<< how to watch your iPod Movie on TV (Part 1)
Connecting the iPod to Your TV
It takes a few steps to connect your iPod to your TV. Start by inserting the A/V cord's eighth-inch plug into your iPod's earphone jack. In it goes, schnickt. Couldn't be easier.
Here's where it gets a little tricky. In order to make your TV play back the iPod signal, you've got to redirect the outputs. You can't just plug the yellow RCA plug into the yellow RCA jack and the red into the red or the white into the white. No. Those geniuses at Apple send the video signal over the red RCA output. (Normally it arrives on yellow.) The sound comes through the white and yellow plugs.
I ended up going to an Apple store and testing this on iPod after iPod. They all have this quirk. It was intentional. But hey, it's proprietary. Woohoo. So here's what you have to do:
1.
Plug the red RCA plug into your TV's yellow RCA jack.
2.
Plug the yellow RCA plug into your TV's white RCA jack.
3.
Plug the white RCA plug into your TV's red RCA jack.  
Figure 3. Left: TV jacks, unplugged; right: TV jacks, plugged with A/V cable
After making all of these connections, you're physically ready to begin playback.
Playing Your Video
On your iPod, navigate to the movie you want to watch and select it. Your iPod prompts you to choose whether to play the video with TV Off or TV On. (You set the TV Out option to "Ask," remember?) Choose TV On.
Figure 4. Choose TV On to redirect the video through the earphone jack
As your video starts, a status screen appears on your iPod and the video plays back on your television. The status screen tracks playback progress, just as it would in iTunes.
Figure 5. The iPod video status screen shows playback progress.
Leave the television volume control at normal levels and use the iPod volume control to adjust the audio. The audio and video should both sound and look excellent.
Figure 6. Success! The video plays back on the TV
Final Thoughts
Don't feel pressured to buy Apple-branded add-ons, particularly when there are workarounds like the one shown in this article. Here, you've seen how to use a cheap off-the-shelf product to bypass that whole high-priced white-colored gear thing. Shiny and white doesn't necessarily make it right.
<< how to watch your iPod Movie on TV (Part 1)
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