Review | Apple iPod 30GB

Company:Apple Computer Inc.
Web: http://www.apple.com
Player Type: Hard Disk
Radio: No
Recording, Voice: No
Recording, FM: No
Recording, Line In: Optional
Battery Life: 900 min
Battery Type: Rechargeable
Screen Size: 320 x 240 pixels
Capacity: 30000 MB
Dimensions: 4.1 x 2.4 x 0.43 inches
Weight: 4.8 oz
Video Recording: No
Built-in speakers: No
Music Playback Formats: AAC, AIFF, Apple Lossless, Audible, MP3, WAV
Photo formats: BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, PSD, TIFF
Video Formats: MP4, QuickTime

By Michael Kobrin
Don't call it the Video iPod, the vPod, or anything that indicates that this is a video player. It's the new iPod, period. Though it does have video-playback capabilities, Apple has chosen to keep the iPod's focus on audio (for now). That said, video looks excellent on the new model's 2.5-inch screen, and the thinner profile—not to mention new audio capabilities such as high-quality stereo recording—makes it more versatile than previous generations. Consider that you can now get the 30GB model for the same price as the previous-generation 20GB model, and you have a pretty impressive product.

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.
Apple also eliminated the 9-pin remote-control connector in this version, which means third parties such as Griffin and Belkin will have to update their accessory lines. Apple's reasoning was that accessories should go through the already-present dock connector rather than through a second proprietary port.

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. On our battery rundown test, we measured 16.5 hours of battery life for the 30GB model, using a real-world mix of MP3 files encoded at from 128 to 320 Kbps. The device is rated at two hours of video playback. The 60GB version offers 20 hours of audio or three hours of video per charge.

Despite Apple's focus on audio, the first thing everyone wants to know is how video looks on the new iPod. We downloaded an episode of Lost and a few video podcasts from the iTunes Music Store, and, to our surprise, the viewing experience was remarkably comfortable. Brighter shots look very clear and crisp, though, as with most devices that play back compressed video, you can often see compression artifacts like blockiness and banding in dark areas. We wouldn't want to watch subtitled content or sports (the wide camera angles would probably make players a bit too small, not to mention a hockey puck), but everything we watched looked sharp and smooth. One thing we really like is that the iPod remembers where you stop watching a video, so any time you go back to it, you can simply resume from where you left off. You can also scrub through video, though not in real time; you scroll through a progress bar, and the video jumps to the point where you stop scrolling.

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.

Basically, you can put your own videos and existing content on the new iPod, but you may need to use QuickTime Pro ($29.99 Direct) to convert the files first via the new Export to iPod function, depending on what codec was used to encode the files. Of course, movies created in iMovie are supported as well, which should dovetail nicely with Apple's new iMac line with built-in iSight cameras. There are also several tips that have appeared online for how to get TiVo and DVD content onto your iPod. Of course, Apple provides some content at the iTunes Music Store, including 2,000 music videos, multiple episodes of five TV shows, six Pixar animated shorts, and plenty of free video podcasts.
The iPod's photo capabilities remain largely unchanged, though there are now some new 3D transitions for your slide shows. The bigger screen, however, does let you see more of your photos than before. We'd like to see Apple add support for panning and zooming in images. Photo format support is still one of the broadest in the biz, with JPEG, TIFF, GIF, PSD (Mac-only), PNG, and BMP.

All About the Music
The iPod's main focus is still music, and Apple (once again) quietly enhanced the headphone output quality. Most users won't hear the difference in Apple's stock earbuds, but if you use better headphones, you'll hear slightly more robust bass and less distortion. We like that during audio playback, album artwork and lyrics now stay on the screen, rather than the device returning to the Now Playing screen.

One impressive new feature (which won't be new to those users who installed a Linux-based OS on their iPod) is the ability to record in stereo at 44.1 kHz in WAV format via the dock connector. Of course, this will require a third-party adapter or microphone with a dock connector, but the feature has been in demand for quite some time and vastly improves upon the previous version's weak 8-kHz sample rate. Recordings you make are accessible two ways: An auto-sync feature in iTunes grabs them from your iPod and puts them right into your iTunes library, restriction-free; the files are also stored in an unhidden folder on the iPod, so you can access them in disk mode as well—which could be very handy for offloading onto a device that has a USB host port or a PC that doesn't have iTunes on it.

Unlike the last two generations of the iPod (and perhaps more notably the iPod nano), the new iPod ships with a slipcover to protect your precious player from scratches, which show up easily on the black model. Of course, we're sure third-party cases will be available soon as well. Apple also released another accessory: The new Apple Universal Dock (optional) supports an IR remote and A/V-mini-jack-to-RCA or S-video output for watching your video content on a big screen. The catch is you have to use a $20 Apple AV cable; other AV cables, though they fit in the appropriate jacks, will not work. The iPod ships with a dock adapter so the iPod fits securely in the Apple Universal Dock.

Overall, we're very happy with this new release, though we'd still like to see a few things like photo pan and zoom, a custom graphic equalizer, on-the-fly calendar editing, and the ability to delete files directly on the device. Combined with Apple's video offerings (which include plenty of free video podcasts as well as for-pay content), we think video support is a very good addition to an already excellent music player.
Thankx:pcmag