The AV Cable Drama
April 23rd, 2008
Sometime last week I decided I wanted to pick up the Apple Composite AV Cable for the iPod. This would allow me to hook up my iPod to a television and enable me to watch movies, look at pictures or listen to my music on a television. The road to being able to do that was a rocky one.
I started by heading over to the Best Buy right by where I work to find this special cable. I thought to myself how much I was willing to spend, I decided $30 would me the max because I didn’t want to invest a lot in something that I probably wasn’t going to use often. Anyway, I ran over on my lunch hour and looked around and couldn’t find one. I was stopped by an associate who lead me to where they were.
He picked on up that was Dynex branded. I looked at the price and it was only $27. I asked if they had any Apple brand ones and we found the empty hook where they belonged. I looked at the Apple branded cable and saw it was $49.99. Too much. I said the one he found for me was perfect and left to go back to work.
I immediately wanted to try it out, so I open the thing up and took a look at it. The cable looked weird, like something wasn’t right. That it was missing something necessary to work. I come to realize that it only plugs into the headphone jack of the iPod. I’m sorry to say that Dynex apparently never tested their product because video doesn’t transfer through the headphone jack but through the dock connector. The product I purchased basically would only transfer sound to the television not video. Surprised by how misleading the packaging was, I quickly ate lunch and ran back to Best Buy to return it.
With my hopes dashed at being able to watch movies on TV through my iPod, I thought I would go ahead and buy the Apple branded cable for $50. So the next day I went to the mall and did just that. I got home and tested it out and it worked wonderfully. I showed my Mom, and we immediately started thinking of what this meant for us when we go on vacation this fall.
In addition to it being an AV cable, it also doubles as a data transfer cable and triples as an AC adapter for the iPod. All in all, a great deal. I also learned a lesson here, spend the extra couple of bucks and buy the Apple branded accessory. You’ll just get a better experience and a better quality product.
