Mega Music Talent

Posts Tagged ‘ipod’

When you have been carrying an iPod around for a while and built up your perfect library of songs it becomes your personal playlist of tracks that you enjoy. Having put the effort into creating this you might find that you want to hear the music in a different manner. Instead of just through headphones the power and dynamics of a large set of speakers might be more appealing. Also as you tend to use the device more and more, the ability to charge it whilst listening to it would make it more functional. Leaving it connected to a computer USB socket for long periods of time may work for you if you listen just on the computer during its down time but the iPod needs that little bit of extra help.

The iPod docking station is the device which helps your iPod become part of the home. You can have some really decent speakers connected to the docking station and all you have to do is nestle the iPod in the cradle and it will happily play and charge at the same time. No messing about looking around for the cable and plugging it in, you literally just drop it into the cradle and you’re off.

Of course this ease of setting the iPod up for charging may be enough for you. You might not want to actually listen to the iPod just drop it into a docking station to charge when you get home, ready for action when you next leave the house. An iPod docking station that is simply a charger, without any speakers will be the perfect accessory for it next to where you put your keys. Never again will you forget to charge your iPod before you leave the house.

The iPod docking station with speakers does not have to be a fixed thing either. There are many designs out there that allow you to transport them around easily. They can be charged up themselves and contain enough power to be used for a number of hours adding more portability. It becomes useful to take your music with you to play through a pair of powerful speakers. Your docking station is great when you are out and about and do not want to wear headphones, maybe sharing your music with friends.

There are some powerful docking stations out there too that will connect up with other devices, such as your mobile phone, so that your music listening can become more centralised and fit around your lifestyle.

An iPod, docking station or both are great gift ideas for your close friends and family, you can celebrate with music at any time of the year.

Apple iPod nano 8GB - Graphite - 6th Generation (Latest Model - Launched Sept 2010)

• Everything you want to hearis just a tap or swipe away with the new iPod nano by Apple.
• Featuring a multi-touchscreen, the new iPod nano has beenredesigned to be easier to use, more intuitive and more fun.
• More compact that ever, theiPod nano lets you play anything you want to hear, wherever youhappen to go.
• With a single gesture, you can tap into your entire musiccollection.

Apple iPod Nano 8GB Polished aluminum Graphite MultiTouch screen Up to 24 hours of music playback on a single charge 46 percent smaller and 42 percent lighter than the previous generation Builtin clip fastens securely to a sleeve pocket jacket or

List Price: £115.00 Price: £92.95

Sony SRSGU10IP 2 Ch iPod & iPhone Compatible Docking Speaker

• Piano Black Wooden Cabinet
• Charge your iPhone/iPod
• Full-featured remote control
• Bass boost function
• Mini jack input

20W iPhone/iPod speaker dock with remote control. Powerful bass and clear treble with a stylish piano black finish and wooden cabinet construction

List Price: £89.99 Price: £65.75

Rock music. Roll cameraiPod nano brings video to your music with the new built-in video camera. And for that extra kick: a larger screen and a polished aluminium finish in nine brilliant colours. iPod nano now has a built-in video camera that lets you record fun as it happens. Then share it with friends on the Internet. It’s the video camera that’s small enough to take with you everywhere.A quick scroll through the menu takes you to the video camera. Then you’re ready to r (more…)

iKaraoke sends the music from your iPod to your stereo minus the lead vocals, so you can step up to the mic and sing the lead in your favorite tunes. iKaraoke makes it easy to pause the music, scan forward or backward, or temporarily add the vocals back in to help you find your place. It even includes reverb effects to enhance your performance. iKaraoke hooks up to your stereo via line-in cable, or wirelessly through your FM receiver.

With the iKaraoke you can show off your v (more…)

Getting a music video that you have saved on your computer’s hard drive on to your new iPod is not as simple as you might think. Apple has done an excellent job of making it difficult to put non-iTunes products onto their devices. The goal, of course, is to force you to buy your videos from iTunes and increase their bottom line, but there are, of course, ways around this problem. You just need some specific software and a little bit of patience.

The Specs

The first step towards getting that music video onto your iPod is making sure it is in the right specs. The iPod supports MOV, M4V, and MP4 formats, and the video must be no more than 768 Kbps, 30 fps, and 320-by-240 pixels. If your video has an audio track, it must be AAC-LC and must be 160 Kbps or smaller. If you downloaded the video off of the Internet, it is probably in the correct format, although some downloads are WMV format. However, if the video came from a video sharing site, you may have a video that is in MPG or AVI format. You are going to have to encode the video to use on your iPod.

Encoding the Video

You will need to use QuickTime 7.0.3 (or a later version) as the codec to code your video. This is available to download for free from the Apple website. It may take quite a while to encode the video, so if it is a large file, you may want to let it work overnight, or your computer will be out of commission for a while.

The File Transfer Using QuickTime Pro

One of the easiest ways to get the video to your iPod is to use QuickTime Pro. It combines the codec you need with a simple uploading interface that makes it easy to get the file into iTunes and onto your iPod. This program works with Windows or Mac. It is not free, however, but it is the easiest to use. You will pay $30 for it, and you will have to pay $30 again when Apple upgrades the program.

With QuickTime Pro, all you need to do to upload the video is open the movie, select “file” and then “export,” and choose the option for “Movie to iPod.” The program will then automatically create a 320-by-240 M4V file with the correctly coded audio tract and place it on your desktop. The default settings in the program work well for most music videos, but you can fine-tune them if you want to change the way the video displays.

There are other third-party programs you can use to convert the video to the correct file format, but this one works the best. If you are going to try a free program, be sure to practice with a small video first to make sure there are no bugs in the program.

