iPod Help, no sound!! 60Gb video UK

[white bellied]

Newbie still!!

iPod arrived on Monday this week, tried to play some music last night for the 1st time, nothing!! The machine shows Now Playing, but the play bar does not move at all!

I have reset it, 3 times, I have tried different songs, different headphones, let an iPod 40Gb user try it, moved along the play position bar but no sound.

Anyone got any thoughts?

Also, why will it not load some of the home video I have, in .wma format.

I am off on hols next week to Aus, and want this working by then!! If not, it goes back!!!

At the moment, it is £430 worth of c**p (engraved, I bought the dock, 2 cables, camera connect and AV cable)!!

Thanks

Doug

 

[steve_hill4]

Have you tried iPod updater and then loading everything back on from scratch?

On the video front, it will only support h.264 and mpeg4 video, not WMV. If you get pqdvd to iPod, you will be able to convert it to run on the iPod, then change any file extensions to m4v from the mp4 it saves them as, (not tried them with mp4, but didn't work with some native mp4 files, so didn't risk it). The trial version only works for between 5-10 minutes of footage though, (either dvd source or files), then cuts out. The license is $29.95, but it does the job uber-fast.

Hope this sorts you out.

 

[white bellied]

Thanks Steve,

iTunes told me it had an update, 6.0.1, as soon as I had installed the disc...... I only loaded songs after the update. Just checked too, and I have the most current version.

I realise that the lack of sound may not be the correct description.

The song does not appear to play. The progress bar does not show any movement, abit like selecting the track and then immediatley pausing, but this is not what I have done!!

I have seen other posts on the video front and will check these out too. I presume if you buy QuickTime Pro, it will do the job, but other posts suggest this may not be the case!!

What a drag too, having to buy other software. It should be advertised as Video (but only if you buy the video from Apple), what a con!

Doug

 

[steve_hill4]

No, I mean run iPod updater, not having the latest version of iTunes. iPod updater rubs all the data off an iPod and then reinstalls the firmware, (i.e the gui software). Once complete, it will be like it was out of the box. This is like asking your OS disc to format your drive and reinstall the OS.

As for QT Pro, it only really opens up mov and mpeg files. For wmv, you need to convert to mpeg or mov or use 3rd party software to convert to mp4/m4v directly. PQDVD to iPod seems to be fairly fast and gives a good quality output. When I ran some music videos on there as demos, (short, so fits in with the trial timeframe), they converted at 4x realtime. QT Pro on the same machine seemed to take ages, (maybe over an hour), for that same length of footage. Since QT Pro costs about the same to buy the license as PQDVD, I would give it a go and see what you think. Don't have to carry on using it.

 

[white bellied]

I ran the UPdater thanks, it asked me to reboot the PC, which I did, and then I docked the iPod, iTunes booted up and nothing happened. I ran update iPod, nothing seemed to change. I tried the music again, and the progress bar still does not move!

I will try this again, at home, where I have access to the CDs. I will also try deleting the songs from the iPod, by deleting them from the Library!!

I am somewhat stumped here!

 

[white bellied]

Oh frustration!!

I cleared all music tracks on the iPod and the Library in iTunes. Unistalled iTunes.

I Reset, Retry, Reinstall, Restart and Restore, but still the tracks do not play. I have downloaded Updater, it did not appear to do anything to the iPod. I did not download the later version of iTunes (it did not tell me about this later version either when I installed) I have checked the files are in iPod_control, they are and they play in iTunes when double clicked. The iPod looks normal, the track names are there, but the progress bar does not move at all when I tell it to Play. The Now Playing tells me what is playing but there is nothing playing!!!


I will telephone Apple when I get back later today.

Doug

 

[Chundles]

It will play a lot more videos than the ones you can buy from Apple. They just have to be in the format Apple CLEARLY states on the box, the internet site and in nearly all the reviews posted about the new iPod.

I think you have a faulty iPod. It happens when you are making millions of them a month, every now and then a bad one comes out. Take it back to the Apple Store and get them to replace it.

 

[ddrueckhammer]

Oh frustration!!

I cleared all music tracks on the iPod and the Library in iTunes. Unistalled iTunes.

I Reset, Retry, Reinstall, Restart and Restore, but still the tracks do not play. I have downloaded Updater, it did not appear to do anything to the iPod. I did not download the later version of iTunes (it did not tell me about this later version either when I installed) I have checked the files are in iPod_control, they are and they play in iTunes when double clicked. The iPod looks normal, the track names are there, but the progress bar does not move at all when I tell it to Play. The Now Playing tells me what is playing but there is nothing playing!!!


I will telephone Apple when I get back later today.

Doug

Doug-

The video you put on your iPod needs to be in either H.264 320 x 240 or MPEG-4 480 x 480. If you are ripping a DVD or downloading from P2P sites to get your content (this is illegal in America but I don't know the law in your country) then you must use a conversion program like FFMPEGX (this is a Mac program I'm not sure what it's PC equvilant is) to convert the files to the correct resolution and codec. Also, unless the audio for these files is in AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats you will not hear sound.

If converting video is too much trouble for you then I would suggest sticking with the content from Apple. In January, the ITMS will supposedly be adding many more networks in the US and I think there should be video being sold in the UK very soon.

For audio files, they must be either AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Music Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4), Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF. If you are trying to play anything but these formats they won't work. Pretty much this includes the standards except .ogg and .wmv and maybe realplayer files.

If you are using the correct file formats and you tried all of the suggestions in the troubleshooting section of Apple's website then take the iPod back to the Apple Store and have a Genius look at it. If it is defective they will replace it immediately. Also, if you had a PSP or any other personal video device you would have to make sure that the content is in the correct format for the device unless you purchase pre-packaged content for the device like that on the ITMS.

Hopefully this helps!

