Videos w/ sound

[Noxneo]

Same as Yotto. The aim is to make a complete firmware, not just some kind of patch for the iPod.

[gnu]

IPL currently only plays decompressed videos so they are fairly large.

(my emphasis added)
[/quote]

You're partly right: Ipodlinux itself (the OS) only plays uncompressed AVI; but the MVPD player plays videos with compressed video and uncompressed audio. A 20 min movie is about 100 Mb with crappy audio.
And if I had a Ipod video, I wouldn't use any Rockbox/IPL video player since they'll NEVER reach the same quality/filesize as the apple OS. [/rant]

[Noxneo]

That is, until we solve the whole audio decoding problem. When that'll be solved, I think things will go faster concerning the development of a video player (fast forward function, bookmark function, etc.)

[gnu]

Without using the Wolfston chip in the Ipod 5G, we'll never be able to play mp4 - simply because we havent got the necessary processing power (even with both CPUs)!
So we'll never have the same quality/filesize.

[Llorean]

Broadcom. The Wolfson chip is the Audio chip, not the extra video processor.

As well, MP4 is not a format, it's a container. MP4 videos can have a variety of different formats of video in them, including but not restricted to MPEG-4, which is I assume what you're referring to.

[gnu]

Yes, MPEG-4, sorry.

[papatel]

So basically we need to get access to that video decoder chip.  Are there any projects into reverse engineering access?  Also, what kind of documentation exists for this chip, was it exclusively designed for apple?  

GRRR!! Why won't apple disclose this information?  It could only mean one thing... MORE ipod sales

I'm an electrical engineer at georgia tech and I would love to get hacking away at this 5g if i could afford to purchase another...