# Can you play avi files on iPod?



## Finkangel

Is there a way to play avi files on an iPod?

Or perhaps a conversion tool?

Nick


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## Vexel

iSquint


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## John Clay

You cannot play AVI files on an iPod, or anything other than H264.
iSquint is free, and should do the trick:
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19769


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## guytoronto

When I read questions like this, I sometimes ask myself "Do people ever try to find the answers for themselves, or do they simply like to take shortcuts?"

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301461

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302892

http://www.isquint.org/

http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/popcorn/standard/overview.html

http://handbrake.m0k.org/

Google is your friend.


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## Macified

Many just take shortcuts but that is what forums like this are for. He didn't ask you to go and find it for him, merely if you already had found it. He hopes to benefit from the experience of others, is that a problem.


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## monokitty

Macified said:


> Many just take shortcuts but that is what forums like this are for. He didn't ask you to go and find it for him, merely if you already had found it. He hopes to benefit from the experience of others, is that a problem.


Well put.


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## mikeinmontreal

It's nice to see a smartass get blasted once in a while :clap:


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## kloan

easiest way to find out is obviously the specs page on apple's website:
http://www.apple.com/ca/ipod/specs.html

h.264/MPEG-4 (.mp4) is the only codec supported..
(http://www.apple.com/quicktime/technologies/mpeg4/)


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## AppleEnthusiast

Man lately I've been getting really bummed about all the bashing on here, I mostly just lurk around, but half the time I post I get some sarcasm. HowEver and guytoronto are always good for a negative comment or two.


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## seetobylive

is there one that youguys would recommend more than another? I have Roxio 8, quicktime pro, hand brake and have even used isquint before. It just seems to take an awfully long time to convert and AVI inan ipod format.


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## Macified

AppleEnthusiast said:


> Man lately I've been getting really bummed about all the bashing on here, I mostly just lurk around, but half the time I post I get some sarcasm. HowEver and guytoronto are always good for a negative comment or two.


Agreed. I think it's just a case of post-holiday depression. Hopefully things will level. 

Sorry to side-track the thread. Hope you are finding what you need.


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## irontree

Takes just under 2 hours to convert a divX file to mpeg-4 on a lowly Core Solo Mac Mini! Not too shabby


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## bmovie

Macified said:


> Many just take shortcuts but that is what forums like this are for. He didn't ask you to go and find it for him, merely if you already had found it. He hopes to benefit from the experience of others, is that a problem.


couldn't have said better myself.:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:


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## bmovie

personally I use VisualHub...it's not free, but it does a lot of other conversions.


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## Kosh

I use isquint, since I got my iPod and wanted to move mpg's and other movie files to it.


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## kloan

i just use quicktime.. doesn't take too long to convert short clips, but a full movie takes a while.. all depends on the hardware of course.. im sure a quad g5 would make quick work of it.


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## dona83

I'm sure a Quad Intel would do it even faster. 

I think many of the iPod encoders still only do 320x240, only Quicktime itself encodes at 640x480. if you only need it for your ipod tho, iSquint is free and fine.

Excuse GuyToronto's rudeness.  Online forums are here for us to discuss things and you know be the social animals we are, we're more than glad you came to us for advice.


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## mikeinmontreal

iSquint will do 640 x 480 if you use TV mode.


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## Finkangel

Thanks for the info everyone, guytoronto included.

I apologise if it seems I have not put effort into my search, but unfortunately, people like myself (who are not terribly techno-proficient) try asking questions like this in Google and don't get answers that are easy to understand. 

This forum is a lot of help, and I'm always grateful for it.


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## Macified

I hope you found what you needed. It's what we're all here for. Someday you will provide a needed piece of information for another member.


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## HowEver

Nice to be good for something... Feel free to point out specifically where comments are warranted or not.

On a happier note, have you ever seen the comic Mitch Hedberg talking about being a (boating) "enthusiast?" He's relentlessly funny (and sadly no longer with us).




AppleEnthusiast said:


> Man lately I've been getting really bummed about all the bashing on here, I mostly just lurk around, but half the time I post I get some sarcasm. HowEver and guytoronto are always good for a negative comment or two.


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## guytoronto

AppleEnthusiast said:


> Man lately I've been getting really bummed about all the bashing on here, I mostly just lurk around, but half the time I post I get some sarcasm. HowEver and guytoronto are always good for a negative comment or two.


You betcha! I also feel I'm good for a positive every once in a while.

If you want a forum that's all peachy-nice, squeaky clean fun, well then heck fella, that would be a perfect representation of what life is really like in the real world.

Sometimes I am a bit harsh. Does it offend people? I imagine it does. In this politically correct age of "coddle everyone", I feel it's my moral obligation to throw a wrench into the works as often as possible.

