Video iPod Screen Test

Carl Bialik writes "The Wall Street Journal's Walter S. Mossberg has an interesting review of Apple's video iPod. From the article: 'It's a surprisingly decent video player, with crisp, smooth vivid playback of TV shows, music videos, short films, video podcasts and home videos. We wouldn't want to watch a full-length movie on this iPod -- the screen is just too small. But, for short things like music videos, video podcasts or even hourlong TV shows shortened by stripping out the commercials, as Apple is doing, the new iPod provides a pretty good experience. However, there are some significant downsides to the video function on this iPod. Some of them are due to Apple's design decisions, while others are due to restrictions imposed by media companies, or to the simple human factors that go into watching video.'"

Comments

Technology Changes, and so do preferences..

[LikwidFlux]

We wouldn't want to watch a full-length movie on this iPod
How many years ago was TV created, and how long after that was their Color. People improve ideas, the video ipod doesn't seem to be marketed as a "Buy me and you'll never need a tv again". I really don't think it will become people's primary mode of entertainment.
Of course then again.... how big is the PSP screen? I'm sure it's much bigger but by how much? And they are still able to mass sell DVD's made only for the PVP.

Re:Technology Changes, and so do preferences..

[vicgolgo13]

There's always the option to connect the AV jacks to a tv or monitor so that you would be able to see a movie/show/whatever on a larger screen. Regardless of that, the big thing here is definitely portability. It's just one step closer to having the all-in-one Personal Digital Experience. Ultimately, we will have a device that not only allows us to play audio and video, and has a built in calendar (ala PDA), it will also be a full featured schedule planner, phone, and camera. I'm sure there's a ton of other features I'm missing here, but the point is that devices like the video iPod and the Sidekick mobile are one step closer to a fully integrated device that will remove the neccesity for us to carry around 4 or 5 separate devices.

Re:Technology Changes, and so do preferences..

[LikwidFlux]

But to add to your comment. Should we focus on integrating devices and be happy with it or integrate and microsize it before we release it?

My fear is that, someday, we'll have a all-in-one device and it'll be the size of my head! Cell phone, av output, video, camera, gps etc etc etc.

If manufacturers race to increase capability without decreasing size and and other aesthetic appeals we won't be any farther than we are right now.

Kinda get what I'm saying?

Re:Technology Changes, and so do preferences..

[vicgolgo13]

I understand exactly, but as with most technology, miniaturization comes after the fact. As a matter of fact most technological devices follow the reasoning of function over form within it's first stages of release [Miniaturization follows along the lines of form (although there are many functional benefits to having smaller devices) and integration follows the path of functionality.] But that being said, we also live in an age were aesthetics are everything. Take the iPod for example. It is very aesthetically appealing (and was very well packaged and marketed) and therefore appeals to the mass market. Many other companies are now thinking along the same lines and before they release a fully functional item, nowadays, they make sure that it has similar appeal.

So ultimately, my answer to you is, we should definitely focus on device integration and ultimately the function of the device as a whole and then focus on miniaturization. The first generation of these devices will be under the greatest of scrutiny. If it does not perform as well as the sums of its whole, then the device will flounder whether or not it is small.

Re:Technology Changes, and so do preferences..

[JazzCrazed]

Speaking of, my Dell Axim x50 PocketPC can play all flavors of audio (MP3, Ogg Vorbis, Flac, WAV, what-have-you), video (MPEG-2, MPEG-4 in the form of DivX and XviD - and in a bigger screen and 4 times the resolution of the iPod at that), has a built-in calendar, can browse the web, receive e-mails, chat over multiple IM protocols, and can make VOIP calls using Skype's PocketPC client and the built in wifi. It's just missing a camera...although, I could buy this one.

It doesn't have a HDD in the 10s of GB (just a 2.5GB microdrive I bought for it), but that wasn't in your list. It's "all-in-one" enough for me! =D

Re:Technology Changes, and so do preferences..

[CastrTroy]

I've been thinking of picking up a palm lifedrive (http://www.palm.com/us/products/mobilemanagers/li fedrive/) for my portable multimedia needs. I love how well the Palm works as a PDA, plus the fact that there are some good syncing applications in Linux. My only question is, what media formats can I play on this thing with third party software. This thing would rock if you could load a stripped down version of linux on it.

Re:Technology Changes, and so do preferences..

[drac]

The best PPC video player is TCMP; the PalmOS port is also great. It's played everything I've thrown at it thus far.

From http://tcpmp.corecodec.org/about
Supported file containers
- AVI (*.avi)
- Matroska (*.mkv, *.mka)
- MP4 (*.mp4, *.m4a)
- Ogg Media (*.ogg, *.ogm)
- ASF (*.asf)

Supported audio codecs
- Mpeg 1 Layer III
- Ogg Vorbis
- Musepack
- Windows Media Audio (on Windows Mobile devices)
- AC-3
- AMR
- Adpcm, uLaw

Supported video codecs
- DivX
- XviD
- MPEG4-SP (plus B-frame support)
- MPEG1
- M-JPEG
- Windows Media Video (on Windows Mobile devices)

Re:Technology Changes, and so do preferences..

[utexaspunk]

my iPaq h6315 does all that, and it has the camera (okay, the camera is totally useless) as well as being my phone! One single device to remember to put in my pocket, and all my digital goodies are available to me at all times! From what I can tell, PPCs and PPC phones aren't selling all that well, but I sure hope they keep working at it. I can imagine in another generation or two they'll have them with faster processors, better screens (we're already seeing ones with VGA res), better cameras, better, more usable software, etc. They really are the coolest handheld devices out there.

Re:Technology Changes, and so do preferences..

[kraiger]

I don't think that the article was really knocking the idea of the G5 iPod, just that it wasn't practical to view movies. It's more of an informative statement. Really though, the whole reason they did it opposed to having a bigger device with a larger screen was to test the waters and see what kind of market they can build off of it. Now, if their TV shows and music video sales are high, they can safely release an iPod more dedicated to playing videos, with a much larger screen, etc. It's kind of similar to what they've done with the ROKR phone. Just testing the waters with it :D

Re:Technology Changes, and so do preferences..

[Tony Hoyle]

Has anyone actually ever bought a DVD for the PSP? If so, *why* for heaven's sake?

Many of them more expensive than standard DVDs (at least in the UK), and you have to watch them on a crappy small screen with a tinny speaker... not exactly the greatest experience in the world.

Re:Technology Changes, and so do preferences..

[R.D.Olivaw]

I'm quite sure some did. As long as you can market something as trendy and cool there will be enough people with disposable income to throw at it.

Re:Technology Changes, and so do preferences..

[sh00z]

Ultimately, we will have a device that not only allows us to play audio and video, and has a built in calendar (ala PDA), it will also be a full featured schedule planner, phone, and camera. I'm sure there's a ton of other features I'm missing here...

I have another of these devices sitting right in front of me. It's called a Sony Clié TH-55, and it came out in 2003. Among the "features you're missing" are WiFi and MS Office integration. With the right hack, the still camera can capture 15 fps video, as well. Unfortunately, there's no VOIP, or I would consider it complete. I own two iPods (a 3rd-gen, and a new nano), but would never consider a video iPod while my TH-55, with its 4-inch diagonal scren, still works.

Re:Technology Changes, and so do preferences..

[superflippy]

I've ended up using my Dell Axim X50 as an expensive desk clock. It will sometimes connect to the web wirelessly, if it's in a good mood and the planets are aligned and I haven't accidentally turned off the wireless card by picking it up or turning it on. So I just leave it stuck in its cradle, where it's marginally less troublesome.

It's nice to hear that it potentially has some useful, exciting features. Are you using the OS that came with it, or did you install something else that works better? The PocketPC OS makes troubleshooting the picky, picky wireless card or switching between hotspots or even connecting to a new hotspot very difficult.

Re:Technology Changes, and so do preferences..

