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No Video iPod Coming?
Fuzzball963 writes "ThinkSecret is reporting that a video iPod is not going to be released on Oct.12th. Instead, the announcement will be an 80 GB update to the iPod, along with size improvements on the color models. The analysts seem to say that the video iPod is in development, but that lack of a licensing agreement between Apple and the studios has made it a no-go for now." From the article: "While a video-capable iPod remains in development, without the agreements nor infrastructure in place to deliver movies to customers through a store-like interface, Apple sees little value in releasing such an iPod at this time. Apple insiders have also said executives see consumers needing the capability to easily import the DVD movies they own to a usable format (similar to the encoding functionality provided for audio CDs with iTunes) in order for a video iPod to be truly successful. The complexity to date of accomplishing such a feat has meant only a minority of computer users have dabbled with watching full-length movies on their computer, with most of those having acquired the content through file sharing services."
Music videos?
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
Makes sense when they explain it but really if we all just wait a few days there will be no speculation =p
Last time I checked, iTunes Music Store had music videos. Put the video iPod on the market, let the movie folks see the potential just in music videos.
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This was already posted in the comments of the "Video iPod Coming Soon" post the other day.
Home-made movies?
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy
So, I think the lack of a Video iPod is no great loss. What Apple are missing out on is a decent iPod-style phone. According to The Register, the Motorola ROKR iTunes phone isn't shifting in any significant quantity. Perhaps if Apple and Motorola had come up with something more like the (admittedly flawed) Bang & Olufsen Serene then it would be a real seller. That's the kind of unified gadget there's a market for.. a good mobile/music player hybrid. B&O showed that it's possible. But Apple have either missed the boat on this one, or perhaps they do have something in development in-house.
Really though.. if I want to watch a film while I'm away.. I stick a DVD in my laptop. That has a nice big screen and I've never run into DRM issues with that. Yet.
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Granted, it is not as easy as ripping a CD, but if anyone can streamline this into a single-step process(to the end-user anyway), it would be Apple.
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- Gov. Jesse Ventura
Thank god they didn't decide to go the route of Sony with a special format (such as UMD) that can only be played on a tiny machine. It's just a cash-cow for sony, and I hope that it doesn't work (I'd hate to see yet another competing video format, one that isn't even for the main television, it would be like getting movies on gameboy cartridges).
It's going to be a VIDEO iPod. Did anyone notice that free music videos on iTMS, which used to be updated lots haven't since June? Perhaps apple isn't giving them away because they want to sell them now!
I very much doubt they will launch with movies. If they do it will be limited. They will simply market it as an added extra similar to album art on the color iPods.
I love iPods, and I love my new Nano...but I really can never see myslef watching any video on anything less that a 32" screen. I hope this will not turn out to be the move that would unbuckle Job's success so far
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I don't see the use for such device. When do you actually want to watch music videos on such small display? When I carry a music player around, I do so in my pocket and I want it so small that it won't be in the way. I believe that a PVP (portable video player) would be a great thing though, although still not that necessary.
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The complexity to date of accomplishing such a feat has meant only a minority of computer users have dabbled with watching full-length movies on their computer, with most of those having acquired the content through file sharing services."
Yes, putting in a DVD and have it autostart is really complex, and prevents me from "watching full-length movies on [my] computer". My friend has a flashy new phone capable of playing video, it has a tool for ripping DVDs which is equally simple. I don't see myself getting a video iPod though, I've never missed having something like that.
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I mean a whopping 80 gigabytes of storage for just static pictures and music. What's the point of that?
If it can be connected to any TV.
I mean imagine, you could go visit a friend, and bring your movie/porn collection...
Its called the iPod-Linux. If you install Linux on your iPod Photo, it will play video. It takes 24 bit uncompressed AVI files and splits up the sound. It takes each frame separately and stores it as a slideshow. Next, it goes to the slideshow and accelerates the frames to 30 frames a second while playing audio in the background. Voila! Although the screen is small, no screen is too small for the Boondock Saints.
This wouldn't be easy. Where's the software for everyday end-users to record and edit video? Did Apple suddenly create a magical algorithm that cut the size of a 30 minute show to less than a gigabyte, even if only at 320 x 320 resolution? Since the bandwidth for podcasts is relatively small, who will supply the bandwidth for transferring videos?
If Apple has managed to find a way to solve all those problems... well, I'll just wait 'til after the announcement to get excited.
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
Jobs has said time and time again that he thinks the idea of a video iPod is stupid and doesn't want to make one. And yet, Slashdot keeps acting like it will be a reality. He even went so far as to mock companies that were pursuing portable video.
