The idea’s supposed to be simple: buy a dock, connect it to any video output device, press a button or two, and the video’s stored on your iPod’s hard disk. That’s iLuv’s i182 ($230) in a nutshell, but there are a few twists: the dock stores up to 640×480 videos on iPods, 400×192 videos on Sony PlayStation Portables, and 720×480 videos on other storage devices – all in MPEG-4 ASP format.
It includes a USB and Memory Stick/SD/MMC memory card adapter for connection to non-iPod storage devices, an AC adapter, and RCA-to-RCA video adapter, plus two iPod dock adapters and a Windows XP-only CD that’s supposedly necessary if you want to sync i182-created videos into iTunes and then watch them on your iPod. In other words, without iLuv’s software, videos are just stored on the iPod but not viewable – apparently an Apple-imposed limitation.
i182’s top surface includes a timer that lets you turn off the recorder after 30, 60, 120, or 180 minutes, plus a manual stop button if you’re not using the timer. Its rear ports (including the S-Video port) are all for video input rather than output, so i182 can’t be used as a typical iPod AV-out dock.