[JazzCrazed]

Dell PDA's are notoriously picky with OS's... meaning, Windows Mobile, or nothing. I currently have WM 2003 SE, with the A05 ROM update installed. It's decent, though it's been unstable lately - I've noticed especially if I shut down leaving the wifi on. Although when it doesn't crash, things work pretty well. The wifi works pretty well - I've war-walked with it in some parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn, although I use it most of all at work and at home (a Linksys WRT54GS router resides at each place). Better than my old X30h. Non-networking stuff, such as video using the aforementioned Beta Player, audio using a program called Mort Player (GS Player is also great), and reading ebooks (I love Mobipocket Reader), and the basic included office apps are pretty much problem free. If yours is a clunker, maybe you should try getting it replaced if it's under warranty still (maybe they'll send you the new x51v, with MS's latest WM 5.0 OS installed).

cell phone

[42Penguins]

To steal a line from cell phone users:

"All these iPods with video, picture, portable storage...All I want is an iPod that plays music well!"

Which, of course, it already seems to do.

Re:cell phone

[cryptoz]

Cell phone users say this because it's true. That is to say, most cell phones these days are loaded with features that go completely unused, whereas the voice encoders and speakers on the cell phones are incredibly and horribly poor quality. This comment doesn't at all work for the iPod because, as well all know, it's a perfectly decent music player - you yourself pointed this out.

Re:cell phone

[Qwijib0]

iPod 2: Where the music's at.

Re:cell phone

[ciroknight]

If you want an iPod to play music, buy a shuffle. If you want a little more space, and perhaps care to look at photos, or need to offload your digital camera while on the road, buy a Nano. If you want to listen to music, perhaps need to offload pictures and look at pictures, and have the occasional want to watch music videos, the news from last night, or a TV show you might have missed in a series, buy a full-sized iPod.

iPods play music. That's their mission and reason for existing. But, by adding on other features that are common to the wants of users and generally related to music (the only images I've ever viewed on my iPod, for example, are album art), or audio in general now that the iPod has a built in voice recorder, which is almost entirely overlooked by people who are looking at buying the new iPod.

Re:cell phone

[Anonymous Coward]

yea, but how much cheaper would it be for apple (and hopefully consumers) would it be if it was just the same screen as before and no colour, no r&d for video support, etc. battery life would most likeyly be improved too. ALL I WANT IS A DIGITAL MUSIC PLAYER, NOT THE EVERYTHING AND THE KITCHEN SINK.

Re:cell phone

[ZorinLynx]

So get an older 20GB iPod. There's likely to be a lot on the market now cheap due to everyone upgrading to the new video ones.

-Z

Sweet!

[knightinshiningarmor]

Yes, but does it run LINUX?

oh, wait, let's make it harder..
Yes, but does it run KDE?

Re:Sweet!

[xCepheus]

I think the _REAL_ question is...

Yes, but how does pr0n look on it?

Re:Sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not yet. They will probably get iPod linux working for the 4th gen and mini models first.

Re:Sweet!

[leenoble_uk]

Yes, but how does pr0n look on it?

like this

Re:Sweet!

[KylePflug]

On the one hand, that could just be a general iPod video site, with pictures of video on the iPod, reviews, etc.

On the other hand, and this seems more likely, it could be entire not-safe-for-work/school.

As the network nazis are always looking over my shoulder, I'm afraid of your link.

Re:Sweet!

[athmanb]

It's porn.

Although what I'm wondering is, what's with the 21+ years old restriction? I thought you could legally watch porn at 18.

Re:Sweet!

[eMartin]

Yes, you have to be 21 to view porn.

18 is the age you have to be to star in it. ...jk

Re:Sweet!

[Da Twink Daddy]

Actually, running KDE is easier than running linux. KDE runs on virtually every linux platform, many of the BSDs, to some degree under cygwin, and, IIRC, on OS X.

Re:Sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

On one hand you have your ipod.

On the other hand? who knows? ;P

Re:Sweet!

[generic-man]

Perhaps that porn is so advanced it is even more obscene? According to Futurama, you'll need to be more than 55 years old to view Ultraporn once it's available.

Re:Sweet!

[bloodstains]

It really depends on your jurisdiction, doesn't it?

Re:Sweet!

[xouumalperxe]

like this: http://povpod.com/main.html/ (VERY WORKSPACE UNFRIENDLY!) Really, the concept is stunning in its... weirdness. Put you iPod on your lap!

Re:Sweet!

[Bobsledboy]

Hahaha... Step 2 Hold iPod at crotch level.

I'm predicting they also branch out into iPod protector cases in the very near future.

Re:Sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you're not kidding...
18 IS the age you have to be to star in it.
So in certain states you can be filmed having sex in a porn movie but not watch it afterwards.

Re:Sweet!

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct! And further....
Most states (in the US) have the "age of consent" pegged at 16 years. Which means that it is legal to have vaginal intercourse with a consenting 16-year old, but should happen to turn your TV to the Playboy chanel while doing it, you are in trouble mate!

It's a surprisingly decent video player

[jellomizer]

I don't know why the guy is that surprised. Apple lately has a reputation of making good products, minus some untested issues with first generation products like scratches on iPod Nano. But apple products for the last 4 years have been releasing good products. I would be more surprised if Apple released a very poor product. I think the guy probably has IBM Good and Apple Bad idea stuck in his head from the 80s

Re:It's a surprisingly decent video player

[Oxen]

"I don't know why the guy is that surprised. Apple lately has a reputation of making good products, minus some untested issues with first generation products like scratches on iPod Nano." So let me get this straight. You don't know why someone would be suprised that apple made a good first generation product. Then admit that apple is known for making poor first generation products. Yeah... you're not an apple fanboy. /*sarcasm*/

Re:It's a surprisingly decent video player

[That's Unpossible!]

I don't know why the guy is that surprised.... I think the guy probably has IBM Good and Apple Bad idea stuck in his head from the 80s

Mossberg generally likes Apple products, read his past reviews of other ipods.

No, I think he used "surprisingly" in the context of "here is a small video screen that is surprisingly good quality," not meaning that he was surprised due to it coming from Apple.

Re:It's a surprisingly decent video player

[jhoffoss]

Mossberg takes every opportunity to suck Apple's core, as does Slashdot's editorial staff, evidently.

This isn't to say I disagree, but the only reason anything Mossberg writes deserves a place on /. is to show what the "suits" of the world are reading about the geekiverse. Even then, the cover-story from Saturday's WSJ was a better insight into that than anything from Mossberg.

Another, previous poster under the story "WSJ approves of iPod nano" or some-such quoted Mossberg, who could (paraphrasing, here...) "hear his iPod nano with crystal clarity while flying down the freeway @ 70 with the top down in his convertible." Which is funny, because that's exactly the setup I would use to assess clarity and quality, driving at 70 with all that wind noise.

Re:It's a surprisingly decent video player

[iroll]

geekiverse?

is that like blogosphere?

[gouges eyes]

Re:It's a surprisingly decent video player

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why you are surprised that he liked it. Walter Moss is nearly the ultimate Apple fan. The worst he's ever said about an Apple product is that isn't the greatest thing ever invented. He generally nit-picks Microsoft products, but tends to overlook big issues with Mac products. (Although, he did indicate that his nano got scratched.) His general advice is "buy a Mac" and "almost" all of your files will painlessly transfer from the PC and open in the "free" Mac apps.

Re:It's a surprisingly decent video player

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft Windows is a "suprisingly decent" operating system... So why isn't the the slashdot crew creaming themselves over XP / Vista? It must be the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion cream that's got their eyes gummed up...

Re:It's a surprisingly decent video player

[rdoger6424]

Geekiverse, Blogosphere, how about the LAN orgy?

Re:It's a surprisingly decent video player

[eclectic4]

"...minus some untested issues with first generation products like scratches on iPod Nano."

