Turning my iPod Touch into a mini AppleTV (sort of)

Sometimes, when I'm caught up on my TiVo viewing and there's nothing on TV*, I will watch TV shows that I have converted for my AppleTV just for these lulls. The problem is that most of these lulls occur when I am in the kitchen, cooking or washing what seems like a ridiculous amount of dishes (no dishwasher here) for 1.5 people.

Now, while I have rigged my TiVo and DVD player to broadcast concurrently to my main TV and kitchen TV, my AppleTV will only play on my main TV (partly due to the fact that my TiVo and DVD are both standard definition while my AppleTV is designed for HD and my poor kitchen TV is old school). I use my AppleTV to watch movies and TV series that are mostly stored on my Mac (since my AppleTV is too small to hold all the media).

My solution, it turns out, is my iPod Touch. Since I can't fit my whole video library on it and there's no predicting what my capricious TV mood might be, I found a way to stream my media via WiFi from my Mac to my iTouch. Even though my media has been converted for AppleTV in mind (640x480 or 720x480) it streams and plays perfectly.

(I found instructions for setting up web sharing and how to access movies on iPhone/iPod Touch here: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/stream-your-entire-itunes-library-to-your-iphone-over-the-internet-mac-only/)

Then it occurred to me that I could finally put the $50-iPod-to-composite-video cable I purchased for my iPod Nano to good use. (Purchased back when the economy was good and money was flowing like Kool Aid at a summer party).

It worked! I was streaming video from my Mac, to my iTouch to my retro-CRT TV. Some limitations:

• Doesn't remember where you are if you stop the movie and return later.
• Clunky interface.
• Movie stops when iPod goes to sleep/locks if that is turned on.

I wish Apple would put the AppleTV/Front Row app on the iPhone/iTouch so I wouldn't have to use this workaround, but for now, this will do.

I discovered two things that will help me get a better interface for this system.

• PHP Directory Lister—A php file that will format the directory a little nicer than the default, but this file needs to go into each directory. http://greg-j.com/phpdl/
• iWebKit—a set of templates to create a web site that looks like an iPhone app. I have set up a home page for my media, but more work needed on my end to getting it all set up. http://iwebkit.net

Here are some screen shots.

The default directory view:

The enhanced directory view using the php file:

And my custom home page created using the iWebKit template. This page is set up, but not quite completely functional or finished yet.

*And if I am caught up on all my podcasts my NPR listening.