Video Syncing

podkit syncs movies and TV shows from your video collections to iPods that support video playback.

Supported Devices

Not all iPods support video. These models can play video:

iPod Video — 5th and 5.5th generation
iPod Classic — 6th and 7th generation
iPod Nano — 3rd through 5th generation

See Supported Devices for the full compatibility matrix.

Supported Input Formats

Format	Extensions	Notes
Matroska	`.mkv`	Common for rips
MP4	`.mp4`, `.m4v`	May passthrough if already compatible
AVI	`.avi`	Legacy support
MOV	`.mov`	QuickTime
WebM	`.webm`	VP8/VP9 transcoded to H.264
WMV	`.wmv`	Windows Media

All videos are transcoded to iPod-compatible M4V (H.264 video, AAC audio). Files that are already compatible are copied directly without re-encoding. See Video Transcoding for quality presets and device profiles.

Supported Content Types

Content Type	Supported	Notes
Movies	Yes	Standalone films with optional director/studio metadata
TV Shows	Yes	Episodes with series, season, and episode information
Music Videos	Not yet	Planned for a future release
Video Podcasts	Not yet	Planned for a future release

Content Type Detection

podkit automatically determines whether a video is a movie or TV show using:

Embedded tags — If the file contains episode/season metadata
Folder structure — TV Shows/Series Name/Season 01/
Filename patterns — S01E01, 1x01, etc.

If none of these match, the video is treated as a movie.

Folder Organization

Movies:

Movies/
├── The Matrix (1999).mkv
├── Inception (2010)/
│   └── Inception.mkv
└── Sci-Fi/
    └── Blade Runner (1982).mkv

TV Shows:

TV Shows/
└── Breaking Bad/
    ├── Season 1/
    │   ├── S01E01 - Pilot.mkv
    │   └── S01E02 - Cat's in the Bag.mkv
    └── Season 2/
        └── S02E01 - Seven Thirty-Seven.mkv

Setting Up Video Collections

Add a video source to your config file:

[video.movies]
path = "/path/to/movies"

[video.shows]
path = "/path/to/tv-shows"

[defaults]
video = "movies"

Syncing Commands

# Sync all video collections
podkit sync video

# Sync a specific collection
podkit sync video -c shows

# Preview changes
podkit sync video --dry-run

# Remove videos no longer in source
podkit sync video --delete

# Override quality for this sync
podkit sync video --video-quality medium

# Sync to a specific device (by name or mount path)
podkit sync video --device classic

Listing Video

See what’s on your iPod or in your collections:

# Video on your iPod
podkit device video

# Video in a collection
podkit collection video

# Output as JSON
podkit device video --format json