"Apple said that the screens on the iPod nano are made with the same material that is found in the company's fourth-generation iPod, which, to date, is complaint free. 'We have received very few calls from customers reporting this problem - we do not think this is a widespread issue,' said Schiller. 'If customers are concerned about scratching we suggest they use one of the many iPod nano cases to protect their iPod.'

FUD. And from a PCMag article, "Apple has, in fact, stated that the nano has the same screen material as the iPod mini. So where are all the angry mini users?"

Yes, the worlds best selling mp3 player... the iPod Mini.

I don't want to sound like an apologist, but this was hardly "untested" material they used for the Nano screens. This was more accurately a study in sociology, American style.

Re:It's a surprisingly decent video player

[That's Unpossible!]

Another, previous poster under the story "WSJ approves of iPod nano" or some-such quoted Mossberg, who could (paraphrasing, here...) "hear his iPod nano with crystal clarity while flying down the freeway @ 70 with the top down in his convertible." Which is funny, because that's exactly the setup I would use to assess clarity and quality, driving at 70 with all that wind noise.

Actually if instead of paraphrasing from memory you actually read the article again, you'd know he was assessing what he thought of as the power of the little device, what he perceived as its ability to output enough sound to be heard with his top down at 70mph. Although most techies understand this isn't really an amazing feat, he surely wasn't trying to assess the "clarity" of the sound in that environment, which would truly be stupid.

Re:It's a surprisingly decent video player

[jhoffoss]

Yes, and that makes just as much sense, no matter whether he's talking about clarity or volume. In both cases, his car stereo is the factor that affects it, not the source, iPod or not. And my entire point was mossberg's irrelevance, spending his time reviewing macs..."holy crap! Apple made a postitively *AMAZING* product, and it works! It really does what the box says it can do!"

Video iPod not good for full length movies? What? Stop the presses!

I realize we are not his audience, but his "reviews" still rub me wrong.

And to the other poster: no, the geekiverse is not the blogosphere. The geekiverse is much cooler!

Re:It's a surprisingly decent video player

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

this is the 5th generation ipod, duh

Re:It's a surprisingly decent video player

[nathanh]

has IBM Good and Apple Bad idea stuck in his head from the 80s

Pardon? IBM was incredibly bad in the 80s, somewhat bad in the 90s, and I'm not entirely convinced they're good today. And Apple was still bad in the 90s. Have people forgotten the hell that was MacOS before MacOS X? Or the wide range of overpriced underpowered unreliable hardware that Apple was shoveling in the mid-90s? Let's not view history through rosy-coloured glasses.

Re:It's a surprisingly decent video player

[xouumalperxe]

well, the iPod video functionality is, in all respects, meant as an incremental change (5G? 6G?) from previous "plain vanilla" iPods, whereas the nano is a brand new (1G) product in the iPod line. I actually think the GP's comment was pretty reasonable in its assessment (if slighty swayed pro-apple)

Re:It's a surprisingly decent video player

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, MacOS was hell before OS X. But then again, I'd rather be in that hell than use any Windows version before 2000.

Re:It's a surprisingly decent video player

[jellomizer]

Yes I am slightly swayed pro-apple. Only because I have relatively good experience with them. Apple still has it problems like everyone else, but right now (And this could change in a few years) Apple is producing a good product. But they can go down like they did before, or like Gateway, and Dell is starting to now.

Re:It's a surprisingly decent video player

[Anonymous Coward]

Orgy-porgy! Orgy-porgy! It'll probably end with someone hanging themselves.

Admitting to breaking laws?

[rdwald]

In addition, we obtained from a friend an illegally downloaded episode of the TV show "Battlestar Galactica," which she had converted to one of the video formats the iPod supports.

What, Mossberg has no fear of repercussions? Or does he figure that the Sci Fi channel will figure the plug is worth the copyright infringement?

Re:Admitting to breaking laws?

[Saeger]

I bet he J-Walks too. BFD.

Re:Admitting to breaking laws?

[dancpsu]

Actually, what I'd be more interested in is if you could burn several of your downloaded shows to DVD with iTunes. Maybe in the future.

Re:Admitting to breaking laws?

[AdmiralWeirdbeard]

I almost choked on my own tongue when I read that line. right, the wsj reporter has this friend with illicit tv downloads. This is really just fucking comedy gold. The wsj just reported something as if it was perfectly normal to have illegal downloads on your computers, or at least on your friends' computers. Just like this friend of mine had this rash one time... i applaud the wsj for having the balls to address the question we've all (admit it) been thinking, "well, video iPod, all well and good, but will it play the vastness of my already established video collection?" and the answer is... yes, with some work, a small portion of your multi-terabyte porn collection can now be taken with you and viewed on the bus, in a cafe, or walking down the street. huzzah and I really do have to say it, as i've not seen it already said *due sense of shame* ... I for one welcome our portable-porn overlords...

Re:Admitting to breaking laws?

[rdwald]

It's not that he broke the law, it's that he wrote about it in a national newspaper. Would you go to your local police station and announce that you jay-walk on a regular basis?

Re:Admitting to breaking laws?

[ohmypolarbear]

On another note, can he protect the source of his download, claiming journalistic integrity?

If John Q. Student writes an article in his school newspaper about downloading and the **AA, are all the people he downloaded from (you know, for posterity) off-limits?

Re:Admitting to breaking laws?

[alms]

This is Mossberg's way of pushing the television industry to sign deals with Apple to make their content available legally. It took the music industry years to catch on to the threat of Napster. The film industry understands the problems presented by Bittorrent, but there's not much indication that the TV industry understands it yet. TV executives still, by and large, want you to wait a year before you can buy a show on DVD. This is Walt's little way of lighting a fire under their asses. Good for him.

Re:Admitting to breaking laws?

[Pope]

It'd be far worse if he J-smoked; then again he could always come up to Canada where we're a bit more relaxed about such things.

Watching videos on the computer...

[WarpedMind]

I agree about watching videos on the computer. I have no intention to my a video iPod, but I'm using iTunes to catch up on episodes of some TV programs. The quality on my computer was great.

I'll probably delete the episodes soon to reclaim the space. I'll just write it off as rental price.

Re:Watching videos on the computer...

[salimma]

You can just burn the video files manually to a blank CD / DVD, or copy them to another computer - that way, should you want to watch them later, just re-import into iTunes, and at most you're one log-in away from re-watching.

What's the big deal?

[Belseth]

The joke is I can already do this on my palm Zaire only better. If it wasn't for battery life I could hold two movies on a 1 gig memory card. I already have trailers to the movies I shot and my CG reel on it. Not to mention my portfolio and several hundred stills and I haven't begun to fill the one gig memory card. The screen is larger than a video Ipod and has a good quality image. I wish they'd come up with an add on battery pack for them. The sound isn't bad through head phones. I'd love to be able to load a couple of films on a memory card for plane flights. Ipods are convienent but I like Palms for flexsibility. I even find myself using the built in camera quiter often. Handy devices.

Re:What's the big deal?

[TMacPhail]

I'm going offtopic but I'm curious what you use to play the video on your palm? Do you use the built in video player, and if so, what do you use to convert video to a format it will play?

Re:What's the big deal?

[plastik55]

what you use to play the video on your palm?

TCPMP is free and works well for me, plays MPEG and most MPEG4 derivative formats (though you'll probably have to reencode to 320x240 to keep from skipping frames).

Re:What's the big deal?

[SlashdotOgre]

Honestly, I never figured out why a video iPod would be such a big deal. By Dell Axim X5 (which I bought refurbished 3 years) plays Xvid, Divx, and a myriad of other video formats just fine. It's trivial to convert video for it in both Windows (I use Windows Media Encoder) & Linux (I use dvd::rip); and all the videos you find on the torrents work with it without recompression (I use BetaPlayer). Furthermore, the cost of media is dirt cheap these days; I picked up a 512MB SD card from buy.com for less than $20 after rebates -- that's enough for a well compressed video or in my case 4-5 episodes of Family Guy. I admit a PDA isn't the greatest MP3 player due to form factor (I actually own a 3G 15GB iPod), but for videos it just seems much more convenient.

