Video Ipod?
 

Does anybody have a Video Ipod? I was thinking of getting one as I have a 2 hour subway commute everyday.

I don't, but I know quite a bit about them. What specifically do you want to know?

I really don't know much about the whole ipod world. Last time I downloaded music was before napster was shut down. I've seen a huge increase of ipods everyday on the trains. In fact, i laughed at how quiet the trains have become. Everyone has either an ipod, PSP, DS, PDA or a blackberry.

Aside from itunes, what kind of library of movies, shows are there?

Can I rip my dvd's to my computer like cd's, and download them to the ipod?

I hear that the battery only last for a couple of hours with video use.

Pretty much anything can be converted to iPod-ready video. The question is, how much time do you want to commit to creating and transferring that data onto the iPod.

DVDs generally have a level of copy protection on them, but it is easily defeated.

Battery life, I don't know.

If you have a TiVo, there are "confirmed rumors" that a currently-closed-beta version allows you to select a show you have recorded by TiVo and automatically transfer, re-encode, and iPod it.

I've got a video iPod - and I love it. iTunes has a pretty decent library of shows for legal download. I think their $1.99 price is really the sweet spot. You can put movies (even protected dvds) on your ipod, but the encoding (to get the video to the right resolution and size) can take a while. This is one thing where how fast your computer is can be a deal breaker.

Redlemon brings up a good point about possible developments in iPod land. There has been serious speculation about major upgrades to the iPod line, including larger widescreen displays and even networking abilities. There's even a possibility that a PDA type capability may be added with Apple's recent touchscreen patents. If I were in the market now, I'd try to hold off for a bit. It would be bitter if you bought a device and something radically cooler came out within a few months. On the other hand, you can play that game for years and never get to enjoy a cool toy...

Ah, here we go:
This guy is an official TiVo employee and spokesman, posting with authority. So, he's using the currently available iPod with video.

Battery life is not long when you are watching videos, alot less than just listening to music. I would say 3 to 4 hours total which really isnt that long if you plan on watching video all 2 hours of your commute. And yea, converting dvd especially to ipod ready video takes a while, I got the newest chapelle standup on there, took like an hour to convert, and another while to put it on the ipod. It goes fast with usb2, but it will take awhile to get videos converted and onto your ipod.

I don't really use it that much, but it's a nice toy.. a 300 dollar one.. bleh.

I have the 30GB Video iPod and I use the crap out of it. I get a lot of podcasts, mostly geek stuff like diggnation, dl.tv and twit. I watch some TV shows on there, mostly aggrigated from bittorrent. As for battery life, it really depends on what you are doing. If you are just listening to music and you keep the backlight off, you'll get a good 8 or 9 hours out of it easy. But like Chingal0 said, videos bleed the battery a lot faster.

I personally don't mind really, I have a transmitter/charger hooked up to it in the car most of the time so my battery is almost always fully charged.