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The Video iPod is on its Way
An iPod Speculator writes "Is Apple developing a Video iPod? Recent contracts and software releases suggest that a video enabled iPod is forthcoming. If so, what kind of features will it have? I offer some insight into why video is the next step for the iPod and how it might come about in this article."
I disagree with all of those that think the video iPod is not a natural extension. Here are just a few reasons:
* Plug a couple into the car to let a couple kids that can't agree on a movie watch whatever they want.
* Use it to demo videos to clients. (Send an entire iPod to a client as a promotional gift with the new commercial that you created for them. Admittedly this is 0.0005% of the market!)
* Take a movie over to a friends house -- just plug your iPod into the RCA jacks and play the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy.
* Last, but certainly not least for Slashdot geeks, take porn with you everywhere!
iPod Photo is a half a step away from iPodVideo. Natural extension -- like putting on comfy slippers after having worn around sandals all day.
It could also be a *huge* market. Not that competitors have ever swayed Apple, but xBox, Sony Playstation Portal (or whatever it's called), and now cell phones will have video capabilities of different sorts. Apple has a strong track record with music and can bring that expertise to video.
While on the plane with my game boy advance, I've ben asked multiple times "can you watch movies with it". Granted the clamshell game boy looks like a small portable dvd player. I thought the screen was too small, but people seem to think it would be a good idea.
We will see how well PSP does well with movies, from there anything can happen.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
It's interesting. I scoffed a bit at the iPod photo, thinking to myself as you do that the form factor does not match the content it's designed to handle. And really it isn't -- who wants to look at photos on a tiny screen like that? Until you factor in the ability to hook it up to a TV or a projector, which suddenly allows it to be a hand-held slideshow presenter.
I imagine the same thing is in mind for the iPodVideo. The form factor makes it nearly useless to play video from itself, but when you consider the ability to play it in on any video source? Suddenly the thought of ripping dvds with iTunes and having the iPod carry around my videos to play wherever I want sounds pretty neat.
That's not to say I'd buy one, thought. Admittedly I don't have a use for the iPod photo and thus I haven't even considered spending that wad of cash on it. Given the meager sales Apple has been seeing for it, I'm not alone. I imagine the price point for the iPod Video would be far higher than the Photo one, and the market for it will be even smaller. They should really be careful with this one. Just my 2 cents.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
The fact the iTMS is suddenly selling music videos is clearly not ground breaking. It is, at most, a curiousity. Some folks will download some videos simple to see how it works. (I probably will.) For Apple, however, its a public beta of their video distribution channels. Its important that they test out their distribution chain end to end. This is a lot easier with 3 minute music videos rather than all 12 hours of LOTR. The iPod isn't going away any time soon, but clearly in several years, the cell will absorb these functionalities. (Cell phone outfits are already planning (announced?) cell phones with hard drives.)
What's more likely is a home entertainment device, probably tagged with the iPod moniker -- iPod TV if you will. Imagine a small (probably white) box that you sit next to your TV. Plug in a couple cables and {poof!} you can see all the media on your mac. It'll probably have ethernet as well as Airport Extreme. It'll be zero-conf and automagically find your mac via Bonjour/Rendzvous/whatever. A lot of this functionality is available on your TiVo today, at least music and photos. iPod TV will likely provide similiar functionality plus video. On the mac side, iTunes will expand to encompass video as well, managing video playlists and libraries, all exported to the iPodTV. iTMS being able to deliver video content over the internet is the last piece to this puzzle. Jobs has got to annouce something at WWDC.
Oh, and BTW, bluetooth on the iPod is stupid for syncing. There's just not enough bandwidth. Airport and Bonjour could do the job though. That's not entirely crazy.
I wanted to buy one of those VCD-playing CD/MP3-players, but I couldn't find one in a local store which seemed to be good enough qualitywise; not to mention that VCDs never been popular here... And at the time my computer wasn't powerful enough for it to be an option to reencode DVDs; and even if it had been it still would have been more trouble (and costly and timeconsuming) than it'd be worth, compared with simply bringing the DVD to where I was going, or even renting a VHS-version of the same movie.
Then we started seeing more and more portable DVD-players, which were great... you could see the movie on a small screen... But by then I had a DVD-playing powerbook with 15" screen; which I could connect directly to any tv/screen/projector available to me.
Nowadays I carry an iPod with me most of the time, and the powerbook's been replaced (for portable uses outside my home) by an iPaq; I find even CD-players to be too big to carry with me...
An iPod Video OTOH... it could be slightly bigger/heavier than my existing iPod without it bothering me much (as it'll replace my existing iPod), I could store several non-reencoded DVDs on it (or a lot of reencoded stuff)... connecting it directly to tvs would be great, but since it's already got a small screen it'd be perfect for watching news etc on the bus.
Yes, that's right, there are people which wouldn't mind the small screensize...
perl -e'print$_{$_} for sort%_=`lynx -dump svanstrom.com/t`'
I posted this last week but it got lost in the modding shuffle. I'm really interested to see if anyone else agrees with this so I'm going to repost it here:
Apple is building a remote. It will really be a thin client/palm-style device. But it will be marketed as a remote for your entire life. Look, apple's already said that they view thier media in a modular way. That's because they are a weird amalgamation of a software and hardware. This model really affects thier design in a fundamental way. They view both as feeding the other. Unlike Microsoft. Or Sony. Both of those companies don't have the (ability) (balls) (forsight) to realize that you really do benefit from doing both. That's because the new tech market is turning towards usability as it's prime selling point. Witness the iPod. But you know this.
