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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."
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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Home-made movies?
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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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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.
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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Music videos will be Apples foot in the door for any iTMS style movie distribution. But cinematic movies are a lot longer off simply owing to the fact that the customer base (that has the required bandwidth) is still a small market.
That, and no-one wants to watch a movie on a shitty little screen.
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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.
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.
It comes with every new Apple computer.
"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?"
Well, they didn't INVENT Mpeg-4....
Obviously, ThinkSecret is wrong.
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Yes... The iPod nano sales are so lackluster that Apple can't even keep the 4gig versions in stock. Please actually look up information before you invent it.
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.
Think of it as a bonus for people doing video production. I'm not talking about playing video on an iPod, but rather people who want to carry video data from one place to another.
Networking geeks have an old saying: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes." It takes a little more than three minutes to send a gigabyte of data through a T3, assuming ideal transfer conditions. By that standard, 80GB would take 240 minutes, or six hours. If we assume an average walking rate of 4mph for the average person, a pair of sneakers and an 80gig iPod would have better bandwidth than a T3 out to a range of about 20 miles, including the time necessary to load and unload the data via FireWire (@ 100MB/sec).
Video people already like FireWire. Apple won a Clio for it a few years ago, because it gave video production companies a way to move large chunks of data around easily. Directors have come to love the idea that they can buy a Powerbook and a copy of Final Cut Pro for about the price of one day's postprocessing fees, and have immediate feedback to what they're shooting.
For those people, the iPod is an inexpensive, ultra-portable data storage module. You could fill a briefcase with the things for a few thousand dollars and have more than enough space to carry the raw footage for an entire movie around with you.
The same general idea works for photographers and musicians. It's easy to accumulate 80 gigs of high-quality, first-pass data when you're in the content creation business, and an iPod gives you a convenient way to stick all that information into your pocket and carry it wherever you need to go.
Apple already knows that the sweet spot for actual music storage is about 5 gigs. They have a whole line of products for people who just want a straightforward music player. The higher-capacity models are for people who want to carry data.
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?
But if you're just using an iPod for storage it makes much more sense to just buy protable hard drives
Then it goes full circle... You can't play music on portable hard drives.
No one said this is either-or. I partition mine for twenty gigs of music, forty for files, and I'm able to carry around a full backup of every important project I'm working on.