Getting the Video onto the iPod

Once the video is converted to the correct file format, you will need to import it to iTunes. To do this, open iTunes, choose “Movies” and choose “File” and then “Import.” Select the movie, click on it once, and select “Advanced, Convert Selection for iPod.” This will create a new file in your iTunes library. Once the new file is there, simply sync your iPod with iTunes the video will download to the device.

If you do all of these steps and find that the file has no sound, there is a problem with the original music video file. This is called having a muxed sound file. If the format on the original video is MPEG1 Muxed or MPEG2 Muxed, it will not play sound on your iPod. The only fix is to find a third party application that can convert this file to an AAC-LC file.

Author Bio: Searching for music videos online? Come check out the largest collection of music videos online featuring all of the most popular artists and bands, such as Nickelback.

The Apple I-pod is one of the most technologically advanced multi media players on the market. The new I-pod touch and I-pod video have the capabilities to store and play thousands of songs and pictures like the older models, but now have the technology to store and play hundreds of hours of video as well.

Apple has taken instant, hand held entertainment to a new level, allowing I-pod users to create their own videos and upload them onto their I-pods to enjoy and share, or to purchase their favorite music videos from I-tunes (or one of any number of other online retailers) to carry with them anywhere they go.

Where to get your Favorite Videos

There are a number of ways to get your favorite music videos and movie clips onto your I-pod where you’ll be able to enjoy them wherever and whenever you want.

The Safest Bets

You can join a website for the specific purpose of supplying videos for portable media players. This is often a good option, because the files will already be in the format that will be compatible with your I-pod software, so all you have to do is essentially point and click to have all of your favorite music videos in the palm of your hand. The only downside to joining a membership site, is that you have to pay the fee regardless of how many videos you download – so if you only find a few that you really want, then you could be paying an exceedingly high per-video fee. The up side is that downloading videos this way is perfectly safe and legal; you can search and download all the videos you want without any fear of viruses or legal repercussions.

You can transfer videos from DVDs that you already own, which will be free, but a little bit more complicated. I-pods only support video in the MPEG 4 format, which means that any videos in any other format will have to be translated into the MPEG 4 format in order to be compatible with your I-pod. Translating video into this format will require you to purchase software that can change the video format, creating an extra cost and adding an extra step to the process. You may or may not be able to find a software application that can translate certain video formats for you for free, but be very wary about what sites you download programs from – in looking for a cheaper alternative, you may just find yourself with an unwanted virus.

You can also join a “pay as you download” site, where you won’t have any out of pocket cost to join, but will pay for each individual video that you download. This is just as safe and legal as the pay membership sites, but you will probably end up paying a bit more for each individual video that you download. These sites often have very extensive libraries containing thousands and thousands of videos to choose from, so finding the exact videos that you want shouldn’t be very challenging.

A Cheaper but, Risky Option

If you don’t want to pay for the software to translate videos into the MPEG4 format, or pay anything for the videos that you download, you can always visit a free download or shareware site. You’ll usually be able to find exactly what you are looking for on these sites, but the big downsides here are that it is dangerous and illegal. These sites usually aren’t monitored very well, so it’s pretty common to find that either a virus or some form of spy-ware has found it’s way onto your computer, particular if your are on the sites often.

Whatever method of downloading videos to your I-pod that you happen to choose, you’ll be opening yourself up to a whole new style of entertainment. You’ll have instant access to all of your favorite music videos, no matter when or where you want to view them. Apple has totally changed the way we are able to entertain ourselves with the capabilities of the new series of I-pods.

Author Bio: View the largest collection of music videos online featuring all of the most popular artist and bands including Akon, Lil Wayne, Eminem and more!

In any area of business, you have two types of entities or products competing against one another, the “major brand” and the “minor brand”. The major brand is that brand that is more quickly reconized while the minor brand is one with a name just because it has to have one OR the major brand may be the product in that area of commerce at the time. This is the case with digital music players today as there are many “MP3 players” on the market right now and there is also the iPod. Consider a few areas of comparison.

Your first consideration is of the fact that you can buy a digital music player from, say, apple for around $250 while iPod produces the same 60GB player for around $400. People constantly see other people discussing the function and advancement of the iPod,comparing it to all others you believe that it is an obvious way to go, but when it comes to the hard drive, space is most important. In this case, it is as easy as saving $250!

The next consideration, if you are the type of person that gets frustrated easily with head games being played by major corporate types is that iPod requires you to use their format to play on their player. Instead of regular MP3 files that most everyone else uses, iPod requires use of their file so if you get frustrated by worthless problems; you might consider a “minor brand” MP3 player.

When it is all said and done, when you are buying a digital music player the argument is the same as just about everything else you purchase for a large amount of money, do you want to be cool or level headed? If you want to be cool and carry your newest gadget on your arm to show off to all of those around you then you need to go with the iPod and not worry about the money. If you want to save money and enjoy a lot of hard drive space to store songs in without regard to what people think of your taste then go with the “minor brand”. But whatever you do,make the desicions yourself. You will be overwhelmed if you listen to every salesman you know. Choose wisely. Don’t be afraid to shop around for a bargain. This is a major purchase. Don’t be forced into anything. Salesmen will push you into something you may not want. As with any major decision, you need to take your time and choose the player that you will enjoy for years to come. Test them out when you shop around. MP3′s and Ipods are a huge market. There are dozens of brands and styles to choose from. Also, keep an eye on the Sunday newspaper for sales listings for MP3′s and IPods. Sometimes your choice of the retailer you visit can be confusing. One of the best ways to shop around is to make phone calls to the different retailers and inquire about features and prices of different MP3′s and IPods.

Phil Sinner author of multiple articles http://duiaustin.net