Whether you just got a new iPod or are an old-time user, there are always new things you will discover about that little gadget. Downloading video to your iPod is not as straight-forward for a newbie, and even those who have been using iPod for a while.

Essentially, your iPod can support 2 video formats, H.264 video and MPEG-4 video. An important question many folks perhaps including you would ask – so which one is better? On the surface, H.264 appears to be better than MPEG-4 because of the crystal clear picture quality. It also takes much lesser space than MPEG-4. This simply means that you can pack more videos and music into your iPod if you use this video format. There are some who would argue that both formats are equally excellent in terms of picture quality when the encoding is done at higher supported video settings.

If everything remains ceteris paribus, ie status quo, shouldn’t H.264 format be the only choice all should select? However, there remains a fact which iPod users who have been using H.264 video format would agree and that is it takes much longer to encode the video than using MPEG-4 format. So if you are building a wide collection of iPod video downloads and don’t have the patience to wait, you should consider using MPEG-4.

By now, you should have a clearer understanding about iPod video downloads but we are not done yet. If the format of your video files are in avi, mpeg, etc, you need to convert them before your iPod can read and display. There is a video conversion freeware called Videora iPod Convertor which you can use together with Videora to rip video from any DVD and copy to your iPod. However, I have a word of caution for you. Before you start downloading from some of the iPod video downloads sites, be sure to check if there is any copyright infringement. A simple rule to follow is to avoid those free download sites altogether. There is enough bad press about these sites that share copyrighted video files blatantly.

Nowadays, the disk capacity of new generation iPods is astoundingly huge, going into the range of 40-60G. This can easily accommodate many videos. However, downloading that many files at iTune would probably set one back by a large sum of money. Most folks would not be able to afford it. Fortunately, there are now several paid iPod video downloads sites that would grant you access to huge libraries of iPod media downloads including music and movies for a flat one-time fee. There is quite a fair bit of choices so it makes perfect sense to browse around and shop for one paid membership site that suits your needs. If you wish to find out more about what are the different factors you should consider and scrutinize before paying for your iPod video downloads, do visit my blog for more details.

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