If you just want to watch music videos online, you can visit Web sites like music.aol.com or mtv.com. But when it comes to downloading and owning videos, the iTunes Music Store became Music Video Central almost overnight; it offers over 2,000 videos that can be downloaded for $2 apiece and viewed on the new video-capable iPod. How does this format, invented decades ago for standard-size televisions, play on a a 2.5-inch screen? The answer is good, bad and otherwise. Herewith, a somewhat representative sampling.

'Vertigo' (U2)

Many music-video directors have struggled to make a video of the band playing that doesn't look just like every other video of the band playing.

In "Vertigo," the directors Alex Courtes and Martin Fougerol shot the band on a crazy, undulating, concentric-circle computer-generated landscape, and added what looks like thick black digital smoke pouring off each band member. It's a lively and irresistible effect; the fans went crazy, and "Vertigo" won the 2004 Grammy for best short-form music video.

It won't win for best video on the iPod, though. The problem is the film's widescreen format. Two-thirds of the iPod's TV-square screen is wasted by black letterbox bars; worse, the remaining image is shrunken down to play in the middle third. There's just not enough detail left for satisfying viewing.