I've actually posted a comment similar to this a year ago. Here is the Apple Special Event 04. 12:35 into the video.
.. there was a comment a couple of weeks ago (in a nano story I think), saying that a 80gb would be announced very soon.. can anyone find the post/poster?
"While a video-capable iPod remains in development, without the agreements nor infrastructure in place to deliver movies to customers through a store-like interface, Apple sees little value in releasing such an iPod at this time"
80gb ? Im crazy about music and I've got roughly 350 cd albums I've hand ripped and encoded at a high bitrate. Last time I checked my 30gb iPod has about 7gb free. I wanted a 40gb model but at the time I bought mine the next size up was the 60gb model - that just seemed excessive so i went with the lower model. Im curious does anyone actually have 80gb of legal mp3's or better still a CD collection large enough to fill one of these up? I can see the advantage of this for people who rip to lossless format. But I would imagine most people a reasonable compression/quality for a portable device like the iPod?
Personally I cant see a lot of people forking out for an 80gb model. Joe public seems happy enough with the 4 and 6gb models. Video iPod is much more likely to get people spending (especially when apple have perfected whatever magical hardware/software interface they have in the pipeline)
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Nowadays I record certain TV show (talkshows, documentaries) to watch 'm on the go using my Sony PSP and PSPware. Quite convenient, since I normally don't make time to watch tv. I think there is real potential in that field for a decent mobile videoplayer.
I've been holding off on a powerbook anticipating an upgrade. I REALLY hope they at the very least increase the memory speed on the powerbooks.
I live in Seoul, and everyday I see people using PSPs (yes to play games as well as watch films, of course) or iRiver players. Same goes for Tokyo, and although I've never been there, I imagine New York probably has the same scenario. So there's definitely a market out there.
As has been said before, the ROKR is doomed to fail as long as carriers continue to charge insane prices for data. Also, in my opinion, that is one ugly phone. They should start using mini-SDram instead of flash memory in order to facilitate design.
the ipod video for those who choose to install podzilla?
Many years ago I used to work in OpenVMS. With every release we would get a pack of CD's with just about every bit of software you could buy for VMS from DEC.
You couldn't run the software without paying for it first because of all the DRM in VMS. Doing it this way just simplified distribution.
Now I wonder if Apple could do a similar thing with the iPod. You subscribe to a particular category of music (not everything) and then pay for what you listen to. 80G might be enough for this.
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It would be a brilliant move though... Release the nano, wait a month for stocks to dwindle, then BAM! 80 GB Video iPod. Just in time for xmas shopping season. It's probably going to be the video AirTunes though, which would be a good way for Apple to gauge the market for a possible iTunes Video Store. As we've seen with the online Serenity teaser, it's definitely possible to stream high quality content to thousands of people simultaneously. I really wouldn't mind paying a few dollars an episode for Battlestar Galactica... It would be a much more tangible way to support the show and help ensure future seasons, since I don't have a Nielsen box in my house (and I always miss it on TV anyway and have to download it).
I have a nokia 6230. This is a regular joe - standard nokia candy bar form factor series 40 - phone. Its not a smart phone / mobile computer / email executive toy. This is a phone marketed to kids / fashion crowd. An updated version is already in the shops marketed as free with a 12 month contract (i.e. in j6p's eyes this is a completely free phone).
.3gp video format which is just a rebadged cutting-edge highdef format repurposed for embedded devices. really gets amazing small file sizes, with acceptable picture.
... You can download the j2me toolkit from sun and write your own programs/games for free. There is open source community around j2me for instance I use j2meVNC for remote desktop access which is useable if not a pleasure. All this rolled into one device Yes it sucks at almost all its 2ndary roles - but then it is virtually FREE!
now using just dvd-decryptor and the software (transcoder) that comes with the phone you can copy a complete dvd-film to the memory card. a film takes up about 100MB. I have a 1GB of cf memory. I generally carry a couple of films and several mp3/aac albums everywhere i go.
Cons:
1. The screen is low resulution so the quality is pretty bad.
2. have to break the drm on the dvd. No legal way to get mainstream content.
3. nokias pc software sucks. Its really really bad - can't stress that enough. If it was even 60% as good as itunes interface i'd be happy.
4. syncs over bluetooth, not fast enough for me, but newer faster bluetooth versions are already here.
Pros.
1. uses
2. Can share music/videos with other peoples phones with a few button presses - all don over bluetooth. No drm thankyou very much.
