Installation:
Everything is done through iTunes. It will automatically synchronize your library, playlists, and photo's every time you connect your iPod to your computer with iTunes installed to it. There are a few little things that I found to be a little troublesome, but they certainly were not difficult or a deal breaker.
The Apple iPod Video will playback many audio formats, so there is very little concern here. All you have to do is add the music to the iTunes library, and it will automatically copy it to your iPod Video. Be sure your ID3 tags are correct, as that's how iTunes will group your music. If they are not correct, once you load it into the library, you can edit the information.
For video though, you are substantially more limited to the formats. Currently your only choices are H.264, M4V, MP4 and MOV. So if your video is in a different format, you will need to convert it to one of these formats. Apple's Quicktime Pro will do this for you; of course it's an additional charge. If you purchase a video through iTunes it will come in the proper format and no conversion will be required. If you do not want to use Quicktime Pro, there are many other utilities available to do it for you.
For photos and Podcasts it's a little different. There are no menu options easily recognizable within iTunes. You have to go into a sub-menu to find them. After you find them though, it's as simple as telling it the folder where your pictures are at, and how you would like it to perform synchronization. Podcasts are very similar. Once you take a subscription or download a Podcast, you can tell it to keep it updated, and to automatically download the most recent Podcast. This is very nice as many are available via a subscription.
Basic Menu:
Here you can see the basic menu when you start up the iPod Video. To turn on the iPod Video you press and hold the play button for a second. Once it initializes, you can use the unit. I found the menu to be very basic, and very easy to navigate. The touch wheel could be a bit tricky to pick up if you're new to the iPods. I was always going too fast to go one menu down, and would have to go back up/down to get to what I wanted to do. After a couple of times doing that, I got the hang of it, and can now navigate through the menus very quickly without any problems. It could be argued that I know a good deal about computers and how they operate, so I would not be a good test on how user friendly this is. So, just to see how friendly it is, I gave it to my 6-year-old niece to use, and she picked it up and learned how to do it within minutes.
The basic menu gives you the general idea of what you can do. Music, Photo, Video, Extras, and Settings are the initial menu options. As you use the unit you will get a few others such as "Now Playing", or your frequent play lists. You can also go into the settings and customize your menu to include almost any of the sub-category items, such as your playlists, songs, podcasts, clock, contacts, etc.
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