Re:What's the big deal?

[countach]

I guess your Dell plays MP3s too right?

Obviously the point of a Video ipod is to take entertainment with you to places you would not bother to lug a laptop.

Re:What's the big deal?

[Punchcardz]

One gig. So it is the video equivalent of the MP3 players that let you put a WHOLE CD on there at once! woo! Like with music, the advantage of the the video iPod will be to have thirty to sixty times that ammount of storage and have whole collections of stuff, in one place.

Re:What's the big deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

The joke is I can already do this on my palm Zaire only better.

Didn't you hear? Following a coup, the Palm Zaire has been renamed. It is now called the Palm Republic of Congo. I hear it's still a bloody mess, though.

Re:What's the big deal?

[Babbster]

Obviously the point of a Video ipod is to take entertainment with you to places you would not bother to lug a laptop.

You should probably be aware that grandparent's Dell Axim is a PDA (as he indicated late in the post) and not a laptop. Thus, one could presume that he "lugs" his Axim pretty much everywhere. :)

Re:What's the big deal?

[computechnica]

TCPMP is a great player. It can also play the H.623 Mov files my Kodak DX6490 camera produces. I have tried it on 3 different Palm PDAs. My Tungsten E was the slowest due to it's 133Mhz CPU. My sons Zire 32 Played good due to its 200Mhz CPU, but the 120x120 STN screen is crap. The best is my Tapwave Zodiac with it's 200 Mhz Cpu, ATI video accel. and 320x240 TFT screen. Also the Front firing stereo speakers sound as good as a PSP. Its just bad they went out of business.
Cheap Zodiac Games

Re:What's the big deal?

[thuh Freak]

ya know what, buddy, we know. *pod has competition. according to all kinds of people its pretty darn good, and a lot better than pod-of-the-day; die hard podists soemtimes deny that this competition exists, or is on par with pod-of-the-day. nobody cares tho. apple is unstoppable. bow before the might steve. he owns ur sole.

Re:What's the big deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, at that price, you can get enough media to match my 60 GB $399 iPod with video for - wait for it - $2400. Hey, you're right! It is more convenient!

Re:What's the big deal?

[cthellis]

Point is it's not a big deal. It's the same best-selling iPod, only now better in basically every way. And yes, it plays videos.

The only real "big deal" of it is in regards to how it will affect the media distribution model. iTunes single-handed forced legal music into wide acceptance, so what might the industry reaction be in regards to TV/movies/etc?

Of course it also means the video podcasting will be pushed forward en masse.

Re:What's the big deal?

[Y2]

The joke is I can already do this on my palm Zaire only better. [...] I already have trailers to the movies I shot and my CG reel on it. Not to mention my portfolio and several hundred stills and I haven't begun to fill the one gig memory card.

Not to descend to spelling-flames or anything, but if I had a device that was so integral to my business, or even major hobby, I think I'd be likely to spell it correctly.

But... Can I put my divx's etc on it?

[dr_skipper]

Anyone have any idea? Can it play divx's/xvid's? I have a large collection I'd want to put on it..

Et tu, video iPod?

[MightyMait]

I submitted a story yesterday (rejected :( ) about this article by Gary Krakow which tempers some of the iPod hysteria. I've met a number of folks (some of whom were musicians) that have bought iPods for their "cool" factor without examining all the features, limitations (no 16-bit 44KHz audio recording unless you install Linux), or the competition's offerings.

Archos has had a portable media device that records video/audio from analog inputs for a number of years now.

Re:Et tu, video iPod?

[mblase]

Archos has had a portable media device that records video/audio from analog inputs for a number of years now.

Yep, and it's got a lot of features an iPod will probably never sport. Being able to record video from an analog source is something Apple probably will never do, because they're trying their best to play friendly with the media companies. Plus it's got a smaller screen, a focus on music and not video... but since Archos hasn't been selling their player nearly as well as Apple's been selling iPods, it's reasonable to assume that portable video just isn't there yet.

But despite what critics have said about TV on the iTMS, I think it'll be the next big thing. Sure, TV is free -- so is radio. What you get on the iTMS is commercial-free video, on demand, with no commercials. Sure, you can see the new episode of "Lost" on TV this week, but what if you missed last week's and didn't tape it? What if you want to watch a few episodes of season 1 without waiting for a DVD rental to get to your house? It won't replace TV or DVD by any stretch, but it fills in a gap in the viewing experience that's been there for some time. And hey--you don't need a new iPod to watch those episodes. They look pretty good on a 17" monitor, too.

I think it's safe to say that the iTMS/iPod combo and the Archos player fill two different niches--one's a system for video-on-demand, the other's basically a portable TiVo. The iPod has never been designed to record radio, and you can only record voice with a plug-in accessory -- it's a player, period. Let each device do its job well and there's room in the market for everyone.

Re:Et tu, video iPod?

[Absentminded-Artist]

If you examine the specs, you'll find that this new iPod has voice recording settings for 22.05KHz and 44.1KHz. A lot of podcasters I know are very excited about this.

Re:Et tu, video iPod?

[Absentminded-Artist]

Oh brother. I linked the wrong URL. I love it when I live up to my nickname...

You'll find the specs here. The section on Voice Recording is buried at the bottom of the page.

Re:Et tu, video iPod?

[sexysasian]

has anyone out there really put the archos' units to the test when it comes to audio recorded? It looks like these units would be replacements for the DAT.

Re:Et tu, video iPod?

[mtalbot]

The new iPod now offers 44.1KHz recording... http://www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html

Re:Et tu, video iPod?

[MacGod]

Actually , if you look at Apple's Tech Specs page for the iPod, you'll see that the new iPods do in fact allow for high-quality recording. At the moment, I don't know of any input devices that support it (since all recording accessories were designed for the older generations of iPods, which only featured low-res recording), but I have no doubt they will come.

Re:Et tu, video iPod?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bit Torrent the lost episode you missed and download, problem solved!

Re:Et tu, video iPod?

[Anonymous Coward]

You actually CAN record audio on an older ipod without any accessories. Just a standard Microphone, (or if you're really desperate, your left ear bud.)
the magic to all of this? Linux on iPod. http://ipodlinux.org/.
the quality goes all the way up to 96 Kbps mono.
http://ipodlinux.org/Manual#Recording

Missing accessories

[blackmonday]

I can forgive Apple for discontinuing Firewire on the new iPods, but I can't forgive them for not including the charger in the box. I understand that the USB cable doubles as a charger, but I want to charge it in a hotel room, friends's house, etc. How much could that little charger possible cost Apple? 2-3 bucks? I'll stick with my 3rd gen until it dies, then I hope my existing accessories will still work on the newer iPods.

Re:Missing accessories

[netkid91]

Didn't you hear, iPod Videos aren't supposed to be portable, just like the iPod nano. Now you actually are required to have a PC/Mac nearby to listen to it cause USB Charging is 'in' and no one wants another cable just to charge it. I mean, 80GB means you'll spnd forever at your PC downloading video and music to it right? More than enough time for a full chage to last another 12 hours before you need your PC AGAIN! So much for portability, and if Apple really busts this iPod accessory tax you can kiss future car chargers and the likes not endorsed or made by Apple goodbye. It's OSX all over again, vendor lock-in AHHHHH!!!!

Re:Missing accessories

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumbass.

Re:Missing accessories

[zigziggityzoo]

You can still charge over firewire. If you have the plug-in charger that has the firewire adapter on it, you can still use it. So what are you waiting for?

Re:Missing accessories

[heeeraldo]

from looking at iLounge's "unpacking" articles, it's apparent that this isn't a new phenomenon.
I'm surprised that you're only being outraged _now_.