3. Phone has a built in speaker so several people can watch (squint at) the film.
This phone is a gameboy,video player, ipod,crackberry,phone,pager, calendar,internet browser,wap browser
So for me all apple would be bringing to party is a slick interface, some nasty DRM, and a big fat price tag. It might sell but only because j6p doesn't know how good his 6320 could be.
Apple had better release the iphone in the next couple of years or they're spent.Nokia, sony and microsoft will eat them for breakfast.
'Be the change you want to see in the world' - Al Gore
Obviously, ThinkSecret is wrong.
Karma Schmarma
So you arranged the bits yourself?
Yes, Apple could do that -- there's a number of online music services that let you listen to as much as you want for a flat monthly fee.
Steve Jobs lips are a like a long distance runner. They keep going and going and going...
And when you talk that long, its inevitable that stupid stuff will dribble from your mouth sometimes.
Anyway, don't worry, stevie is still god, Apple is the best, blah blah, you can wipe the spittle off your chin now.
Steve Jobs still believes video mobile devices aren't practicle, so I doubt Apple is intending the release of a full-scale multimedia device.
But video playback on current color versions of the iPod is trivial, really. I am sure a firmware update could make it happen on any color/photo related product. All you need is a slideshow that shows 24fps and sync that to a music track, hardly a stretch for the color iPods.
If anything, Apple will release an iPod that can play back DRM video content ONLY. That is, it can play videos from the ITMS but that is it, anyone believing Apple will come out with a device that will allow playback of ripped DVD's in a variety of formats like DIVX or MPEG is dreaming.
This would make the Video iPod quite literally a Video iPod, playing music videos. If Apple wanted an iPod to playback movies, they would call it the Movie iPod.
Also, releasing a video iPod would trump the iPod Nano, a move that wouldn't be bright for Apple considering the lackluster sales and questions of quality in this new device. I would think Apple would want to ensure that buzz about the Nano keeps up, especially going into the holiday season. I am sure that updating the iPod model lines to make all iPods sleeker and smaller is in the works, banking on research they used to make the Nano, but any "Spectacular" new iPod features would simply end buzz surrounding the Nano, not even a month after its release and sales would make it a truely failed product release.
Anyways, speculating on what Apple will do can give you a headache, I for one don't count on anything Apple says or does until the product is available for sale on their website, a practice I wish more people would take to heart rather then endless rumors and speculation.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
tiny cartoon or movie shorts like they already have for gameboy advance (although crappy and pseudo flash based). There are plenty of short videos ..blooper videos, that star wars/COPS spoof .. troops. There could be a whole industry of 3 to 5 minute video shorts and they dont have to all be comedy .Like they may even be HOW TO videos like recipe or cooking videos. However, since i am cheap, I am not paying more than 5 cents each.
If Apple comes out with a video ipod it'll be interesting to see if they allow people to rip their existing DVD's and play them on the ipod. Or will they force people to buy the videos from Apple in some propreitery format.
You know Apple doesnt have to come up with these ideas, people give 'em to them. In my opinion, Apple is more evil and moopolistic than microsoft because not only do they bundle software that competes directly with third party software makers, they also won't open up the Fairplay format. At least Microsoft's DRM formats anyone can implement.
So they're moving toward an 80 GB model. Scaling up their estimations, that would hold 20,000 songs.
How much is enough? Will there come a point when we say, "I don't NEED more storage on this device?" For example, with music, if you can store more songs than you'd ever have time to listen to, you're done.
Sure, video would up the limit considerably. And maybe someday video will give way to virtual reality. I just wonder sometimes where it will end. Or maybe it will plateau out - like cars, for example. The model T was slower than today's cars, but at this point we're not trying to make cars faster. They're fast enough already, and can be improved in other ways. Will technology see an end to the "more and faster" stage? What does the Slashdot community think?
So lemme get this straight, he sent out invitationals with BIG red curtains on them and the catch phrase he uses for a big big announcement... for hard drive upgrade and some cosmetics? Really? Come on. Okay maybe it's not the video iPod, i'll bite that, but don't you think that whatever announcement they are going to make is at least going to be somewhat big? Unless this guy uses this catch phrase all the time:
Jobs: "Oh, and one more thing... i have to go to the bathroom. Excuse me."
www.omglolh4x.com
I guess 99 cents per movie wasn't enough for those greedy Hollywood studios.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
"The complexity to date of accomplishing such a feat has meant only a minority of computer users have dabbled with watching full-length movies on their computer, with most of those having acquired the content through file sharing services."
