Tantalising photos of what appears to be the video-optimised next-generation iPod have surfaced on the web. Past pictures have been exposed as fakes, but if the new set of shots are hoax images, they're very good ones: they clearly show the device's rumoured virtual UI, including a shot in regular music mode.

The images were originally sent to website MacShrine, but that site appears to have been temporarily suspended. The shots are mirrored at the Gallery of Video iPod Mockups, here, along with past, fake shots of the device.

The new images, shown mounted in a iPod Hi-Fi, shows the device in movie mode, complete with virtual UI, sitting alongside an iPod Nano. There's a shot of the machine being held, and finally a pick of the device in portrait orientation with its music mode virtual UI - it looks just like a regular iPod, but the clickwheel is an on-screen graphic.

With so much interest on the movie mode UI - thanks to past rumours about the device, and the patent applications for such an interfaced recently filed by Apple - that's an obvious thing to incorporate into a fake. Not so the regular iPod UI, and its presence here grants the images, for us, some verisimilitude. As we say, if they are fakes, they're good ones. ®