Re:Missing accessories

[Anonymous Coward]

dude, buy a cheap wall usb port (for the exact purpose of charging usb devices.) Yes they exist, hell you could even use a powered usb hub.

Re:Missing accessories

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny. The iPod that I got in June came with a charger. I guess that's an absolute eternity in your world...

Re:Missing accessories

[Dan East]

Apple expects you to do the reasonable thing - buy one of them PowerBook-iPod-charger-thingies. You just plug your iPod into the USB port of the charger (aka PowerBook). Yeah, they're a little on the big side for a power supply, but I've heard they can be used for other things too.

Dan East

Re:Missing accessories

[TCQuad]

The power charger connects using the FireWire dock connector, not the USB one. No FireWire dock connector cable means that people who would get this would end up with a power brick they weren't able to use. As for a USB version, any $10 powered USB hub will do the trick, so the expense to Apple (eventually passed onto the consumer) for the brick exceeds its value.

Re:Missing accessories

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the power charger is USB, too. You can buy either (though I suspect the Firewire won't be listed in the Apple store for long). Anyone who has an older Firewire-based iPod with a dock connector can continue to use the FW wall charger. Everybody else gets to buy a USB adapter.

Not a big deal, when you consider that most people aren't ever too far from a computer. If they travel with the iPod, they can buy the adapter. People who don't need one seem content not to be charged for one as part of the purchase price.

Re:Missing accessories

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently bought an iPod nano (first iPod I have ever owned) and like you was slightly annoyed that there was no mains charger included. As an experiment I dug up an old USB 1.1 powered hub, plugged it in and hooked the ipod dock cable into it. Once hooked into the nano, it began to charge. If you have an old powered usb hub (like my usb 1.1 hub) that you don't use anymore, it's perfect for charging an iPod from the mains with, and you don't have to buy one of those Apple mains-usb adaptors.

Re:Missing accessories

[Anonymous Coward]

You can just use your current iPod adapter with the new one, its the same kind of plug :)

Re:Missing accessories

[MacGod]

I also plan to stick with my 3rd gen for awhile (mainly because my Burton Amp Pack backpack requires the remote port), but if all that's holding you back is the lack of charger, why not use the charger from your 3rd-gen iPod? The 5th gen (video) iPods can still charge over Firewire, just not sync over it. So, why not just hang on to the charger and firewire-to-dock-port cable from your 3G iPod, for when you travel?

Re:Missing accessories

[mstra]

Apple actually also sells a charger that works with the USB cable. I have one for my 60 GB Photo.

Re:Missing accessories

[TCQuad]

Point taken, but that was an extra add-on, correct? Both of the iPods I purchased came with the Firewire power brick. And, given my previous suggestion of a really cheap replacement (which I'm assuming everyone has, possibly two or three extras at this site) for a USB power brick, I don't fault Apple for discontinuing the free power brick in exchange for a larger screen and video playback.

Plays music well?

[Anonymous Coward]

No gapless playback. No ogg support. Lame.

Re:Plays music well?

[bombadier_beetle]

And relatively low S/N ratio, i.e. shitty sound. I'm glad someone else understands that the iPod is not a high-quality sound experience.

Re:Plays music well?

[KylePflug]

No, it does LAME.

ba dum ksssshhhhh

Re:Plays music well?

[aichpvee]

Don't forget no FLAC support.

Re:Plays music well?

[krakelohm]

Not to be a dick... but what portable music players are "high-quality sound experiences"?

Re:Plays music well?

[wed128]

I guess if space is no issue, playing uncompressed wav would be much higher quality...also, ditch the buds and get real headphones.

the ipod is overrated anyway. i just want vorbis and flac support.

Re:Plays music well?

[bombadier_beetle]

Rio Karma (gapless playback, 98 dB S/N) + Etymotic ER-6 headphones.

Thank me later.

Re:Plays music well?

[badasscat]

And relatively low S/N ratio, i.e. shitty sound.

Unless the 5G iPod is different than the 4G, the iPod's s/n ratio is 98-100db. It doesn't get a lot better than that in portable players.

I'm not sure where people get the idea that the iPod has a low s/n ratio - I see people who obviously dislike the iPod bring that up a lot. Probably just one of those internet myths that gets passed around, based on the fact that Apple doesn't put this spec on their specs page (neither do most other portable player makers. When listening with all but the most expensive headphones, it's a pretty irrelevant stat). I don't know if the 5G's s/n ratio is still 100db, but it would surprise me if they actually downgraded the sound while upgrading everything else.

Use lossless compression and really good headphones (or the stereo output) and the iPod is as high-quality a playback device as most home CD players.

Re:Plays music well?

[Anonymous Coward]

it's supposed to be better.

Re:Plays music well?

[EggyToast]

it's because when the 4G iPods came out (the ones right before the Photos), on a fair portion of the devices you could hear a faint whine and distortion whenever the harddrive spun up, if you were using high quality headphones. This is true -- I hear it all the time when I'm at work. But it doesn't bother me -- it doesn't affect the music, nor is it very loud, nor is it consistent. It's once every 10 or 15 minutes if you're listening straight through, or at the beginning of the song if you make the HDD spin for seeking around. The Mini also had some quirks with wiggling the headphone jack and causing distortion. That was an isolated problem and Apple offered to fix players affected by it. But because of those two incidences, there are some people (who simply read the news and latch on to the idea, rather than actually own the devices or know people who own the devices) who regurgitate what they heard and exaggerate. The problem on the full players went away with the photos, which all iPods currently are. But as someone who listens to probably 2 hours of music on my iPod at work on very high quality headphones and actually hears the noise, I can't say it's enough to make me want to buy a replacement iPod -- it's not that bad. If I didn't want to hear it, I'd just use the provided earplugs. But I like my bass ;D

Re:Plays music well?

[RockOutlaw]

Right, because anyone listening to compressed digital music gives a crap about sound quality in the first place.

I can fire up my big fancy stereo (spinning a vinyl LP when I've got the option) if I want to chase perfection. If I just want to hear the damn song when I'm out and about, the iPod is way more than perfect.

Re:Plays music well?

[gray code]

I'll second this as a great setup, but I found the ER-6 a little too flimsy for me. Granted, I'm a bit of a klutz, but I managed to hook one of the wires on part of my desk at work; got up to leave and suddenly my left ear-plug goes silent, forever. They're too expensive to replace, so I got a pair of the Sony Fontopias. They sound almost as good, cost about 1/3 as much, and come out of my ear rather than break if I get caught on something (at the cost of a bit of sonic isolation).

Re:Plays music well?

[Tony Hoyle]

Even without the noise the bass response on the ipod varies from poor to completely crappy (with $60 headphones, which sound absolutely awesome when played via a decent sounds source).

I'm told they've made up for some of the problems in the Shuffle/Mini but I'm not about to spend the money to find out - the Photo I have was damned expensive (predates when Apple got a clue and started selling the ipod at resonable prices in the UK.. this one cost £550 which is about $800).

Re:Plays music well?

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

but it supports Apple Lossless so if you care about quality rather than ideology you're fine. if you care about ideology then you'd find some other reason not to buy one anyway.

Re:Plays music well?

[ninjakoala]

Actually it plays gapless when it's told to do so from iTunes. Yes, it's a bit of a chore but it works.

Re:Plays music well?

[iainl]

Do you have a huge amount of flac that you don't want to convert to Apple Lossless?

By definition, it's not going to sound any different, and Apple Lossless is indeed supported on the iPod.

Re:Plays music well?

[aichpvee]

Oh, good point. So what encodes Apple Lossless on Linux?

Re:Plays music well?

[iMacGuy]

A decoder exists, so ffmpeg may get an encoder sometime soon, although ffmpeg never does anything 'soon'.

Re:Plays music well?

