If you're tired of scrolling and clicking through pictures, let your iPod put your photos on parade in the form of a slideshow.
You can use an iPod with a color display to not only play a personal slideshow of your pictures onscreen, but also showcase slideshows to your friends and family on a connected TV on supported iPod models. We'll cover both methods in this lesson.
To play a slideshow on your iPod, simply press the Play/Pause icon when viewing thumbnail images or a full screen image; your iPod will play a slideshow—complete with transitions—using the default slideshow settings (if you haven't changed anything). Press the Play/Pause icon again to pause a slideshow, or press the Menu icon to stop it and return to your image view.
Tweaking Slideshow Settings
In the Photos menu, you'll see a listing for Slideshow Settings. This is where you can set options for your slideshow playback, such as deciding whether or not to have your slideshow play music, how long each image stays onscreen, what kind of transition to use between pictures, and more.
If you'd like to customize how your iPod plays slideshows, highlight Slideshow Settings and press the Center button. The Slideshow Settings menu is filled with some submenus and items that you can customize as follows:
You can tweak several options in the Slideshow Settings menu to make your iPod show off your photos the way you want.
- Time Per Slide—Allows you to set how long each photo appears. Select this menu and then choose one of the following durations: Manual, 2 Seconds, 3 Seconds, 5 Seconds, 10 Seconds, 20 Seconds.
- Music—Lets you choose a slideshow's existing music, the current song, or a playlist to play along with your slideshow. Select this menu and then choose one of the following: From iPhoto (Mac-compatible iPods only, lets you copy and play the iPhoto music setting), Now Playing (plays current song), Off (no music), playlist (choose one of your listed playlists), On-The-Go (your iPod playlist).
- Repeat—Select this menu to toggle the repeat feature On or Off. Selecting Repeat > On will play the slideshow repeatedly until you manually stop it. Selecting Repeat > Off will play the slideshow once.
- Shuffle Photos—Select this menu to toggle the shuffle photos feature On or Off. Selecting Shuffle Photos > On will play your photos in random order. Selecting Shuffle Photos > Off will play your photos in the order in which they appear in your library or album.
- Transitions—Lets you add a visual effect that plays between two photos for a smoother, cooler, or more interesting image transition. Select this menu and then choose one of the following transition effects: Off, Random, Cube across, Cube down, Disolve, Page flip, Push across, Push down, Radical, Swirl, Wipe across, Wipe down, Wipe from center.
- TV Out—If you want to view your photos on a television, this option lets you set your iPod to display photos to it (not available on iPod nano). Select this menu and then choose one of the following options: Ask (iPod gives you the option of showing slideshows on a TV or on iPod every time you start a slideshow), On (iPod will only display photos on a connected TV), Off (iPod will only display photos on itself).
- TV Signal—This menu item lets you toggle the output of your iPod for an NTSC or PAL TV (not available on iPod nano). Select TV Signal > NTSC if you have an NTSC TV or video system (this format is standard in the U.S., Canada, and Japan). Select TV Signal > PAL if you have a PAL TV or video system (this format is standard in the U.K., Australia, Germany, Italy, and China). If you're not sure what format your TV or video system is, check your product documentation.
Showcasing Slideshows on the Small Screen
Break out the popcorn—with the help of an optional cable, your iPod can give your photos some screen time on a TV.
If you want to show off your fancy photos to friends, family, coworkers, or anyone you can wrangle up, you can connect any iPod with a color display (except for iPod nano) to a television set and view slideshows on its screen.
To do this, your TV must have either composite audio and video inputs—three RCA ports that are typically color-coded red and white (stereo audio), and yellow (video)—or S-Video and audio inputs. You also need a compatible AV cable, such as an Apple iPod AV Cable or Monster iTV Link (which requires an optional iPod Dock), to make the connection.
To view slideshows on a TV:
- Make sure that your iPod is set to deliver images to a TV by choosing either Photos > Slideshow Settings > TV Out - On or Photos > Slideshow Settings > TV Out - Ask.
- Depending on the cable you bought, connect it to either your iPod headphone jack (Apple iPod AV Cable), the Line Out connector of an iPod Dock (Apple iPod AV Cable), or S-Video output and Line Out connector of an iPod Dock (Monster iTV Link).
- Connect the cable's audio and video connectors to your TV's AV input ports (red is for right audio, white is for left audio, and yellow is for video) or its S-Video input and stereo audio inputs.
- Turn on your iPod. If you're using a Dock, put your iPod in the Dock.
- Turn on your TV and set it to display from the inputs to which your iPod is connected (hunt down your TV manual if you need help doing this).
- On your iPod, choose any photo or album and press the Play/Pause button to start the slideshow.
Important: Information about products not manufactured by Apple is provided for information purposes only, and does not constitute Apple's recommendation or endorsement. Please contact the vendor for additional information.
Take me to the Show Me My Photos and Videos index Take me to Lesson 4: View Videos