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first!!!
nice features, so when new ipod will be out?

Cool! Ill be able to see all my prOn in high res on the go!

Ugly as hell :D

Just pure through put I would think limits the iPod video to less than any of the HD standards. My 1.25 G4 can't process complex acton h.264 720p without dropping frames, I don't see how the iPod will do it. My 17" MBP creams 720p though .

In about five months, you'll be able to watch high-definition video on your iPod

And in about one month there will be a High Definition iPod, so tell me why I need this product?

Isn't the next gen iPod video supposed to support HD without the sleeve?

Zune zealots will be able to point to this product as "proof" of how "clunky" and "impractical" iPods are that we need to resort to this (assuming Zune will do HD).

It is so Russian Dolls-like I wouldn't be able to take it seriously, because what next, an iSee 360 13.3" to put these in?

i havnt used a vid ipod (i have a nano) can you put video on them in higher resolution than the screen and have it scale down by default??? id be annoyed to have to reencode everything on my mac to have on a future video ipod

This story is pretty inaccurate. There's no such thing as HD.264, is there?

And the iSee screen is 320 x 240. How am I going to watch HD on that?

"And the iSee screen is 320 x 240. How am I going to watch HD on that?"

The iSee is the current product. This new HD sleeve won't be around for 5 months, as the article says. Presumably, it will have higher resolution.

"The initial players will be able to handle MPEG 4, Divx, HD.264 and other video formats."

Hunh? The iPod video doesn't handle Divx and I see an iPod Photo hooked up to it in the picture. That must mean that the HD player handles the video decoding and processing... Soooo, the iPod is just a hard drive to store the video files and the HD player does all the work? Why don't they just add a hard drive to the device and make it a self contained video player? Oh yeah, 'cause no one will buy it... But they will buy lame iPod accessories as long as it's an accessory to the iPod!!!

$199-$250 for the HD player... Eh, I'd rather wait and see what the future of the iPod itself holds and spend my money on that. I like elegance and functionality... not clunky hacks and band-aids. somehow I think Apple's solution will blow this thing out of the water and make it immediately obsolete.

hang on, thats not even a vid ipod is it?!?!, screens too small

Am I the only one uncomfortable with devices that expect me to insert my expensive iPod face-out on the back? It seems to me you're just begging to bump it into something whenever you move it around or set it down, especially if you're using it in tight quarters, like on an airplane.

"The iPod video doesn't handle Divx and I see an iPod Photo hooked up to it in the picture."

Well, actually, it kinda does. If I copy a DIVX stream out of an AVI and into an MP4 container, provided it's not bigger in resolution than around 640x300 or so it will play just fine and also look great when output to TV.

Why do third party companies continue to develop products that are obvious evolutions of Apple's product line, only to get swept away when Apple releases it, to the chorus of "Apple stole their idea".?

On the other hand, it is a nice add on for older iPod users.

My guess, is it's just using the iPod as a hard drive to store your HD movies. That's why they are saying it doesn't have to be a Video iPod. And if the sleeve has video output capabilities, then theoretically you could put movies on there larger than 320x240. And I'm guessing the iPod isn't actually processing the video signal, I think the sleeve haas a chip in it to do that.

What would really be nice would be some sort of sleeve that also incorporates a ATSC tuner so that one can watch over crystal clear, scaled HDTV content and or record it directly onto the iPod's hard drive.

Another device to kill my PSP. Damn you Sony!

must have a dvi or hdmi out, or it ain't hd. hd is at least 720p. Not possibe on current ipod screen, not possible on analog "rca" outputs. possible to stream over firewire or usb 2.0, though, but it has to be supported on the receiving end, and hdtvs don't work that way. it has to be hdmi.