iPod video to TV

You finally picked up a 5th generation iPod with video. Now you want to connect it to your TV to watch videos on the big screen. There's no need to shell out $19 plus tax for Apple's iPod AV cable. All you need is a generic AV to RCA cable, like the kind that comes with a camcorder (with a 1/8" banded plug at one end and three colored plugs at the other). If you don't already have one, you can probably pick one up on Ebay for a few bucks.

Watch out for this twist though. You have to switch the colored plugs at the TV end, putting the red RCA plug into the yellow jack on the TV, the yellow RCA plug into the white TV jack, and the white RCA plug into the red TV jack. Erica Sadun, author of Modding Mac OS X, shows this workaround in this easy to follow post at O'Reilly. You'll appreciate this if, like Erica, you don't like being pressured to buy proprietary add-ons. If you don't happen to have an AV to RCA cable, but for some reason you have an extra iBook cable, try this alternative mod suggested by Fabienne.