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."

Comments

iPod Video

[BabyPanther]

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.

Re:iPod Video

[BabyPanther]

I would expect an iPod Video to be different from a normal iPod. Maybe even completely different. Afterall, Apple does do a ton of marketing research and they may completely revise our understanding of how an iPod Video would work. You mentioned a couple of the obvious features:

* Larger video screen.

* Ability to capture video: however, the counter point is -- does the iPod capture audio? Not without additional third party add-ons.

There could be many more features -- firewire connectivity for faster transfer of files and ability to use the iPod Video as a storage container for digital camcorders, and a screen that is NOT viewable from wide angles so that the person sitting next to you on the commuter train can't see what you are watching.

Re:iPod Video

[chromaphobic]

The problem is, the only way much of that would be even feasible is if Apple launched the iTunes Movie Store, or whatever it might be called.

Otherwise how do you get those movies for the kids or that copy of the LOTR trilogy onto the damn thing? Legally and easily, at least. If it's on DVD there's no way to legally copy the movie onto an iPod, short of using a video capture card (as with transferring VHS tapes) to record the output from a DVD player. Which would be prohibitively time consuming for most, in addition to the fact that few people (at the base consumer level) even have video capture devices.

Sure, there's other ways to copy a DVD, but nothing legal. Will Apple be able to get the MPAA to sign on the dotted line when they know it will lead to people circumventing the copy protection to copy their DVD's? Will Apple be able to get people to buy it if they're locked into either buying from the Apple video store or breaking the law to copy their DVD's?

Yes, there's a huge potential market there. But DRM is seriously impeding taking advantage of that market. Unlike music, whose media is mostly (for now) unencumbered with DRM of any kind.

Re:I think it could work - Psp test case

[mrch0mp3rs]

I'm an early adopter of the iPod, and I can't imagine how I got through the first 29 years of my life without one. I've supplanted my everday use of my 15GB 3G iPod with my Shuffle, which provides the soundtrack to 50% of my PSP usage (games). The other 50% of my PSP usage is for movies, and I've been using my PSP to watch a host of MP4s in the past several weeks with round-trip travels from East Coast to West Coast. When I get tired of playing Lumines, I've been watching Ali G, Lewis Black, Chapelle Show -- you'd be amazed how much you can fit on a 512MB Memory Stick when you compress video down to 15fps. The quality still remains remarkably nice on the PSP. I use PSP Video 9 (http://www.pspvideo9.com/) to encode my video files and it's awesome.

Re:No Way

[sockit2me9000]

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

the iMac is a PVR for today

[amichalo]

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.

As Seen on TV and speculation

[goombah99]

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