New Apple 30 GB iPod Details
The new iPod, despite all of its hyped up new technical
additions, is still just an iPod. It's not a Video iPod, a
ViPod, a V-Pod, or anything else. Rather, it still goes by its
original name of iPod. This new model is a 30GB device that has
a screen size of roughly the same size (but much higher quality)
than the current iPods. Really, without knowing what it is, most
might not even be able to tell this little darling can play
video at all.
he 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.
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.
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.