Convention Video Loop playing from an iPod Touch

I will be at the Fremont Comic Arts and Anime Teen Expo (CAAT-X) this Saturday April 25, 2009 from 10-4pm. There is more info HERE.

I will be trying out something new (thanks to some electricity from the City of Fremont) to bring a small TV and playing a video loop of my animation and artwork. When I got my iPod Touch this December one of my hopes was to play slide shows and videos from it. But to make a video that will constantly loop over and over seemed impossible. But I figured it out and wanted to share it with you all in case someone else wanted to use the same technique. I am guessing it would work on the iPhone too.

YOU WILL NEED: Movie video loop in iTunes, Garage Band or other sound editor, Small TV or Monitor with RCA input, iPod Touch (I have version 2.0+), and the Apple Composite AV Cable (RCA imput)

NOTE: I will not cover making video in this post, but will cover it if folks want me too.

SOULTION: (as far as I know) the only way to loop a video is to have it be part of a PlayList in iTunes. But the problem I found is that Movies (i.e. videos) will not show up on the iPod Touch in a PlayList unless there is an audio track as part of the PlayList as well. Once you have an audio file the PlayList in iTunes can be set to loop.

Heres how I did it:

a) Open garage band or another audio editor and create a TINY audio clip that is about 1 second long and is silent. If your clip imported is longer then you want you can shorten it in iTunes’s INFO for that track. The file should be an MP3, WAVE or other compatible format.

b) Import the TINY audio track into iTunes as well as the video loop if you have not done it yet.

c) Create a PlayList with the TINY audio track as well as the video track(s) you want.  You can put as many copies of the movies into the play list as you want so you can have it play the TINY blank audio track very little.

d) Go to the iTunes settings for your iPod Touch and make sure that your play list is selected in both the MOVIES and MUSIC sections.

e) Sync and update your iPod Touch

f) Plug you iPod Touch into the TV with the RCA Video cables that you can purchase sepertly. (Apple Composite AV Cable)

g) Select PlayList under MUSIC and make sure it’s set to LOOP (the icon of arrows going in a circle under the title and to the left).

NOTE on playing video and slide-shows from an iPod Touch. Nothing will show up on the screen unless you have hit the play button. In the case of a ‘photo’ slide-show (another option for conventions) you can press play to have the images show up on screen and then pause if you are giving a presentation.

RESULT: The Movie(s) will now loop forever or as long as the batteries lasts all from your iPod Touch! Yay! There will be a black screen ‘pop’ when it plays the TINY audio clip, but you can make a PlayList of the same movie over and over again that playes for hours. If this is helpfull, please let me know. If there is a better way to do it too, then post a comment and let me know. To see some video work I have done for conventions, check out my samples: