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Do you know if they have any plans for utilizing the usb port for video out? I don't that that would be tough, I mean, iphone does, but droid doesn't? Even my wife's little ipod nano can play video on TVs.

The iPod dock connector has thirty pins in it. There are pins for video, usb, firewire, audio, power and serial connections. The droid's usb port has five pins in it. Power +, power -, serial +, serial -, and an id pin. Don't think it's going to be possible.

http://pinouts.ru/Slots/USB_pinout.shtml
http://pinouts.ru/PortableDevices/ipod_pinout.shtml
 
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The iPod dock connector has thirty pins in it. There are pins for video, usb, firewire, audio, power and serial connections. The droid's usb port has five pins in it. Power +, power -, serial +, serial -, and an id pin. Don't think it's going to be possible.

USB pinout and wiring @ pinouts.ru
Apple iPod and iPhone (2g, 3g) Dock Interfaces pinout and wiring @ pinouts.ru

I was waiting for the HTC TP2, just for that reason, and it has an 11-pin USB for TV out. Droid 2 maybe?
 
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The iPod dock connector has thirty pins in it. There are pins for video, usb, firewire, audio, power and serial connections. The droid's usb port has five pins in it. Power +, power -, serial +, serial -, and an id pin. Don't think it's going to be possible.

USB pinout and wiring @ pinouts.ru
Apple iPod and iPhone (2g, 3g) Dock Interfaces pinout and wiring @ pinouts.ru

Interesting. I was not aware of that amount of detail and the ipod had dedicated pins for that. Is there a way for software to convert that data pins into video?
 
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But what about just audio through the port? Has anyone seen a converter w/ iPod female end, and a male micro-usb...

I already have several apple docks, and a JBL desktop dock/sterio... I'd love to be able to put Droid on there...


It's just a usb port. Unless they're doing some weird hardware voodoo internally, you're not going to get it to do anything but power and sync. There's a headphone jack for audio out.
 
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But what about just audio through the port? Has anyone seen a converter w/ iPod female end, and a male micro-usb...

I already have several apple docks, and a JBL desktop dock/sterio... I'd love to be able to put Droid on there...

I agree. For my iPhone, I picked up two very nice Sony docking stations. The iPhone is now trash, and I switched to an HTC EVO. Sure would be nice if there were an adaptor of some sort that fit into the iPhone cavity of the docking station, to convert it into an EVO charging station, as well as played music via the interface on the Sony.

If it is technically feasible to do so, surely someone out there realizes the market potential of having a drop-in adaptor for this purpose?
 
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Sure would be nice if there were an adaptor of some sort that fit into the iPhone cavity of the docking station, to convert it into an EVO charging station, as well as played music via the interface on the Sony.

Look at the pinouts and the protocol descriptions that barry997095 linked to. You could build an ipod-to-microUSB adapter that would allow the phone to charge. You could add in a cable to plug into the headphone jack to get the audio out.

But the remote-control stuff wouldn't work. The iPod has a serial port that accepts those commands, and there's no RS-232 support in any Android phone I know of. There are USB-to-serial adapters, but you'd need an app on the Android phone to interpret the protocol. Or, whatever dongle you put together could maybe use the Bluetooth remote control protocol (and Bluetooth for sound). But at this point you've got a substantial bit of electronics going on.

You've either got a basic "charge and sound" hookup, or an elaborate "charge-plus-IPod-dock-to-Bluetooth" connection. I'm not sure how that'd be profitable...
 
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what about using wifi?

Could be done, but wifi consumes more power than Bluetooth. We're probably going to have to charge this gadget from the iPod dock it's plugged into, and charge the phone too, so we want to minimize the power drain.

Plus, Bluetooth already has protocols defined for the purpose, e.g. the "Audio/Video Remote Control Profile" (AVRCP).
 
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