 

[steve_hill4]

Doug-

The video you put on your iPod needs to be in either H.264 320 x 240 or MPEG-4 480 x 480. If you are ripping a DVD or downloading from P2P sites to get your content (this is illegal in America but I don't know the law in your country) then you must use a conversion program like FFMPEGX (this is a Mac program I'm not sure what it's PC equvilant is) to convert the files to the correct resolution and codec. Also, unless the audio for these files is in AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats you will not hear sound.

If converting video is too much trouble for you then I would suggest sticking with the content from Apple. In January, the ITMS will supposedly be adding many more networks in the US and I think there should be video being sold in the UK very soon.

Music videos and pixar are already available in the UK, it's just TV that isn't.

As for video content, p2p downloading of any copyrighted material is pretty much illegal wherever you are. I have played around with ripping from dvd and from files on my computer, but it isn't always clear whether they will work or not. I have used mp4 files at 320x240 and changed the extension to m4v and they work, but they fall within the bitrate limits. I guess some more experimentation is needed when I get the chance.

P.S. There are only three official apple stores in the UK, (London, Birmingham, Manchester), all others are franchises and are often not only unlikely to take anything purchased through apple.com back and swap, but are often less knowledgable than most. An example of this is there are only two main places in Nottingham that sell apple computers, (a franchise called KRCS and John Lewis, where I currently work), plenty of places sell iPods, but that's pretty much all they do, sell them. Now not everybody in John Lewis stores knows much about apple ahrdware, but I fortunately know a fair amount and when I get talking to someone, you would not believe the numer of times people say they went to the other place first and they were useless, (even trying to sell one guy a Mac Mini without Airport and Bluetooth when he told them he wanted a wireless keyboard/mouse and already had a wireless network, it wasn't until I questioned his choice of model that he realised). So it can be difficult dealing with apple here, but if you can get into the Regent Street store before you go away, they should be able to help you out.

 

[ddrueckhammer]

Music videos and pixar are already available in the UK, it's just TV that isn't.

As for video content, p2p downloading of any copyrighted material is pretty much illegal wherever you are. I have played around with ripping from dvd and from files on my computer, but it isn't always clear whether they will work or not. I have used mp4 files at 320x240 and changed the extension to m4v and they work, but they fall within the bitrate limits. I guess some more experimentation is needed when I get the chance.

P.S. There are only three official apple stores in the UK, (London, Birmingham, Manchester), all others are franchises and are often not only unlikely to take anything purchased through apple.com back and swap, but are often less knowledgable than most. An example of this is there are only two main places in Nottingham that sell apple computers, (a franchise called KRCS and John Lewis, where I currently work), plenty of places sell iPods, but that's pretty much all they do, sell them. Now not everybody in John Lewis stores knows much about apple ahrdware, but I fortunately know a fair amount and when I get talking to someone, you would not believe the numer of times people say they went to the other place first and they were useless, (even trying to sell one guy a Mac Mini without Airport and Bluetooth when he told them he wanted a wireless keyboard/mouse and already had a wireless network, it wasn't until I questioned his choice of model that he realised). So it can be difficult dealing with apple here, but if you can get into the Regent Street store before you go away, they should be able to help you out.

I figured that downloading bittorrent or P2P material was illegal in England but I wasn't sure about DVD ripping because there are different "fair use" laws from country to country. While backing up personal content for "fair use" is legal in the US, cracking the DRM on most DVDs was made illegal by the Digital Millenium Copyright act. Supposedly, Microsoft will be adding legal DVD ripping to Windows Vista in 2007 but as for right now it is pretty much illegal which is a shame. I was just pointing out how one might do it if they were in an area where the practice is legal.

I know it can be a pain sometimes, especially if you live in a rural area, but I have found it best to deal directly with Apple as much as possible in order to get the best service. As far as inconvenience, I currently live in Florida but used to live in Texas, even if you live in a major city in Texas it can take 2-3 hours to get to a store because the cities are so spread-out (and of course traffic is bad). My point, is that defective products are an inconvenience for everyone but I havn't heard of a truely defective product that Apple wouldn't fix or replace for free. It really is unfortunate that the poster probably got a bad one, but most of the time Apple's products work right out of the box. I'm sure most third party resellers would exchange it too as long as it is found to be defective and within their 14 or 30 day return policy.

I know what you are saying about third-party sellers being clueless. (Sometimes the sales people at the Apple store are clueless too) What do you want for low wages I guess...I tried to get my Powerbook's hard drive fixed at a third party reseller under warranty because it was more convenient than going to the Apple Store. After too weeks, they said they couldn't see a problem. I took it to a genius and he immediately found the problem and it was fixed in two-days. After that experience, I vowed to only deal with the Apple store in the future.

 

[mortimermike]

no sound

well i just bought a 60gb black video ipod ... no trouble putting songs on but when i finnally worked out how to convert the videos ... no sound at all, i had it engraved and everything that 300 quids worth of s*it

 

[Piarco]

well i just bought a 60gb black video ipod ... no trouble putting songs on but when i finnally worked out how to convert the videos ... no sound at all, i had it engraved and everything that 300 quids worth of s*it

I had the same problem - but it is an encoding issue. Don't know why it is the case, as all my episodes of Family Guy I encoded worked, but the music videos I encoded were silent. I've stopped using QT Pro and use Handbrake instead. Your "300 quids worth of s*it" is fine. Just use a different encoder.

 

[Battousai]

I've played around with converting a couple of different video formats for my iPod, and I discovered something interesting.

When converting a video, the ipod will not read the audio if you encode it to mp3. You have to use AAC. I don't know if this is the issue that you have, but it was a bit frustrating for me.

When you're encoding your videos for the iPod, pay attention to the setting for BOTH the video and the audio tracks.