The HomeDock Deluxe frees you from the limits of that tiny iPod screen. With its sturdy little remote, you can view your iPod’s contents on the TV screen, and play the music and video or photo slideshows from the comfortable distance of your couch.

You can use its “My Jukebox” feature to create a playlist on the fly, making it, perhaps, an essential tool for the party animal. You and your guests will never again have to ask what that track is. It will be displayed on the TV in one of a dozen colour schemes. Because you’ve no doubt downloaded the album covers – or soon will – the graphics will be up there too, in a selection of screensavers.

We didn’t expect the compressed iPod video would translate well to our wide-screen TV (a Loewe Aconda with room for vast numbers of SCART cables), but it was perfectly acceptable, if emphatically not DVD quality. In these days of what you might call social video, it’s only polite to allow one’s friends to show us what they’ve just downloaded to their iPod, without having to attach cables. And it’s much easier on the eyes, when you don’t have to view it on that tiny screen.

We scarcely needed to look at the dock’s manual. First you screw in a support stand, and slide on your iPod. We tried it with the 3rd, 4th and 5th generation iPods, but it also handles the nano (which unfortunately doesn’t support an external slideshow). The only problem you’re likely to strike is if the iPod is not running the latest software version.

Then you attach the cables, turn it on, and start pushing the buttons on the 18-function remote. Aside from the usual navigation controls, the remote includes shuffle and repeat buttons, previous and next playlist buttons, a mute and a screensaver/backlight button. A mode button allows you to turn off the TV display, and work directly from the iPod screen.

An earlier version suffered from some firmware issues that caused a few problems, including video quality. They’ve been resolved in this release, and more significantly, the firmware is now updatable. The update isn’t reflected in the manual that ships with the HomeDock Deluxe, but you can download the current version as a PDF file.

One day, soon, we’re going to have to find some more space for the amplifier.
DLO made its reputation with the TransDock, an FM transmitter that cradles and charges the iPod, while it broadcasts the output to your car’s FM radio. We’ve experienced a good deal of progress in that area too, beginning with the Griffin iTrip, quickly moving to Sonnet’s PodFreq, and more recently settling on the Belkin TuneFM.
The latest generation of the TransDock impressed us with its sound quality – possibly due to its more powerful, integrated antenna - particularly when we set it on the upper frequency range to tune out static. May we suggest, say, 107.9?

There are some other attractive features. There’s an Aux In jack that allows you to hook up another MP3 player, laptop or gaming system and listen to their output … very handy these days when people’s audio is also social.
There’s a USB jack that allows you to simultaneously charge your cell phone or other electronic device.

But the most remarkable addition is the audio/video output, which connects to your car’s mobile video system, or a portable screen. The only reservation we have about this is that it makes it awfully easy for drivers to be watching the latest TV soapie, rather than concentrating on the road. Which is, you know, anti-social.

Both products are distributed by HipGizmos. The HomeDock Deluxe has a street price of around $259, and you can pick up the TransDock for about $159.