[aichpvee]

Sounds about right. So I think my original post stands, and the GGP should stop letting ideology get in the way of seeing that FLAC support, far more so than OGG support (which was mentioned in the post I originally replied to), is about quality and not ideology. Though obviously wanting OGG support is about more than just ideology there is at least a viable alternative for lossy audio formats if I were to buy an iPod.

Re:But... Can I put my divx's etc on it?

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't read the article did you? You didn't even bother to google.

I wish people would help themselves before asking for help.

Re:But... Can I put my divx's etc on it?

[siliconjunkie]

Can it play divx's/xvid's?

Nope.

From http://www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html

H.264 video: up to 768 Kbps, 320 x 240, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats MPEG-4 video: up to 2.5 mbps, 480 x 480, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats

dont complain

[chrisxkelley]

ipod video is great. my friend just got one. of course everyone is saying what the hell, who would want to watch video on a 2.5" screen, but the question i have, is how the fuck do you plan on taking a normal sized, 30" tv on a plane, train, or in a car? stop complaining about the screen size and realize the potential. if you travel a lot, if youre a high school student (like myself), its great.

Re:dont complain

[shark72]

"ipod video is great. my friend just got one. of course everyone is saying what the hell, who would want to watch video on a 2.5" screen, but the question i have, is how the fuck do you plan on taking a normal sized, 30" tv on a plane, train, or in a car?"

Did you really think that's the only option? Either a 2.5" screen, or a 30" TV? Next time you're on a plane or train, note all the other folks with notebooks sporting 15" screens. This is what I use to watch movies on flights, since I have to take it with me anyway. Thus, I have no need for a video iPod.

"stop complaining about the screen size and realize the potential. if you travel a lot, if youre a high school student (like myself), its great."

And understand that there are many people who are not high school students (like yourself) or otherwise have different needs or expectations, and thus aren't interested in this product. You should not let this upset you. Others are entitled to their opinions, and theirs may just be just as valid as yours.

Re:dont complain

[chrisxkelley]

notebook computer = $999 and up ipod video = $299. i do have a notebook. its a nice 12" powerbook. most people can afford an ipod over a notebook.

Re:dont complain

[Coolnat2004]

Your grammar and capitalization reveals that you are.. a high school student. Surprisingly enough, though, mine isn't as easy to see through, eh?

No one is expecting to watch a 30" T.V. on-the-go, they are talking about similar video devices with 4-6" screens - the PSP is an example.

Anyway the new iPod is neat, and I'd like to see how well the video function works. ;)

Re:dont complain

[KylePflug]

If you can't afford a cheap notebook, you shouldn't be spending $300 on an MP3 player. The one is more important and has more utility and more bang-for-the-buck than the other.

An iPod Video is pure luxury. A notebook is, for many people, at least part necessity. It also has a potentially longer life, performs many more functions, etc.

If it comes down to (a) spending $300 on an iPod or (b)spending $999 on a notebook, and you can't afford (b), the best option is (c) IF YOU DON'T HAVE $999, YOU CANT SPARE $300.

Re:dont complain

[ngoy]

... if youre a high school student (like myself), its great.

You know, I've seen this high school student comment more than once. WTF? The only time I had in high school to do anything was at lunch. Don't you go to class? Study? Interface with people? Or is it this much vaunted "video iPod rulez" syndrome that makes it so great, even though it isn't?

Re:dont complain

[chrisxkelley]

Your grammar and capitalization reveals that you are.. a high school student.

was that really neccesary? also, thanks for figuring out that i'm a high school student. the line "if youre a high school student (like myself)," would never have given it away. I know how to use proper grammar, i communicate with clients via email all the time. why do i not use my grammar/sp/punctuation here? well put simply, i dont feel the need to impress anyone.

Re:dont complain

[ngoy]

notebook computer = $999 and up ipod video = $299. i do have a notebook. its a nice 12" powerbook. most people can afford an ipod over a notebook.

His reply was to travel on a plane. People who make more than one trip a year tend to be business users. They also tend to have laptops provided for by their company. If somone cannot afford a $999 laptop, they also cannot afford to travel ofter enough to buy a $299 iPod video for travelling.

Re:dont complain

[Coolnat2004]

Alright, but the readability of your message would highly increase if you typed correctly, it also enhances your point. Regardless, this is mindless babbling and way beside the point, if you need to settle this more clearly contact me through my website (linked above).

Re:dont complain

[Omnieiunium]

Argh, at my high school so many damn kids listen to iPods during class! It is so freaking annoying. I don't get kids these days, why don't you stop listening to your music and listen to the teacher for an hour. Your music can wait. I can only hope that kids don't watch TV during class or something because if I were the teacher, I would be taking the device away for a long time.

Re:dont complain

[chrisxkelley]

sure, i would love to listen to music in class. of course i'll listen to a lecture, but when we're doing classwork (which is susually useless busiwork that requires little thought anyway), it's really nice to have music

Re:dont complain

[timeOday]

stop complaining about the screen size

The sad thing is the video iPod's screen covers less than half of its front surface. What's up with that? The screen could be twice as large without making the device any bigger. Look at how many PocketPC devices have full VGA screens about 3.6 inches across wich is over double the surface area and twice the pixels, all in a nice small package. mmm, that Asus is a very sweet form factor.

Re:dont complain

[Helios1182]

Then again if a person has a desktop and no real need to a laptop the iPod makes a lot more sense. Most people don't need laptops. I have both and use my laptop more, fine, but I also don't pull it out to watch movies or listen to music on the train to school every morning -- it just isn't practical for that. And iPod (which I don't have yet) makes a lot more sense -- even though it is a luxury..

Re:dont complain

[Triple Click]

Yeah, and look how many PDAs are being sold compared to iPods.

Re:dont complain

[KylePflug]

Right. But you have both a desktop and a laptop -- an iPod would be icing on the cake. For a person who can't afford a proper computer, a video iPod is like icing with no cake to begin with. I own a desktop (homebuilt) and a laptop (an old Tablet PC), as well as a greyscale 4g iPod 20gb. I bought them in that order -- necessity first, necessity second (the laptop is a must now that I'm at a university), luxury last. If I couldn't afford a laptop, then I could by extension barely afford an iPod, and it seems like I'd be better off not buying either. In fact, that's what used to be teh case -- before I had my computer or iPod, I used a cheap Rio player for years, upgrading it every now and then courtesy of Costco's extremely liberal return policy.

Re:dont complain

[alc6379]

who would want to watch video on a 2.5" screen, but the question i have, is how the fuck do you plan on taking a normal sized, 30" tv on a plane, train, or in a car?

Hear Hear.

My wife is one of, what seems, the very few people to have bought one of the original Nokia NGAGE game system/phones. She LOVES it. Sure, the screen is smaller than the new iPod's, but she loves watching movies on it. She's an anime fan-- I can take 3-4 smaller anime series and convert them down to H.263, sized for her screen, and they'll easily fit on a 1GB MMC with room to spare. I think, in fact, that an appropriately sized full-length movie might only take up around 80-90MB of space, since you cut a few frames and shrink the video's resolution.

I think that people just like to whine/naysay about anything, personally. Why do you need incredible quality for a portable device, anyways? I think people are really expecting more than they should from these; they're not home entertainment systems, after all, and you're stupid if you honestly expected them to be.

Re:dont complain

[CastrTroy]

But you don't have to spend $999 on a laptop. You can spend $499 on this dell laptop and not have to worry about what media formats it plays. Also, it has tons more features that the ipod doesn't have. Mind you I think this whole argument of comparing ipods to laptops is kind of useless. They are completely different devices, meant for completely different things. I really don't get those people who carry around laptops. There are very few times when a laptop would provide better results than a good desktop + a good PDA.

Re:dont complain

[CastrTroy]

News flash. Proper grammar isn't something you use to impress people. It's something you use to communicate your message effectively. I hate when I receive an email, or even an IM, from someone with terrible grammar. Why people can't take the extra 7 seconds to use proper grammar is beyond me. If they had taken the extra 7 seconds, I wouldn't have to take 30 seconds trying to figure out what they meant.

