October 24, 2005 8:40 AM PDT

Fifth-generation iPod (with video) [#5]: Continuing problems playing back home-encoded video -- determining which media will pla

by CNET staff

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Continuing problems playing back home-encoded video -- determining which media will play We continue to report on an issue where users are unable to playback seemingly properly compressed video generated by a variety of applications -- including QuickTime Pro 7.0.3 and other applications -- on their fifth-generation iPods

Shorter movies transfer more readily It appears that users are having greater success with transferring shorter clips of video to the fifth-generation iPod than longer clips.

MacFixIt reader Mitchell Trellis offers a case in point:

"I have home made movies: one is 1.5 minutes, one is 4.5 minutes, and another is 26 minutes. The small one went into the new ipod easily, following the instructions on the website. The medium went, too. Then, when I did the large one, i got a message telling me, 'The files were not copied to the ipod because they cannot be played on this ipod.' They are the exact same kind of files as the 2 smaller movies. The smallest movie is made up of clips that are all from the big movie."

Problems with export resolution in Final Cut Pro HD Meanwhile, MacFixIt reader Jordan Orlando reports on the process of getting DV video onto an iPod, noting that videos are letterboxed -- by default -- when exported to an iPod-compatible format:

"I've started trying to get DV footage into my iPod, using Final Cut Pro HD. I've run into some problems and confusions.

"When I open the DV file (captured in Final Cut Pro) in QuickTime Pro 7 and export to the new 'video to iPod' preset, the conversion is very fast but the resulting video is letterboxed.

"This is reasonable, since the intrinsic dimensions of the DV format are 720x480: slightly wider than the Academy 4x3 ratio on a television or an iPod (and, in fact, any real destination for a DV clip). It makes sense that the QuickTime preset would refuse to re-proportion (stretch) the video, since the iPod's pixels are square, and because QuickTime doesn't automatically discriminate in terms of the source file's intrinsic pixel dimensions.

"Creating a square-pixel, 640x480 composition in Final Cut Pro and exporting it 'Using QuickTime Conversion' to the iPod preset takes forever.

"I haven't yet tried a two- or three-stage conversion (in which I'd stretch the proportion to 640x480 or to 320x240 in FCP, and then convert the result to .m4v in QuickTime Pro). It seems like Apple could make a one-step preset to go from DV to iPod, incorporating the necessary aspect-ratio change."