You know that mean guy at the end of the street in every neighbourhood? Sometimes, if you listen to him, you might hear a nugget of wisdom.


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## chenxiang219

pavtube video converter just can do that.:lmao:


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## polywog

guytoronto said:


> You know that mean guy at the end of the street in every neighbourhood? Sometimes, if you listen to him, you might hear a nugget of wisdom.


If he didn't keep chasing people off of his lawn, they might listen more often.


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## Kosh

Just think of guytoronto as the Devil's beejacon Advocate... and picture him in red longjohns with a red tail and a red pitchfork.


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## hayesk

I don't think guytoronto meant to offend, but I think he was just saying "if you want others to put effort into helping you, at least put in some effort into helping yourself first."


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## chas_m

hayesk said:


> I don't think guytoronto meant to offend, but I think he was just saying "if you want others to put effort into helping you, at least put in some effort into helping yourself first."


Or at least PRETEND to put some effort into helping yourself first. 

Hear hear!


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## jlevett

I wanted to play some avi videos on my iphone a flight I am about to take. I googled the problem and this thread was number 3. So, I helped myself and got to visit my favourite mac forum that I knew would have the answer in the second post, along with some spirited conversation. I love you guys at ehMac


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## Eric0

Always nice to hear.


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## ruffdeezy

i use imtoo conversion tools, they seems to work good for me. I use the mpeg encoder, has settings for ipod, iphone, apple tv, and so on.


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## toams7

okay so what if you have an iPod touch or an iPhone and you've jailbroken it so you've got lots of third party apps available to you and you want to watch, lets say, a full length movie thats about 800 megs.... you can get that onto your device using iphone browser but i need a way to play it... theres vlc4iphone but i put a 20 second video on my ipod and it was lagging behind and couldn't play it....

any suggestions?? i mean i could convert it overnight or something but converting sometimes doesn't work in the end and AVI is perfectly good video...

i did look this up on google, okay, so don't jump on me....


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## chas_m

The bottom line answer is that unless the video is in H.264/mp4, an iPod Touch/iPhone/iPod isn't going to play it properly.

Convert the video in question to H.264 using your tool of choice (iSquint and VisualHub are great and do batch conversions) while you sleep. This, in effect, allows the process to take "no time at all."

And to answer the inevitable question of "well why doesn't the iThing just support AVI in the first place," it's because AVI is not a format. It's a container, meaning the video or audio "tracks" of an AVI file can be compressed in one of around 100 possible codecs. H.264, on the other hand, is a format. Easy to decode on a single tiny chip, which is what you need for something like the iPod.


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## toams7

thanks so much...

that explained a lot....

the only thing is, is that i did a google search for "play avi on iphone" and this came up, so i signed up for this forum but i actually don't live in canada, and more importantly, i don't own a mac... (not anymore anyways, my logic board died a year ago)

so do you know of any programs for PC?


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## RikP

*Thanks to google and you guys*



guytoronto said:


> When I read questions like this, I sometimes ask myself "Do people ever try to find the answers for themselves, or do they simply like to take shortcuts?"
> 
> Can't transfer videos to iPod
> 
> Verifying iTunes video conversion and iPod or iPhone video syncing using sample QuickTime files
> 
> Techspansion
> 
> Roxio Popcorn® 3 - DVD Copy - Overview
> 
> HandBrake
> 
> Google is your friend.


Well, I used google to with "iPod avi" and it brought me to this thread and from here to iSquint. So even though this is a year or two late, thanks.


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## Elric

guytoronto said:


> When I read questions like this, I sometimes ask myself "Do people ever try to find the answers for themselves, or do they simply like to take shortcuts?"
> 
> Can't transfer videos to iPod
> 
> Verifying iTunes video conversion and iPod or iPhone video syncing using sample QuickTime files
> 
> Techspansion
> 
> Roxio Popcorn® 3 - DVD Copy - Overview
> 
> HandBrake
> 
> Google is your friend.


I think it's funny, cause asking a question on a forum is the LONGEST route you could possibly take. That question in google and hitting enter, IS the shortcut.

I have teens that work in our store, and they often call to ask me questions all the time, silly simple questions that they usually have to ask my answering machine, then they wait for a reply. No matter how many times I point out that Google is a cool "new" search tool on the interweb....

But the funniest part is that fact these kids have had the internet since they were BORN and do not know Google exists. Google can't be any more in your face and yet they steer very clear of it. I was 14 when I got the Internet and had to use like SEVEN different search engines to even remotely come close to what I was looking for, often with zero results found... maybe that's why I love Google so much 

And to school in the snow, uphill both ways yadda yadda... phonebook, what's that?


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## shooting_rubber

Handbrake is a really good program, which is also free, to convert almost any video format to .mp4 (MPEG-4). I use it for all of my video conversion.


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