... slashdotters should know what that's about. There's no excuse to be un-informed.
Does that mean they'll leave me alone to watch my full-length feature films acquired through file sharing services in peace? Imagine that. No DRM, no suits by the RIAA. Of course, I don't get them through bitTorrent.
alt.binaries.documentaries is a hoot!
(Alex Jones even gives out his hard-hitting feature-length documentaries for free)
alt.binaries.great and
alt.binaries.radio.misc
each have full-length recordings of all my favorite reality talk-radio programs
NNTP
bullsh*t. apple knows full well that video piracy will make the video ipod explode just as music piracy made the ipod explode. what's REALLY going on here?
So, while I may not have a huge collection, I do have a reasonably large one and at high bit rates (192+ VBR) they tend to take up some room.
Plus, my iPod has a few essential data files on it (such as the code to manage the iPod written in Perl) and some pictures of the family.
if you could buy it pre loaded with the genre of your choice.
of course 10,000$ in advance would suck....
but the concept is interesting, you could go to the online store,start clicking what music you want at so much a gig,(whatever they work out) then order the player, it ships ready to rock (or jazz or whatever). No requirement to fill it up all at once, but a very decent selection could be made.
They'd obviously have to make better pricing arrangements (a buck a song in advance just wouldn't fly), but eventually I think the content providers will bingo to bulk and very very cheap sales are still sales, better than *no sale* and fight copying. If the content is loaded at the factory, bandwith costs are dramatically reduced so it could be offered cheaper, and costs to the content providers would theoretically be identical, so they would actually make more money, even if it meant they cut loose with more copies for much cheaper. And hassle to the consumer is really reduced, making happy and legal campers. I don't think at this time you could do it with individual songs easily or cheaply, but if you were presented with a choice like "10 gigs assorted metal" or "5 gigs assorted C&W" whatever and the price was reasonable enough people might go for it when ordering a new player.
Of course, I have no idea if anyone is even doing this now,selling preloaded units, I don't follow that portable music player scene all that much except a few articles I read here. I use a one dollar (full retail price at biglots) tiny FM only radio for my portable music when I am outside, and that is infrequent. When I work it's usually in a quite loud environment so I have to use a full noise cancelling over the ear headset. I tried it with earbuds for media content then the headset and it sorta works but not that well. probably need to just build my own into the comfortable noise reduction units first, so can cancel out the outside noise, and add the inside the headset content I want. Maybe, sounds like work though...
meh I am one cheap dood HAHAHAHA!.......been holding out for a very full featured pda or smartphone to hit 100$ or so before I get anything like that. Has to do everything, wireless net, media playback, cellphone,short range walkie talkie, simple computing tasks, etc and non ridiculous screen and keyboard size. It'll get there in a coupla years probably, judging by flashmemory improvements and better processors for gadgets.
The most fundamental reason is that it sucks to watch movies on a 3" or smaller screen. The beauty of sound is that the size of the generator doesn't matter (much - audiophiles will point out the lack of base, clipping/overshooting on square wave tests, etc.); this is just not true of visuals. The only way around this is if someone can put a 3" screen 3" from your eyeballs (to get the same angular coverage as a movie or TV screen) and hold it there, comfortably.
iGlasses, anyone?
"What's the point of having a (gasp!) 80 GIG IPOD?"
.mps. (We also use our iPods connected to our home stereo systems, too.) We travel a lot out of the country, and when we travel, we don't want to listen to a relative handful of pop songs -- we want to have the highest quality versions of as much music as we can comfortably carry with us, and a 4 gig iPod, to us, is simply laughably small.
Dude, if Apple made a 200 gig iPod, I'd buy it, and I could fill it up immediately. My wife and I own well over 2000 CDs, of virtually every kind of music -- rock, classical, techno, ambient, new age, world, film soundtracks, lounge, jazz -- the list goes on, and I've ripped virtually our entire CD collection to the highest quality 320 bps
Right now, my 60 gig Photo iPod holds 7185 "songs" (if you call some 30-minute classical pieces "songs"), or almost 17 DAYS worth of music. Yep, that's a lot -- but it still represents less than half of my film soundtrack collection alone.
Not everyone using an iPod wants to constantly cycle music through it, or doesn't mind if he/she's listening to the latest pop crap recorded at a low bit rate. When I'm traveling, I want as much of my home CD collection with me as possible, and I want it to sound fantastic, because I may be hooking it up to an external source.
Video is soooo different to audio on a portable device.
