thinking about buying a 80 gig ipod video

[snoob]

Yes so i'm thinking about buying a ipod.

At the moment i have a 20 gig iriver H10 but its too small and well as i'm backpacking everyone seems to have speakers that go with ipods so i'm thinking about taking the leap.

I have never used itunes before and have never used an ipod.  I do like rockbox on my iriver but what does rockbox offer me to that the lastest ipod firmware does not?
With a mac and a rockbox ipod can i just drag and drop my music from the mac to the ipod?  Can the rockbox installed ipod playback video easily?  

Does the Rockbox ipod allow multiple format playback for video ie mp4, divx that kinda thing basically does it playback everything whilst the ipod does not?
Also whats the picture quality like compared with rockbox and no rockbox is it still good?

Sorry for the many questions.  Thanks for your help in advance.

Snoob

[krazykit]

At the moment i have a 20 gig iriver H10 but its too small and well as i'm backpacking everyone seems to have speakers that go with ipods so i'm thinking about taking the leap.

There are also speakers that use a standard headphone jack and C- or D-cell batteries.

what does rockbox offer me to that the lastest ipod firmware does not?
With a mac and a rockbox ipod can i just drag and drop my music from the mac to the ipod?  Can the rockbox installed ipod playback video easily?  Does the Rockbox ipod allow multiple format playback for video ie mp4, divx that kinda thing basically does it playback everything whilst the ipod does not?

Rockbox offers much wider support of audio codecs.  Rockbox works similarly on all targets: drag and drop.  Video support is acceptable, but the original firmware is better in this aspect.  Rockbox supports ONLY mpeg2 while the iPod's original firmware supports h264 as well.

Also whats the picture quality like compared with rockbox and no rockbox is it still good?

Same.

I'd strongly suggest looking for a different player.  The iPod gets poor battery life using Rockbox compared to the original firmware (10 hours vs 20 hours).  For a hiker, I'd expect you'd like better battery life.  The iAudio, Gigabeat, or iRiver devices may provide longer battery life.

[ryran]

krazykit gave sound advice, but on the point of speakers 'n whatnot..to be clear, a Rockboxed ipod won't work with any of the usual ipod accessories; practically only with things that just use the headphone jack.

[soap]

krazykit gave sound advice, but on the point of speakers 'n whatnot..to be clear, a Rockboxed ipod won't work with any of the usual ipod accessories; practically only with things that just use the headphone jack.

WRONG.
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/IpodAccessories
If you'll notice, the audio-out works on every single speaker dock we have tested so far.

[ryran]

My apologies. Wow..I had no idea.

[scorche]

Also, lowered battery life was previously mentioned.  This really isn't something that a user that was using the H10 would really be concerned about as the H10 is basically an iPod with a few modifications because it has a PP SOC as well.