Now, think about the home media center. What is the primary user interface element? The remote. For all intents and purposes, the equipment has acheived a level of abstraction in our heads. What do the butttons on a TV do? Who cares? The remote can do it. My AV receiver doesn't even have all the bottons on the face. Only on the remote. And this abstraction yeilds some interesting results. One, that you handle your remote more times in the average day than a book or your keyes. We don't even realize how much time we spend with these damn things. They are integral. And they almost uniformly suck. How many remotes do you use? How much fumbling? Your universal remote does most things. But what about when you need to schedule and rank your DVR? The remote falls apart. The fuction is mapped to some button that is not intuitive. It's a giant mess. Sort like the MP3 market ummm.... four years ago.
While the remote is bad at it's primary function, it falls apart completely when it comes to digital media. Enter microsoft with their assinine "Media Center PC" Why God, why? Why do you need a whole new computer in your living room? You already have a computer somewhere in your house. But Microsoft is a software company. They need to sell the software. They're trying to break out of this with the Xbox. And they will haves success. But it's a lackluster implimentation of the central problem: the remoteis the media center, see. How are people going to interact with the Xbox? With the controller and a TV monitor. This is crummy, in my mind, because if thier view of media is to add another box to the den that just happens to deal with my digital media as a second fuction, I call bullshit. Let each componant do what it is primarily good at. The Xbox controller , even if it includes that rollerball thing, still is a poor way to interact with media. It'll be good for gamers, sure. But that will color the rest of it functionality. It already has, really. See, there's no big, legible display to speak of on the damn thing. So you abstract the abstract. The Xbox took over your media and the controller takes over your Xbox, which makes you look at the tv screen as the navigation aid. I'm not sure if I can exactly explain why.... but this feels icky to me. So, this is where Apple steps in. The Airport express is an important clue. The idea is make a centeral computer and stream over the air the media to a router near the media center. But make the router "magic" Using, I don't know, Rendevou...err... Bonjour. Which just got released for the PC, yes? Pieces are starting to fall into place. So, what's misssing is a remote that doesn't suck for your media that can interact wirelessly with your media. Something like a big lcd touchscreen. And only like an LCD screen. Nothing else. It's the display and the input. Simple. Elegant. Getting cheap. This is a thin client, really. But it won't be marketed as such. No, it'll be the iPod for the rest of your life. It'll be your remote. It'll be your newspaper. It'll be your media manipulator (edit movies, work on garage band tracks, retouch photos). It will be your morning newspaper. It will be the thing you pick up when you put your iPod down. Think about it. All the technology is there. But
Lots of people are speculating about the "iPod Video", even though Jobs and others have pointed out that while music is a "background" to daily taskes, watching a video is an action that few want to commit 2+ hrs to on a 2" screen.
But, I propose that the latest itteration of the iMac G5 is the perfect "iPod Video". Here's why:
- G5 processor can decode H.264
- Upgraded graphics cards in the iMac line can now handily manage HD video
- Beefy 1GB Eithernet can get content (from the iMovie Video Store?) in a flash (too bad Cable/DSL lines can't fill that but it's atleast faster than a USB2 iPod connection)
- BTO options for internal 400 GB at 7200 rpm means no HD lag or filled drives
- External Firewire drives and the Dual layer DVD burners in the iMac G5 allow for archiving large video libraries
- 17" and 20" flat screen options also have VESA mounts for dramatic display opportunities
- standard bluetooth means wireless keyboards and pointers from the sofa
- add an Eye TV 1080i tuner and you have a great PVR
Even if Apple introduced an "iPod Video", I am not in the market. But with an iMovie Video Store, an iMac G5, cable/ADSL modem, and a stack of dual layer media, I am in the market to dispose of my Blockbuster membership card.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
If As Seen on TV is to be believed there were two key points he made.
1) the continous run life of an ipod disk is measured in hours. mp3 and tiny photo loads are quick and played from cache. Movie playing would be real time streaming from disk and would kill it.
2) watch the airport express.
3) video is immersive and people dont do it on the GO (aside from cars which again are sedentary)
The key I think is 2. As Cringley observed, the mac mini does not need an optical audio jack because it's on the airport express. And the mac mini does not need the HDTV horse power since that too can be offloaded to a custom $20 chip. Thus the mac mini is the internet download appliance and storage center. the processing power will be be custom and hence the need for a standard.
But I think there is an even more important reason to offload the decoding to hardware. DRM. forget what you feel about DRM and just ask what would be the best way to do it.
You dont want to do it on a custom reconfigurable computer. Because as we have seen repeatedly this means that you can intercept the digital decode step and rip a perfect copy with no DRM.
Microsoft is trying to use paladium and now Janus to move the decode step out to a remote piece of trusted hardware closer to the delivery point, and most importantly away from the compute program.
an airport express like device would serve.
The trouble in implementing a real airport express would be the badnwidth needed. Can wireless support real time video streams. It certainly cant if the video stream is uncompressed. thus if it is to work it has to be sent compressed. so once again we are led back to the decoding at the airport express not at the computer.
so I suspect all the clues about some modular video device are really about a new airport express module and not a video ipod
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