With audio you have the same experience as you'd have in the 'full' sense PLUS listening to an album over and over again is entirely normal and expected. With video, you may watch the content once or possibly twice in a small form factor and that's it. Why would anybody buy an iPod movie for full bucks when they can rip? I think the movie studios are all too aware of this which is why they will never agree to a licence similar to the one set up for ITMS. Sure, the same could be said for music but paying 99c or $10 for an album that you can burn easily to a CD (how common are DVD burners?) is an entirely different matter.
I have no idea what will be announced at this event, but I think it's safe to assume that Thinksecret's assertion that Apple will simply announce modest updates to it's iPod, Powerbook and Power Mac product lines is highly unlikely. Apple only orchestrates these types of highly-publicized events when they are introducing a brand new or substantially different product.
I just can't see Jobs deliberately getting the media buzz going with his cryptic little invitation and then getting on stage and saying "look, here's our new 80 GB iPod and our dual-core Power Mac...oh, and one more thing...our Powerbooks have higher resolution screens".
Something new will be announced. I'd bet against a video iPod, but this event is most assuredly not for announcing product updates.
I highly doubt Apple will release an iPod video, the content just isn't there. Additionally, an iPod screen is too small, even if it were stretched the screen to three inches, or something of that nature. And who is going to bother hooking up the iPod to their T.V. each time they want to watch a video?
But I remember watching a stream of Motorola's press event, and they stated that Apple would release it's phone before the end of this quarter.
Could it be there were some delay in the phone they're developing? Is this Special Event scheduled before Apple's current quarter ends? I'd appreciate a response to the latter question.
FWIW, some more analysts weigh in at an article in eWEEK. They agree that one problem would be that ripping a DVD would be illegal. Still, they kind of say that there's no reason Apple could, but what's the angle? Of course, none of us could figure out the angle before Jobs introduced the iPod -- and then it was all clear. That's why he earns the big buck ($1/yr).
No, of course not, we didn't invent this story. There really is a Video iPod in development. Don't listen to Jobs, he's trying to cover it up.
And no, this isn't bait and switch. We aren't switching to a more likely story to make it seem that we are guessing right. It is not as if we had a history of fabulation.
Yeah, right.
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
Sure the screen would be too small, but what if they made an ipod that could record shows directly from a TV into the proper format instead of all the hassle of coverting it with a computer? Then it would be like a mini Tivo. Is that even possible?
The most compelling evidence against a video update can be seen in the recent update of iTunes to version 5.x. It's a safe bet that Apple would save the first digit upgrade and interface revamp for a month if they had a video iPod ready to go.
Standing on the shoulders of giants.
Wouldn't it be against the DMCA to copy a CD to your computer at all? That was my understanding, surly people couldn't copy a DVD to their computer that'd be illigal too.
Poor Americans, move to Canada.
... if you know where to look. Slap the "ipod" brand name, make it completely white, install restrictive firmware + jack up price 2x.
a uv.html
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Warranty: 90 Days
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Features:
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- 1GB on board memory
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- Supports MP1, MP2, MP3, WMA, WMV, ASF, WAV, and JPG
- Software converter converts multiple video file formats into MPEG4 compatible
- USB Storage
Package Includes:
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Product Requirements:
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I don't understand why people think a video iPod wouldn't be sucessful. People listen to iPods on the subway and trains, instead of playing Tetris on thier cell phones while listening to their iPods I'd like to watch a movie on my iPod. I'd buy one.
Forget feature movies for now. The obvious first step is to start off small and infectious. Watch Apple announce an integration with Google Video. There was an iTunes/Google rumour or hint going around. Video Podcasts, Viral videos, home-made clips, free shorts and portfolio clips The Star Wars Kid, Numa Numa, Leeeroy Let the first Video iPod trade in that content to get the ball rolling. This is a great way to test the water, check the popularity, security, and potential business models for video. Experiment with selling music videos at first, then after all that go for feature movies.
Are industry analysts ever right except due to the statistically low chance that they'd be always wrong?
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
Everyone seems to be overlooking some sort of video-capable airport. If Apple does release music videos, people are relegated to listening to them through their computer speakers, as there is no way to sink the audio output and the screen with the airport. Seems to me releasing music videos, including a video iPod, would be pointless without an upgrade to the Airport first.
You can rip a DVD using Apple's Disk Utility program. What you get is disk image, suitable for burning if you have big enough blanks, or playing using DVD Player by mounting the image. Sure, it isn't a small file, but an 80 GB iPod could hold several. The problem is when you want to encode that into a different format.