Re:dont complain

[Fengpost]

Watch your language kid. This is a sophisticated blog.

Re:dont complain

[KillerDeathRobot]

I'm not sure if you're allowed to criticize punctuation if you don't even know how many dots go in an ellipsis.

Re:dont complain

[Anarchitect_in_oz]

Remember this is an experiment involving Video player in a Music player.

It's a music player first, and a popular one involving a thing called a scroll wheel. If the experiment proves successful and a market develops for more content and more demand for player that's more video less music, then you will see your full screen Video iPod, maybe a bigger screen still, say postcard sized so they can squeeze a battery better then 2 hours into it.

Say 6 months at the earliest, any longer than 12 months an the chance of happening start to look slim.

After all looked what happened with that experiment they called iPod.

Re:dont complain

[MrSteveSD]

The PSP has a glorious 4.2" Wide-screen and it fits into my jacket pocket just fine. The video Ipod screen is a postage stamp by comparison.

Re:dont complain

[shmlco]

"This is what I use to watch movies on flights, since I have to take it with me anyway. Thus, I have no need for a video iPod."

A video ipod is still an ipod, still capable of playing music and audiobooks. The new 60GB ipod lasts for twenty hours doing just those things. How long does your notebook battery last again?

I suppose you can always carry five extra notebook batteries with you...

Re:dont complain

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think the iPod's 2.5" screen is 'postage stamp' sized by comparison with the PSP's 4.2", then your saying PSP is like "one and a bit postage stamps" in size, I hope you realise that...

YMMV, but for me the slightly larger (but still small) screen doesn't make up for the fact that the PSP itself is twice as large, has 30-60 times less storage, and - and this bit's important - doesn't fit comfortably in my pocket. In fact, it's impractical to the point that 6 months or so on (it's a Japanese import) I don't carry it with me at all any more - and I used to carry my GBA SP everywhere.

sign of the times

[rebug]

Even the Wall Street Journal editors think nothing of downloading and sharing TV shows. I think this pretty much reflects the average person's stance: it's just not a big deal.

IP owners sure have a tough battle ahead of them.

Re:sign of the times

[Blondie-Wan]

IP owners sure have a tough battle ahead of them.

Or rather, they would if their strategy involved winning users' hears and minds. Since they're buying legislation instead, their chances of victory are far greater than I'm comfortable with.

Re:sign of the times

[Dorothy 86]

Well, if I understand it correctly, the IPv4 stocks are almost sold to complete volume. But those with the IPv6 stocks are set for many years to come.

shoot me now please?

Re:sign of the times

[Baricom]

Even the Wall Street Journal editors think nothing of downloading and sharing TV shows...IP owners sure have a tough battle ahead of them.

Isn't the owner of the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, an I.P. owner?

Creative Zen Vision

[ChaserPnk]

For $399 plays videos such as Xvid, Divx. Can do pictures as well.

Official Site

Digital Life TV Review

Might be a worthy rival to the iPod.

Re:Creative Zen Vision

[heeeraldo]

they've got different approaches - the Zen Vision is a video player first and also a music player, where the new iPod is a music player with a large, video-capable screen, like the old iRiver H320.

Re:Creative Zen Vision

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not hip and cool, and doesn't have white headphones to let everyone on the bus know that you're one of the cool kids who is using an iPod. As such, it has absolutely NO chances at succeeding on the market, no... Well, unless they adverstise with extremely stylish billboards and commercials, maybe then.

Re:Creative Zen Vision

[aliens]

Looks good, except Creative has proven to not exactly offer decent support on their products. At least with an ipod I know it will just work when I plug it in.

What next?

[InvisibleSoul]

So now that MP3 players can play videos as well, what's next? Maybe they can add support for video games. Wait, they already have those...

Re:What next?

[LikwidFlux]

Next thing you'll know they'll have cell phone with CAMERAS!

Re:What next?

[Anonymous Coward]

iTMS and radio streams through wi-fi. Personally I'd love to ditch the computer all together.

But how does it look on a TV?

[mrjatsun]

I personally don't care about watching a video on the iPod screen. I have my iPod in a dock hooked up to my stereo. With the new video iPod and new dock/remote, I could watch movies, tv shows, etc on my TV (video supplied by me, not iTunes :-))

So who cares how it looks on the iPod screen, how does it look on a non HD TV, how easy is it to navigate through video selections with the remote, etc, etc.

IMO, that's what will make or break the video part of the iPod. Of course, you buy an new iPod, you get the video feature for free. So why are folks complaining so much???

Re:But how does it look on a TV?

[geekoid]

"... how does it look on a non HD TV..."

like crap.

Re:But how does it look on a TV?

[Jason1729]

Read the specs...320x240 pixels (very low res), and compressed so that a 22 minute show takes 200 meg (very small)....The previous responded had a good summary; like crap.

Re:But how does it look on a TV?

[mh101]

The iPod plays 320x240 video. AFAIK, regular TV broadcasts are also 320x240, or somewhere near there. So it's definitely not going to be DVD quality, but I would imagine it would look kinda like watching something recorded on a VHS tape at the lower quality setting. Image quality also would depend on the bitrate used, obviously.

I agree with your last point completely. People shouldn't be complaining about the video quality on a music player. If I buy one of these iPods to replace my current 3G iPod, it is for the sake of having a new iPod with more storage space, longer battery life, and the bigger, and color, screen. The fact that I can show photos and video clips is an added bonus, not the primary reason for getting one.

Re:But how does it look on a TV?

[loquacious d]

I would suggest you try viewing a 320x240 h.264 clip at 700kbits on your SD TV, lest you continue in ignorance.

First, resolution. NTSC resolution is theoretically 480 lines, but they're interlaced, so 240 progressive lines are an acceptable resolution. Unless you're used to watching your 32" TV from S-video inputs and three feet away, you won't notice a drop in quality. (In addition, the iPod plays MPEG4 at 480x480--coincidentally, the exact same resolution that SD Tivos record at, and nearly DVD quality [DVDs are 720x480, crop that to 540x480 for 4:3 video and you're only losing 60 horizontal pixels of resolution [ignoring for a minute anamorphic DVDs]]. It will even look passable, I wager, on a 480p HDTV, though obviously not as good as true HD.) I found the definition of iPod-sized video, on a large SDTV, to be at least comparable to Tivo, with the edge going to the iPod for its superior audio and lack of artifacts. (Damn Tivo muddies up everything, even on best quality, and just murders the audio.)

As to the "smallness" of 200 megs/44 mins comment, this just displays your ignorance of MPEG4 encoding (and arithmetic--44 minutes * 700Kib/sec * 60sec/min * 1KiB/8Kib * 1KiB/1024MiB = 225MB, 22 minute shows are around 100MB). At 320x240, with any MPEG4 codec (not even the much higher-quality h.264), 768bit/s is just plain overkill, by about three times. Most pirated movies are twice that resolution (4x the pixels) at a bitrate closer to 600kbit/s. H.264 can get away with less than 200kbit/s at the iPod's resolution without a noticeable drop in quality, and can likely go a lot lower if you're not as picky as me (too bad it doesn't support B-frames or CABAC). A 22 minute TV show takes approximately 50-60MB on the iPod, if it's smartly done.

That said, the Lost season premiere I downloaded from iTunes displayed disappointingly noticeable artifacting in the ultra-dark jungle scenes. I couldn't see any artifacts on my computer's screen, but I guess the gamma was waaay up on the TV or something and the icky MPEG boxes were all over the place in the dark bits. (I wish someone would make a video codec that didn't go to shit when the screen went black.) The moral of the story is, rip your DVDs and use BitTorrent (which you'll have to do if you want more than Lost and DH anyway).

