As much as a brilliant product the video iPod is, it does have its limitations. I like to take mine with me when I fly, for example, but the tiny screen makes for difficult viewing and the short battery life makes for limited viewing time.
When I had initially bought my video iPod, I envisioned watching movies the entire five hour flight from Los Angles to New York. This simply isn’t possible.
A variety of accessories have come on the market to tackle these problems but the very best one I’ve discovered so far is the MyVu Personal Media Viewer. This dandy bit of electronics plugs directly into an iPod and transfers the signal into a pair of goggles for personal viewing.
I have to admit, I was very skeptical at first. When I initially saw a photograph of the goggles, they not only looked cheap, but like something out of a bad science fiction movie as well. This is mostly due to the narrow design which allows the wearer to look above and below the goggles while wearing them. I initially thought this was a serious oversight, but when I later put on the goggles, I realized how vulnerable I’d feel if they blocked my entire vision.
When I first received the Personal Media Viewer in the mail, I was relieved to discover that it was not as cheap as it initially appeared. It’s made of plastic, but is sturdy, well-crafted and sleek in design.
In fact, the manufacturer, MicroOptical Corporation, doesn’t appear to skimp anywhere on this product. Inside the box I discovered three different sizes of noise-reducing earbuds (small, medium, and large), a hard clamshell carrying case (large enough to also hold an iPod), a microfiber protective sleeve for the goggles, additional nose pads (for height adjustment), an AC adaptor, a car adaptor, and a battery pack.
Let’s start with the battery pack. The 30GB, 60GB, and 80GB video iPod all slide snuggly into the pack, which completely encases the unit. It makes the iPod only slightly larger, but when fully charged adds another 4 hours of video-viewing battery life to the 2 hours already on a fully-charged iPod (or a total of 20 hours just listening to music).
This is worth the price of admission alone. In fact, if you want to, you can toss out the goggles and just use the battery pack to prolong the use of your iPod. The unit does, however, tend to get rather warm when continuously used for more than a few hours. I didn’t see any decrease in performance when this happened, but it did concern me a little bit.
The setup is very easy; place the iPod into the battery pack, switch the iPod to TV Out, plug in the goggles, place on your head, insert earbuds, and press play. The whole thing took less than five minutes.
I decided to try out my new Personal Media Viewer on a recent flight from Los Angeles to Chicago. Shortly after liftoff when the pilot announced we could use our electronic devices, I assembled my unit and plugged in. I was a bit self-conscious putting on the goggles and kept sneaking peaks to see if anyone was staring. As it were, only the flight attendant asked me what the strange device was I had on my head.
Another concern was that the goggles might give me a headache. The device actually transmits the video on two separate windows, one for each eye. When I put them on and pressed play, however, the two separate windows converged as one and the image was like watching a 27 inch television from 6 feet away. Wow.
The 320×240 resolution wasn’t as sharp as the one on my iPod, but it was sharp enough to still blow me away. If I stared deep enough, I could make out faint lines in the background of the video, but these quickly disappeared the moment I relaxed and began enjoying The Departed. It was so very cool to have this little TV screen floating in front of me with a nearly perfect picture beaming into my skull.
It took almost no time to realize what a great product this was. I could lean back in my chair, put my head against the head rest, and watch a movie without being hunched over my tiny iPod or squinting at a distant screen. With a click of a button, airplane travel suddenly became not just bearable, but entertaining as well.
I kept thinking of my initial disappointment that the goggles weren’t entirely enclosed, but as I sat there watching the movie, I was pleased I could make out movement from the corner of my eyes-such as the flight attendant coming by with drinks. The disadvantage, however, is that lights behind me occasionally reflected off the inside of the goggles and cast a small flare across edge of the screen. I imagine this could be a problem under some circumstances, but it wasn’t enough to be overly concerned about on my flight.
The earbuds, which are attached directly to the goggles, also worked flawlessly. After cranking up the volume, the sound of the airplane engines quickly disappeared and all I could hear was Jack Nicholson being his regular crazy self.
The Personal Media Viewer has two other accessories worth mentioning. The first is a pendant control located on the cable which hooks into the iPod. With this, one can adjust the volume, the brightness of the screen, and hit play, pause, rewind or fast forward without having to dig the iPod out of its hiding place.
And, then there are the eyeglasses. It is nearly impossible to wear the goggles while also wearing a pair of glasses. Unfortunately, I usually fly with my glasses on instead of wearing my contacts. The good news is that MyVu has thought of everything and sells custom-made glasses that fit into the goggles. The bad news is that they cost an additional $99.
So, that’s about it. Personally, I love this product. I wouldn’t use it at home or in a coffee shop, but it is perfect for traveling. Sure, the price tag is a bit high at $299.95, and you do look a little nerdy wearing them, but with the amount of flying I do, they were well worth the investment. Now, instead of fellow passengers staring at my iPod screen, they’re staring at me and my funky goggles. Beam me up, Scotty!