Here (sorry no direct link) is the product website. It can play compressed MPEG4. What I have to do is rip a DVD to MPEG4. Then I use Cowan's software to properly compress and resize the movie (160 x 128) for the X5. The movies get down to about 100 MB in size, so many movies can fit on its 20 GB mini hard drive. On my Athlon 64 notebook, the entire process takes 4 HOURS :-(
The screen is small, so it's better to NOT have the widescreen version of a movie. It just makes the movie even smaller. However, the small screen is still good enough to watch a movie when you are desperate for something to do on a plane or something.
In the future I am sure there will be players with higher quality video playback and video out. That way you can plug in into your hotel room TV or something.
It has got to be bigger than minor upgrades to the current iPods. The invitations to this event seemed to suggest something big: "One more thing..." and if that one more thing is just a hard drive upgrade to the iPods than a lot of journalists are going to be mad that they made the trip out to california. By calling media events like this, Steve Jobs spends a lot of his social capital, the press is willing to come because they expect something awesome. If he dissapoints, he will be limited in his ability to do this in the future. I do not think he will disappoint. These upgraded iPods he may announce, yes, but there will be something bigger, it may not be an iPod, but it will be something cool. - Geddes
Steve Jobs still believes video mobile devices aren't practicle
Just like he and the other Apple drones spent a year or so dissing the expensive, high-end Flash players before introducing the ipod mini? I recall hearing quite a lot of apple fans parroting Apple's talking points: flash players suck, the capacity is tiny, everyone wants 60GB, and so on. And today what is Apple's current ipod de jour? The Nano - a high-end, expensive Flash player. In fact, Apple even ditched its hard disk mini player in favour of a flash player.
Don't believe everything you hear. The only reason Apple is currently "down" on video is because it hasn't figured out to make a killing from it. Note that the desires of pod owners don't enter into it. It would be trivial to movie-enable colour ipods with a firmware update. But since Apple hasn't figured out how to *sell* movie content it sees no point giving people extra features. In the end, it's not about the ipod as an enabling device for personal media consumption and remixing but its positioning as a channel for Apple monetize.
I prefer my media devices DRM-free, thanks.
Da Blog
Jobs has said time and time again that he thinks the idea of a video iPod is stupid
Just like he and the other Apple drones spent a year or so dissing the expensive, high-end Flash players before introducing the ipod mini? I recall hearing quite a lot of apple fans parroting Apple's talking points: flash players suck, the capacity is tiny, everyone wants 60GB, and so on. On stage during the mini inro, he even spent an abnormal amount of time dissing existing Flash players. And today what is Apple's current ipod de jour? The Nano - a high-end, expensive Flash player. In fact, Apple even ditched its hard disk mini player in favour of a flash player.
Don't believe everything you hear. The only reason Apple is currently "down" on video is because it hasn't figured out to make a killing from it. Note that the desires of pod owners don't enter into it. It would be trivial to movie-enable colour ipods with a firmware update. But since Apple hasn't figured out how to *sell* movie content it sees no point giving people extra features. In the end, it's not about the ipod as an enabling device for personal media consumption and remixing but its positioning as a channel for Apple monetize.
I prefer my media devices DRM-free, thanks.
Da Blog
Lame 3.90.3 with the --Alt-preset-standard switch sounds better than any CBR under 320 and has a size around 160. (depending on track)
Well over 98% of the population can not ABX a between a lossless track and an APS track.
Here's something I've been wondering the last week. In the flurry of HD-DVD vs. Blu-ray bickering in the press, "managed copy" keeps coming up. To make a managed copy of an HD-DVD, a computer rips it, strips off the AACS DRM, and wraps on a new DRM layer (MS will use Windows Media DRM, of course, and you'd expect other companies to use their own DRM layers). This is all legal and approved. So the studios will let us rip HD-DVDs (with conditions), and the studios believe that HD is much more valuable than SD. So why can't the computer industry convince the DVD CCA to amend their rules to allow managed copy for regular DVDs?
I looked at the comments of this article specifically to see if anyone mentioned HandBrake. It makes it super, super easy to record DVDs into H.264 format, which looks amazing. Of course, it does take for friggin' ever. It took like 20 hours to encode a movie to H.264 on my 1.33 GHz PowerBook (if I remember correctly). I can't wait for my family to get an iMac or something to make it faster. Hell, it might even be worth it just to get a Mac mini to use as a dedicated ripping machine, as to not type up your main computer.
A lot of companies have tried making the ipod the central music player in a household, but the stereo limit is slightly annoying.
