iPod audio-video cable. Anyone have any experience?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So I’m looking at getting some means by which to run movies and tv shows directly from my iPod to the bigscreen TV.

There are several cable sets that say one can do so. But can anyone provide guidance or do you all have any experience with such?

I’d appreciate any feedback.

2

What kind of iPod do you have?

3

An iPod Classic 160GB.

4

Ok then. I had an iPod 5th generation which should be similar. I bought a cable similar to this one:
Macally Audio and Video Cable for iPod classic 4G, 5G, 5.5G (White) ; amazon.com link

One connector went into the iPod, and I hooked up the other three connectors to my TV, which has an “auxiliary input” series of jack inputs on the front. I had to remove the 3rd party protective plastic case that I used to carry the iPod around in, because if the jack was not pushed all the way in on the iPod, I wouldn’t get the video signal. If you don’t get any video or audio signal on the TV, move the three TV connectors (one for video, two for stereo audio) to different input jacks until it works (I had heard problems with some connectors being color-coded incorrectly.) The image picture was acceptable, better than a VCR I would say. I only used this to play music videos, never for a full-length movie.

P.S. This is a good site to buy inexpensive cables from: http://www.monoprice.com

5

And that works with the small jack? I thought for sure it would come from the Apple jack in the bottom.

6

No, The cable I used was like the one that I gave an example of in my previous post, and it plugged into the same jack that you use for the headphones. You can go ask in an Apple store to be sure, but it worked for me and my 5th generation iPod.
When you say “Apple jack”, you mean the 30-pin dock connector that you use with a cable having a USB connector at the other end, to connect your iPod to the USB port on your computer? No, the iPod to TV cable I had did not use the 30-pin dock connector.

(after some searching)
From what I read here, the method I used may not be available any more, and might not work on your iPod, which is newer. see the comment from 1 January 2009:

I would go the macrumors.com message boards and ask in their iPod forums, you might get better answers there.

7

There are two types of cables you can use, depending on the model of iPod you have. The one that plugs into the headphone jack that has a video out as well as the red and white stereo audio plugs. It’s hit or miss if your iPod will support that cable. Or there is the other cable that uses the 30 pin dock port on the bottom of the iPod. This is more reliable and most likely to work. Most of those cables also have a USB plug, so you can charge the iPod while it’s playing a movie.

A few things to keep in mind:

  • There is a setting in the video menu that enables the TV out feature. Make sure to turn that on.
  • Some TV’s will have a difficult time with the signal if the iPod puts it out in Widescreen, so you may have to play with that setting.
  • On a regular TV of 32 inches or less, the picture quality will probably be ok, anything larger and it’s going to be pixilated. Most iPod formated movies are at something like 320x180 I think. So blowing them up to a large screen is going to look terrible.

I have both types of cables and have played around with mobile video quite a bit, so if you have any other questions, ask away!