Full FeedHOW-TO: Cheaply watch iPod videos on your TV
Why would you fork out $19 bucks for the Apple iPod AV Cable when you don’t have to? We were looking around for cheaper solutions for getting video over to you TV and came across an article on O’Reilly’s MacDevCenter.com. By following simple steps, you can get any AV cable (with yellow/red/white outputs) to work with your iPod. Read on to find out how.
All you’re going to need for this is an iPod video (obviously), an iPod compatible video on your iPod, and any A/V cable with eigth-inch-to-RCA (yellow/red/white) camcorder cable (get it from ebay if you don’t have one).
- Set up your iPod video options
Go to Videos -> Video Settings from the main menu on your iPod. This screen offers three settings: TV Out, TV Signal and Widescreen. Adjust the selections to give the video playback options you need. We suggest you set the TV Out option to “Ask” so you always know it will play. If you live in the US, your TV Signal is NTSC. Make sure this is selected. If you’re outside the US, you might want to check which option to use.
- Plugging the AV cable into the TV You’re probably thinking that you don’t need help doing this one. Well let me tell you, you do. Since Apple wants you to buy their proprietary cable, they decided to be sneaky. They send the video over the Red RCA cable (usually yellow). Therefore, they send the audio over the white and yellow cables. Oh you’re so tricky Apple, whatever will we do? In easier words, do the following: Red RCA plug -> TV’s yellow RCA jack Yellow RCA plug -> TV’s white RCA jack White RCA plug -> TV’s red RCA jack
If you can believe it, that’s all you have to do. Pretty much the only tricky thing was switching the Red and Yellow RCA cables. If you have any problems, let us know and we’ll get our directions fixed. Enjoy.
UPDATE: We’ve been informed this method works for the iPhone as well. Just plug the RCA cable into your old school iPod dock, set your iPhone in the dock, and you should be golden. [Thanks, Nate]
Read [MacDevCenter]
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I also have one of those ibook a/v to the 4-pin thing, but it doesn’t work, but you think it would since they made both, i guess i agree with the apple trying to make a few bucks
on April 13, 2006 at 04:36 AM - LINKI tried this with my Sony digital videorecorder and it works great on TV. It also works on my stereo, but the only minor problem is, that you have to pump up the volume on the stereo. Beware if you forgot to decrease volume, unplug the iPod and switch to radio or CD!
on May 7, 2006 at 02:47 PM - LINKAny idea why this is? Would the official Apple AV cable perform better on my stereo?
Tried it and it works perfectly! Thank you so much for the information!
on May 20, 2006 at 11:35 PM - LINKI have an AV/cable for a sony (Handycam) but it only has yellow and black? plugs. Has anyone else used this? And will it work? And how much does the AV/cable with the R/W/Y plugs cost at like walmart of something? Thanks if you reply.
on June 26, 2006 at 04:22 AM - LINKThe ipod format is mp4. How can you put a dvd on the ipod and be able to watch it on the tv with good quality.
on December 28, 2006 at 12:38 AM - LINKI tried switching the colors and it had no effect… Just useing a regualr cable will be fine. I tried it with a Zune cable on my Ipod too and it had the same outcome. The picture is outstanding but getting the volume at a confortable level may be alittle hard…
on January 1, 2007 at 11:15 PM - LINKwell i’m gunna go pick up an rca cable but i found one at home that has 1 black plug and 1 red plug will that work??
on January 2, 2007 at 12:11 PM - LINKhey man awesome idea, it made perfect sense, i scrounged around my house and found the right cord. I had no idea where it came from but i found it. I hooked it up just the way you said and bang there it was. thanks for the help
on January 5, 2007 at 04:01 AM - LINKI got the videos playing and they look great. Is there anyway to put them on the ipod with a higher resolution. When I play the movies off my laptop onto the TV they look a lot better than the ipod.
on January 10, 2007 at 07:24 AM - LINKWell I have tried 2 other cables that were supposed to do the job of playing videos from the ipod to the TV and had no joy, one did nothing anf the other just gave me a fuzzy picture! So I tried what you suggested and used my camcorder lead and it worked better than the others but the picture was still in black and white. I tried everything to see if it was my TV and it definatley wasn’t. Can you tell me what I might be doing wrong, not that your directions weren’t easy as they were!
on January 11, 2007 at 10:55 PM - LINKWell, definitely for me it doesn’t work the way I hoped.
on January 14, 2007 at 06:01 PM - LINKI use a Sony handycam cable swapping properly connecting red->yellow, etc and the picture is very poor. Moreover if I set the TV out to PAL (I am in a PAL region) I get black and white images while I get colors if I set it to NTSC and a widescreen image if it is set to off and viceversa. It seems that the “TV Signal” and “Widescreen” menu settings work inverted.
This works so well, thank you so much for your advice.
on January 15, 2007 at 06:03 PM - LINKthis works well but i cant get audio on the movies, i can hear audio great on songs but not on the videos… any ideas?? thanks
on March 30, 2007 at 06:42 PM - LINKhi, i put the wires in the right order in my tv then all that happens is a large noise and the image is not coming properly, please help
on April 3, 2007 at 11:12 PM - LINKIt’s not working for me with a 30 Gig Ipod video… looks like scrambled tv channel, in both NTSC and Pal
on April 6, 2007 at 09:35 PM - LINKHi There,
I have seen this hack on a few pages and I have tried this out with a few different cables. My still camera’s cable provided me with a the classic lost signal image, my JVC camcorder’s cable gave me the black and white….
But I found a SONY AV cable and this worked 100%.
I use an iPod video 30GB with the PAL setting.
Cheers
on May 10, 2007 at 09:30 PM - LINKI can hear the video but i don’t watch it. why?
on August 25, 2007 at 10:58 PM - LINKThis did not work for me, the picture I got kept freezing and was just not right, it was mostly just white fuzz. On the plus side the sound worked fine.
on August 30, 2007 at 11:04 PM - LINKCan anyone help me?
This is the most helpful article yet and I’ve read at least a dozen. Thank you.
on September 15, 2007 at 03:03 AM - LINKi neva try it yet so i cant coment
on October 12, 2007 at 02:05 PM - LINKpurchased a new 5g 80gb. any idea how to make it work with a phillips portable tv with i pod dock? apple and phillips tell me it wont work. also have a “dock” for my pioneer d2 tv in car that apple and pioneer said wont work. they say it must be an apple plug into bottom of ipod only. any answers or hacks?
on October 25, 2007 at 03:54 AM - LINKIpod Touch 16 GB
on November 20, 2007 at 07:20 PM - LINKWe tried switching the colour-cables by two different cables. The video format mpg4 isn’t playing, so it doesn’t work (in the Netherlands). It’s a pity.
Hi there, I just bought a 80 GB Classic and video and I tried watching videos in the TV, I tried a cable and a dockn both generic and it keeps me asking to conect the video cable even though it is already connected and I had also tried swapping cables, any ideas?
on November 30, 2007 at 02:59 AM - LINKHi there,
the fact is that the new generation iPods doesnt work with the AV-cable.. You have to buy the expensive apple version of it.. Really sad action from apple! http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300233
on December 6, 2007 at 03:48 PM - LINKI was so excited when I found out about this simple technique, however when I plugged it into my Ipod It asked “Do you want to enable TV out?” I selected “on” It wanted me to connect the video accessory into the bottom of my Ipod. When I selected “off” the Audio works on my television but Video did not. What am I doing wrong?
on January 16, 2008 at 11:50 AM - LINK