Friday, October 06, 2006

5th Generation iPods Kick Ass

Yesterday I thought it was time to put my old 4th generation 20gig iPod to rest, or more likely it thought it was time since it wouldn't turn on. I couldn't get my computer to recognize it even plugged in, so I considered it dead to me. It had some good times, but lately had started having problems syncing with iTunes and had developed an odd little clicking sound.

Thanks to the overtime from Linuxfest, I had a bit of extra cash to get a new one. For $250 at Wal-Mart (I didn't want to wait for it to be shipped) I picked up a new 5th gen black video iPod, and I can say, without a doubt, I am happy that I did.

I got the small 30gig model mainly because I didn't want to waste a ton of cash, and because I just recently filled up my 20gig. It was all shiny and perfect as I opened up the box. The only disappointment I've had with it is that it picks of fingerprints like CSI.

I put it through it's paces today with gtkPod, transferring what little music I had at work to it, and because it's video I scoured revision3 and TWiT.tv for video podcasts to watch. I love the screen on this thing. One of the new enhancements was a better screen over the original 5th gen iPods, and the clarity is superb. I watched Broken, CTRL+ALT+Chicken, Martin Sargent's Web Drifter, and MacBreak with no problem at all (once I downloaded the smaller quicktime files).

One of the main reasons I wanted a video iPod was the ability to watch TV shows during my lunch break. I'm addicted to quite a few shows that I don't have enough time to watch, so I record them on the computer to watch at a later date. For example, Lost has taken up quite a few gigs of space on my harddrive until I get around to actually purchasing the DVDs (and no, just in case anyone is wondering, I don't have DVD rips. Just regular ol' All-In-Wonder recordings). Unfortunately I stopped watching half way through season 2, and really need to catch up.

I found a sweet little program called Videora iPod Converter and instructions here that takes video files and converts them to iPod format. I tried two shows - The Colbert Report and Venture Brothers. The former would not work at all, but the latter look stunning on the iPod. I'm currently converting an episode of Lost to see how well it works and what I need to tweak to get it to work perfectly with any show I want to watch during lunch.

I am loving my new iPod. Since my old one isn't completely dead yet, my wife agreed to give it a good home and some love until it really needs put out to pasture. I'll miss my old 20giger, but I look forward to the times I'm going to have with my new one.

1 comment:

Giana said...

I did agree to give the old iPod a new home, except it doesn't work...I think I got screwed :(