app keeps track of what you’ve looked at. And also like a browser, you can wipe out the evidence that you checked out those skateboarding dogs videos again with a tap of the Clear button.
My Videos. Tap here to see a list of the clips you’ve uploaded to YouTube (you need to be logged into your YouTube account to do so).
Subscriptions. Many organizations and celebrities have their own YouTube “channels” that you can subscribe to. Once you sign up, tap here to see the latest video dispatches from Oprah or the Queen of England.
Playlists. As with music, you can create video playlists of favorite clips so you can watch them in a certain order.
So how do you add videos to Playlists or your Favorites lists? Just tap the 
button (shown on the opposite page) on any video in a list to open a page of video details. The Details page has buttons so you can add the video to a Playlist or Favorites list, or share it by email. You also get info like the length of the clip, its rating, who uploaded it, its keyword tags, related videos, and more.
YouTube Video controls
Just tap a video’s name and flip the Touch to its horizontal position to start playing it. The clip begins as soon as YouTube downloads enough data from its servers to start the stream.
Although you do need to be online to use YouTube, the video playback controls work just like they do on regular videos on the Touch (flip back to Play Videos on the iPod Touch). However, the YouTube app includes two new icons on the control bar: the 
button, which adds the video to your Favorites list, and the 
button, which lets you share a link to the clip by email—the iPod Mail app fires up a fresh message for you to address.
Play Videos on the iPod Classic
Videos you buy or rent from the iTunes Store (as well as other iTunes-friendly videos) appear in your iPod’s Videos menu after you copy them onto your Classic. To watch a movie, TV show, or music video, scroll through the various Video submenus (Movies, TV Shows, and so on) until you find something.
Say you want to watch a TV show. Select TV Shows from the main Videos menu. The next screen lists all your iPod’s TV shows by title. Scroll to the show you want, and click the center button. The resulting menu lists all the episodes you have for that series. Scroll to the one you want and press the Play/Pause button to start the show.
Here’s a quick tour of the iPod Classic’s main video playback controls:
Press the Play/Pause button again to pause the program. Pausing on the iPod works just like hitting Pause on a DVD player or TiVo so you can get more Doritos. Press the button again to pick up where you left off.
To increase or decrease a video’s volume, run your finger along the scroll wheel. Adjusting the volume of a video on the Classic works the same way as controlling the volume of a song.
To fast-forward or rewind through part of a video, tap the Select button twice. A time code bar appears along the bottom of the screen. Use the scroll wheel to advance or retreat through a big chunk of the video. For moving forward and backward in smaller increments, hold down the Fast-Forward and Rewind buttons on the click wheel (see Control the iPod Nano or Classic).
When your video ends, the iPod flips you back to the menu you were on before you started watching the show. If you want to bail out before the movie is over, press the Menu button.
Some videos come in letterbox format, which leaves a strip of black above and below your video window. If you’re not into widescreen HamsterVision, visit the Settings area of the Videos menu and turn on the Fit to Screen option.
Play iTunes and iPod Videos on Your TV
Movies on the iPod and computer screen are great, but watching them on a bigger screen is often even more gratifying. In case you were wondering, you can watch all those videos on your TV—you just need to connect your computer or iPod to your television. What you connect them with depends on what you start with.
If you’re connecting your computer to the TV, here are your best options:
Connect computers that have S-video connections with an S-video cable; that pipes high-quality video to your TV. For the audio side of things, a $10 Y-shaped cable with a stereo mini-plug on one end and the standard red and white RCA plugs on the other provide the sound.
If you have a computer-friendly television (the kind that doubles as a computer monitor thanks to VGA or DVI ports), you can plug your laptop right into the TV using one of the cables described below.
To mate your iPod with your TV, your options depend on which generation iPod you have:
Early video iPods (the ones that came out before Apple dubbed the model the “Classic”). You can connect these iPods to your TV with a special cable, like the Apple iPod AV Cable, available at http://store.apple.com and other places. This $19 cord has a stereo mini-plug on one end (for the iPod’s headphones jack), and red, white, and yellow RCA plugs on the other end that link to the audio and video ports on your TV. Some similar camcorder cables may work, as do third-party cables from Belkin and Monster Cable, and special iPod video docks from Apple and others.
Tip
Not sure which iPod you have? Apple has an illustrated chart of almost every pre-2010 ‘Pod that ever scrolled the Earth at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1353. And if you’re not sure which ones support TV Out, see http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1454.
The iPod Touch or Classic (or older video-friendly Nanos). You need a different cable—one that can unlock the chip that controls the iPod’s ability to pipe video to your TV. (Older iPod cables and many third-party offerings won’t work with these models, unless you use them with one of Apple’s Universal Docks for iPods.)
The easiest place to find these cables is the Apple Store (www.apple.com/ipodstore). Here, you can get the Apple Composite AV Cable for TVs with older video inputs. You can also find the Apple Component AV Cable, made for high-end TVs and widescreen sets that can handle higher-quality video and audio connections. Both versions of the cable cost about $50, but that includes an integrated AC adapter to make sure your ‘Pod is powered for a whole-weekend movie marathon.
Several third-party companies also make video docks and cables for the iPod; see Chapter 12 to get an idea of who’s selling what. If you go with a non-Apple product, make sure it’s rated to work with your particular iPod make and model.
Once you connect your iPod to your TV, set it up so the video appears on the big screen. The TV Out settings on the iPod Touch are at Home→Settings→Video, but it automatically senses the connection in most cases. On the Classic and older Nanos, choose iPod→Videos→Settings and set TV Out to On.
The other iPod Settings options are the same as those described for video playback in iTunes. The exception: TV Signal. Choose NTSC if you live in the U.S. or Japan, or pick PAL if you’re connecting to a European or Australian TV set.
Once you get the iPod or computer hooked up to play movies, be sure to select the alternate video source on your television set, just as you would to play a DVD or game.