I really don't think it'd take that much room to add the proper plug on the top of the ipod. Eh.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Size -- other poratables are too big.
Weight -- they also also too heavy.
Content -- there is no content to put on it. Copyright issues are everywhere!
Output screens -- they are simply too small for video.
So how could that change?
If the iPod could be made to do video playback without getting bigger or heavier, there was a source for content, and you had some kind of output, you bet he'd do it.
For output, the 12" PB shows you how it could be done -- a simple mini-DVI slot would do it. Or you could use the existing iPod photo video out.
For size, well, that's where technology will help. The playback could be done probably within a year or two. Even now, the technology could certainly fit into the relatively bulky iPod form factor (for a price).
The content is probably the stickler. iTunes rips CDs, but could it rip DVDs? What about importing other movies you download? There are no online download services.. I suppose it could sync with iMovie like it syncs with iPhoto, but obviously Apple would like to have a real content download medium. No longer would you pay 60-100$ for a season of TV on DVD; instead, you could get it downloaded for 20$. That'd be worth it.
I doubt the media producers are cooperating.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Ripping a dvd to an mp4 isn't complex. It's trivial. Just look at Handbrake. Apple probably has a version of iTunes that does just this already.
So why say this? Is this a leak at all? I think what's really going on is that the studios all want to do their own thing as far as marketing movies online and so negotiations with Apple have suffered for it. Apple knows that nobody wants to subscribe to 5 online movie stores and that people WILL buy a video iPod. So they "Leak" this info about how the movie studios are the ones in the way to put pressure on the studios at the negotiating table. Same thing behind them saying record labels are 'greedy' for wanting variable iTMS pricing and a cut of iPod sales. Their contract with them is up soon so they want the labels to feel like if they don't play ball, the market will be pissed at them.
So the "complexity" argument is bullshit. They probably have a version of iTunes or some next generation audio - video library app ready to ship that already does all this dead simple. They just need the market to kick the studios in the nards before they ship.
URL:http://ipodlinux.org/The Ipodlinux team has a working videoplayer for the ipod. It only plays about 5-10 minutes of a clip and you have to convert the videos to uncompressed AVIs it still is a video player. Currently the 4-g ipods aren't supported but there are GNUs for it
To quote cringely (who quoted someone else)
first try http://www.apple.com/%5Bwhatever garbage you wish]
then try http://www.apple.com/movies
does it mean anything? or does it fan the rumor flames?
I have it on good authority that the announcement on Wednesday will actually be announcing two related products: a new iPod and a pair of bluetooth sunglasses. These glasses will have micro video cameras mounted stylishly on each arm that stream the sounds and visions of your life wirelessly onto a new 100GB iPod.
Life, stored as two video+audio channels in VCD quality requires about 1.3GB/hour. So your new 100GB video iPod will hold about 5 days of waking life which you can review at your leisure with the ease of the scrollwheel. Clicking the centre of the scrollwheel will also bookmark important moments in your day for easy access later.
But that's not all. These bluetooth sunglasses will also feature stereo retinal projectors which will enable users (and I mean "users" in all the senses of that word) to vididly relive moments from the past. Built-in wifi in the new iPod will also let users trip out watching flashbacks from other peoples' lives who are nearby or even across the world. Imagine being bored on the bus or metro when an adhoc Rendezvous network of these devices puts you in right in the middle of someone else's life.
Time and place shifting digital out-of-body flashbacks, brought to you by Apple.
A new version of iMovie will help you edit your memories and control public access to your visions.
You heard it here first.
While I'm sure the FireWire interface can cope with 100MB/s, I'm pretty sure the disk in any available iPod can't be written to at anywhere near that speed. So your calculations may be a little bit out.
Pretend that something especially witty is here. Thanks.
Sony PSP, all it needs is a built in HDTV tuner and it would be perfect!
their clumsiness, and their poor interface.
One word: Shuffle.
Two years brings a lot of changes. At the time he was busy dissing those players, there were 1GB players available. In fact, a player I have from that era now takes 2GB cards. I like progress. Progress is good. The nano represents progress of a sort for Apple - I think absorbing most of the Creative mp3 player design team has worked out well. It's nice that Apple finally has a pretty good, albeit quite expensive, flash player, even if it did take it a few years to get it right.
But there are other players since then that have advanced significantly, adding video, games, emulators, PDA functions, wireless, expansion, and so on. For myself, I like my personal media tech to push the envelope, and to not be so hostile to open-source firmware enhancements.
