Does anyone know the old 20GB iPOD really well?

Apple does. Have you tried asking them?

@asmonet I’ve looked online, but haven’t found anything helpful.

there never was a 20 GB version that you can enable videos on…unless you hack it…video iPods come in 30, 40, 60, 80, 120, and 160 GB models…the earliest iPod that could handle video was the 30 GB model

@running4ever5 Welcome to Fluther!

Try calling them. I always do when I have a question and they are very friendly. Like alien friendly. Contact Apple

does it have a color screen? if not then it won’t play it…the 20 GB models only had a black in white screen…(I have 2 hehe)

haha thanks, everyone. And @running4ever5, OOPS! I’d better edit my question…I hit the wronf number on the keypad, twice! It’s actually 60 GB, sorry for the bad info..

haha no biggie…umm…when the iPod’s plugged in does it sync correctly with the music…as does the computer recognize the iPod and ask what you want to sync with it?

yes it does, every time! although…sometimes the iPod dies incredibly fast when it’s turned off…seems strange to me, could that have something to do with it?

umm…what types of videos are you trying to sync with it? music videos or movies? have you tried restoring it?

movies. I tried Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story..that’s the only one that would even play in my quicktime player. I haven’t even tried syncing yet because the files that I download go straight to iTunes, but it won’t even load the picture onto there…
And i haven’t the slightest clue on how to restore it. I’m new to owning an iPod…

You restore the iPod by plugging it into iTunes. Wait until it shows up on iTunes and click on it. It should give you an option to restore.

I would try that.

Oh…again thank you! I’ll try it

Please let us know how it goes!

If a restore doesn’t fix things, you have a couple other options.
I used to have an “older” Video iPod too and used to hack the firmware on it a lot so I’m quite familiar with it.

i opened this message in excitement of being one of the last people on earth barring the 20GB non-color screen ipod, just to find out its a non-existent video ipod

@bluedoggiant

Quite sorry that it disappointed you. :(

You may like to talk with my sister though. She has my black/white 15 GB hand-me-down iPod and is still rockin’ it! :)

@seekingwolf haha it’s cool I use it rarely, I have an 90gb ipod classic & 32gb iPhone I use now

@seekingwolf i have one more question for you: when I restore it, will that completely erase everything I’ve saved to it?

This sounds like you have an issue with a codec. When you hear audio but can see no video it usually means you don’t have the right video codec installed on your computer. I would recommend playing the video with something like VLC (which comes with lots of codecs already) and see if it plays fine. If it plays in VLC but not iTunes it’s a codec issue.

@n8unit What exactly is VLC and whete can I get it?

VLC is an open-source media player that has a lot of popular codecs built in.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Yeah, VLC is awesome. :)

And yes, a restore will erase everything on the iPod and restore it to factory settings. You should back up your iPod if you need to and then restore. When you sync it again after the restore, everything will come back. :)

you guys are awesome =D

@Chongalicious

Have you had success? :)

@seekingwolf so, I’ve now downloaded the VLC player to test everything before I restore the iPod, but for some reason when I click “Media” on the little player, iTunes and LimeWire do not show up, and those are the two places I actually have the media stored…I’m pretty much stuck at that point.You and @n8unit have been great so far. Any new advice?

In VLC you’ll have to locate the file you want to play after going to Media > Open File.
If it’s a file from LimeWire it probably is somewhere in C:\Program Files\LimeWireShared. Not sure where your LimeWire files usually download if you’re on a Mac.

@n8unit I’m a PC =) had to slip that in haha OK, what I had to do to get it to work in the VLC player was transfer the files from my iTunes library to a document folder under the music section in my computer. So this means I definitely should restore it, right?
Also, do you know of a reason why only certain mp4’s I’ve downloaded will even load to iTunes?

If you open a video file in VLC, you can go to Tools>Codec Information to see what codec it uses. What does it say for the video you want to watch?

It lists two different codecs.
For “Stream 0”, it says the codec is mp4v
For “Stream 1”, it says the codec is mp4a

Dear helpful people on this thread: THANK YOU! thank you so much for the advice =D the ipod woks perfectly now that it’s been restored!