Apple's new iPod Classic and iPod Nano will require new accessories if you plan to display the videos the players contain on your TV, it has been alleged. Apple has apparently blocked TV output from these new players when they're connected to old docks.

Acccording to a report on newssite iLounge, plugging the two new iPods into an old add-on automatically prevents users turning on the players' TV Out option from the Video Settings menu.

You can watch videos on the Nano or Classic's own screen, but not on a TV through an old iPod dock.

The site alleges Apple has begun equipping its own add-ons with authentication chips, and without such a chip, the Classic or Nano - and presumably the iPod Touch too - won't play video out through their dock connector. Some third-party accessories makers are also using Apple's authentication chips, it claims.

Apple's support website lists the Classic and Nano as both supporting TV-out functionality, and lists Apple's Universal Dock as a device that can be used with the player for TV output. The Apple Universal Dock as a revised version of the older iPod Universal Dock, which is also said to enable TV out on the Classic and Nano.

Interestingly, the Classic manual says: "Use the Apple Component AV Cable, the Apple Composite AV Cable, or the Apple AV Connection Kit. Other similar RCA-type cables might not work."

But there's nothing to indicate the older add-ons can't be used to support TV out on the new players beyond the fact they're simply not mentioned.

However, many of the docks we looked at today that offer TV out are not yet being listed as compatible with the new iPods.

Related stories

• iPod Nano in airport trouser conflagration horror (8 October 2007)

  https://www.theregister.com/2007/10/08/ipod_nano_blaze_horror/

• Energizer powers-up iPod pack (24 September 2007)

  https://www.theregister.com/2007/09/24/energizer_to_go_ipod/

• TwinMos MiniBoom for iPods everywhere (21 September 2007)

  https://www.theregister.com/2007/09/21/twinmos_miniboom/

• Apple ponders $9bn bid for wall-busting wireless iNetwork (10 September 2007)

  https://www.theregister.com/2007/09/10/apple_considers_bid_for_700mhz_wireless_band/

• Apple 'loses' iPod calendar (10 September 2007)

  https://www.theregister.com/2007/09/10/ipod_touch_calender/

• SanDisk guns for iPod Nano with slim video viewer (10 September 2007)

  https://www.theregister.com/2007/09/10/sandisk_launches_view/

• iPod Touch: how the Jesus Phone was really John the Baptist (7 September 2007)

  https://www.theregister.com/2007/09/07/apple_ipod_touch_coup/

• Widescreen iPod Nano debuts... as described (5 September 2007)

  https://www.theregister.com/2007/09/05/apple_ipod_nano_debuts/

• Original iPod revived as iPod Classic (5 September 2007)

  https://www.theregister.com/2007/09/05/apple_ipod_classic/

• Apple rings in changes with iPod Touch (5 September 2007)

  https://www.theregister.com/2007/09/05/apple_ipod_touch/