I'll take your word for the video. I don't really spend "probably on average 75-80% of my waking day" on the Internet, but let me see...
Da Blog
Thou has not played with the iPod NANO. The PSP is a BRICK compared to the funtionality of this thing the size of a business card you would drop in your wallet! Not to mention the battery life of teh NANO compared to that clunky PSP. Vic
That's not enough to decode fullres MPEG4 in realtime. Heck, today's xScale PDAs can barely do that at around 500mhz. It would need a faster CPU and/or a dedicated custom decoder chip.
Remember, it's a small screen.
The open-source Rockbox people managed to add a video player to the 4-year-old Archos hardware, and it's using a CPU most often found in washing machines (12 MHz SH1734). Now, the video is greyscale, but it is impressive to see it working, and with full stereo audio synch, at 67 fps.
I'm expecting great things from the port to iRiver: a 140MHz ColdFire 5249 is a whole different kind of beast. It's already enabled a pretty spiffy Gameboy emulator,
Da Blog
Ok.. I can't believe I am being sucked into this sillyness, but here goes. Please understand that I think we have probably already nailed what is really going to be announced Wednesday, since every reasonable base has been covered, but inspired by the velvet curtains I want to add the following crazy and unrealistic fantasies:
Some kind of camcorder with and ipod dock. The video goes straight to the ipod HD. It works as an audio recorder and digital camera too of course, hell, let's say it also works as a portable digital VCR too.
Alternatively, an ipod with a camera built in.
A mac mini with a built in projector.
A highly portable projector or display that connects to a video ipod (or computer). Is there such a thing as a high definition projector?
Some kind of weird-ass head set or goggles to let allow you to actually see something when you play a movie from your ipod.
Some kind of lap top-like device but smaller and simpler - maybe with a 6 or 8 inch display. Billed as a high end multimedia ipod and hand-held.
Apple home media center with massive HD display, ipod dock and computer built in. Includes surround speakers, bluetooth remote, keyboard and pointing device.
Apple is getting into the ISP and/or cable or satellite TV business. Perhaps pay-per-view movie service or Itunes store for sattelite TV, new software for using the mac as a tivo type system, all seamlessly integrated of course.
The merger of PIXAR and Apple to yield a major studio, media producer and record label, maybe with the help of the other (Beatles) Apple.
er... oh, oh..... I know..... its a waterproof floating G5 powerbook you can use in the bath, in fact, to deal with the cooling issues, you can ONLY use it in the bath. The great part is that it keeps the water nice and warm.
Ok.. I can't believe I am being sucked into this sillyness, but here goes. Please understand that I think the community has probably already nailed what is going to be announced Wednesday, since every reasonable base has been covered. Nonetheless, inspired by the velvet curtains I want to add the following unrealistic fantasies: Some kind of camcorder with an ipod dock. The video goes straight to the ipod HD. It also works as an audio recorder and digital camera too of course, hell, let's say it also works as a portable digital VCR. Alternatively, an ipod with a camera built in. A mac mini with a built in projector. A highly portable projector or display that connects to a video ipod (or computer). Is there such a thing as a high definition projector? Some kind of weird-ass head set or dorky goggles to allow you to actually see something when you play a movie from your ipod. Some kind of laptop-like device but smaller and simpler - maybe with a 6 or 8 inch display. Billed as a high end multimedia ipod and hand-held. Apple home media center with massive HD display, ipod dock and computer built in. Includes surround speakers, bluetooth remote, keyboard and pointing device. Apple is getting into the ISP and/or cable or satellite TV business. Perhaps pay-per-view movie service or Itunes store for sattelite TV, new software for using the mac as a tivo type system, all seamlessly integrated of course. The merger of PIXAR and Apple to yield a major movie studio, media producer and record label, maybe with the help of the other (Beatles) Apple. er... oh, oh..... I know... I got it...... it's a waterproof floating G5 powerbook you can use in the bath, in fact, to deal with the cooling issues, you can ONLY use it in the bath. The best part is that it keeps the water nice and warm. When the curtain opens on Wednesday, Steve will be there in a tub, splashing around with the new machine and a rubber duck.
I am a wholesale distributor of Apple products and have been for a little over a year. Trade companies overseas in China and Singapore have recieved information that a vPod will be released Wednesday. Say what you will about video capabilities being pushed back, but I strongly believe this is going to happen on the 12th. We all know something big is about to happen, we'll see who's right. I am not currently taking any job offers. Thanks.
Real enough for me to believe that it's coming, anyway.
Someone was wrong....
I'll be over here, eating my hat.