So in closing, yes, read the specs... but then, and more importantly, do some actual encoding work with ffmpeg or mencoder (or Quicktime, if you don't mind the ridiculously high bitrate). I think you'll discover that the iPod hits approximately the sweet-spot in terms of SD video quality (esp. if you care enough to encode at 480x480). But if you're looking for a dedicated portable video player, consider the Zen Vision, it has wider codec/bitrate support. I expect that most people, however, will be more than happy with the iPod, especially if they listen to music.

Re:But how does it look on a TV?

[rjhall]

hmm... looking at TFSpecs again, I see:
  MPEG-4 video: up to 2.5 mbps, 480 x 480, 30 frames per sec.,

So - 480 pixels deep isn't far off whatever *real* lines you get on a 525 standard US non-HD tv.
22minutes = 200mb? When I rip a dvd to divx it's about the same ratio (1hr = 700Mb) and it looks pretty good on a 1280x1024 laptop screen.

so maybe not 'crap', maybe just 'crappy'?

Re:But how does it look on a TV?

[CastrTroy]

So, you want to buy a video iPod + new dock/remote system, so you can effectively watch TV. Why not just watch TV on a TV, and use a DVD player for the movies. Why would you buy a video iPod, if you aren't actually going to watch videos on the thing?

Re:But how does it look on a TV?

[iainl]

Just for comparison, DVD is 720x480, so it's only horizontal resolution you're missing out on.

Re:But how does it look on a TV?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the only large-capacity iPod one can buy now includes video functionality (at no extra cost).

- R

Re:But how does it look on a TV?

[Jason1729]

I've seen those 700 meg, 90 mins-2 hour movies from kazaa, etc. The quality is crap. I'd rather pay the $20 a DVD costs not to have to subject my eyes to that torture. There's more artifacting than image. 200 meg for 44 minutes is even worse.

At 450-500 meg/44 min episode the quality becomes pretty decent.

And you claim you're picky on the quality.

Re:But how does it look on a TV?

[loquacious d]

You're right, 400-500 megs is about right for a 44 minute episode (I ripped my Arrested Development at 200megs/22 min. episode, which is just about perfect for h.264). But that's at full DVD resolution, 720x480. At 320x240, 700kbits is, as I said, excessive. To my eyes, 320x240 looks great on a TV, unless it's very large or you sit very close. But of course if you're really that obsessed with 'quality', you can always encode to 480x480 MPEG4 at 2.5 megabits, but that's getting just obscene for MPEG4.

But don't take my word for it, rip some DVDs and see for yourself. I suggest recent TV shows, they take only a little time (an hour at most for a 22 minute TV show to iPod resolution), and are higher-quality than older shows--a lot of the 'artifacting' I see in my Fawlty Towers rips, for example, is on the original DVD.) In particular do a couple of side-by-side MPEG4 vs. h.264 encodes at the same bitrate, it's really amazing the difference sometimes. If you've got a Mac, HandBrake is simple and pretty stellar.

Also, don't use Kazaa, silly. Find yourself a nice BT community and see what really good MPEG4 looks like. I've seen some awful 2CD rips, and I've seen some amazing 700meg ones. It's all about the little things -- denoise filters, subpixel quantizing, the motion vector algorithm used, the number of encoding passes, b-frames, etc. etc.

Anyway, I still stand by my statements that, for the iPod screen and (SD)TV-out, the resolutions and bitrates supported by the iPod are more than adequate.

Am I the only one?

[jacklexbox]

Maybe I really am crazy, but the article mentioned Quicktime Pro 7, and "various other encoders" as a means to create iPod playable video. The iPod plays H.264 Mpeg 4 video, would pspVideo9 not work just as well as QT Pro? If you encode a video into a 320x240 resolution clip, with a bitrate not higher than the 768KB per second, then wouldn't it work? I cannot test this idea yet, as my 60GB 5th gen iPod hasn't arrived yet, but it seems likely to work. Correct me if I am wrong. And also do you think VBR H.264 would be a problem for the new iPods?

Re:Am I the only one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people would find out what capabilities a $400-500 piece of equipment was capable of BEFORE buying it.

Re:Am I the only one?

[jacklexbox]

I know the iPod's capabilities, what I am asking about is whether or not the video encoded by pspVideo9 is the same format of video that QT7Pro makes.

Re:Am I the only one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually PSPVideo9 adds some strange MP4 headers to the .MP4 files that the PSP requires. The iPod Video may require some strange headers too, but it is unlikely. It is unknown if it will play the PSP MP4 files with the odd headers, but it is likely.

Then there is the fact that the iPod can play H.264 Baseline Profile Level 1.3 while the PSP can play H.264 Baseline Profile Level 3. You can compress video for the iPod with FFmpegX if you are using a Mac: http://diveintomark.org/howto/ipod-porn-conversion -guide/

It uses the great open-source h264 codec X264.

Re:Am I the only one?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're on a Mac you don't have to purchase QT Pro. You can use iMovie.
Share -> QT -> Expert Settings.

Re:Am I the only one?

[Lars T.]

I recently downloaded QTAmateur, about the same time I also got QuickTime 7.0.3.

I opened a Movie, watched it, fine. I looked in the Menus, saw "Export", clicked it - and the selector was at "iPod (320x240)" (just at the bottom of the list, no settings available). I entered a filename, clicked "Export", and after (quite) some time out came a ".m4v" iTunes file with

AAC, Stereo, 44,100 kHz
H.264, 320 x 240, 16,7 Mill.

and a FPS of 23.98, the same as the original video. Since I don't have one of these fancy-shmancy iPods, I can't actually tell you if that video plays - but it's a pretty good guess.

So getting the latest version of QT (which you'll need for the version of iTunes that links to the new iPods anyway AFAIK), and anything that can export the codecs of QT Standard - it can't be much easier.

Other interesting comments

[mblase]

This video format and conversion problem is a mess that will hold back the video iPod unless Apple fixes it by incorporating free, reliable, and easy video conversion in iTunes.

He's got a point. Quicktime Pro is a $30 upgrade no user should have to pay for just to do this job. iTunes can easily convert between MP3, AAC, WAV or AIFF -- it ought to do the same for MPG and MOV videos.

Apple should also include a stand with the video iPod, to get around the problem of holding the thing in viewing position for long periods.

This comment I don't get. It's supposed to be a portable video viewer, not a comfortable one.

Re:Other interesting comments

[brogdon]

"He's got a point. Quicktime Pro is a $30 upgrade no user should have to pay for just to do this job"

No kidding. The latest version of QuickTime won't even let you view movies in full-screen mode unless you buy the upgrade. There's a recipe for consumer goodwill.

Re:Other interesting comments

[SeaFox]

He's got a point. Quicktime Pro is a $30 upgrade no user should have to pay for just to do this job. iTunes can easily convert between MP3, AAC, WAV or AIFF -- it ought to do the same for MPG and MOV videos.

Keep in mind codes are patented and people expect licencing fees. This is probably part of the reason Apple charges for QuickTime Pro. If it gave away the encoding ability in the downloadable version of iTunes they would have to pay licencing fees on every download, whether the person used the features or just used iTunes as an mp3 player/encoder.

I think they should include a version of iTunes that can convert video files with the iPod, but it would pop up on piracy rings so fast...

Re:Other interesting comments

[NanoGator]

"He's got a point. Quicktime Pro is a $30 upgrade no user should have to pay for just to do this job."

Agreed. QT pro should come with the iPod. On the other hand, I can see why they didn't do it. Remember that bullshit Eisner started with Apple's 'rip mix and burn' campaign?

"It's supposed to be a portable video viewer, not a comfortable one."

Pretty simple premise, really. If you're sitting in a plane, having a little wire stand would mean the iPod could sit up on the tray table for you to watch without having to hold it the whole time. Frankly, I agree with him. Not only would it be super cheap to include, but it'd also make the iPod a killer travel accessory. My little 2.5" TV comes with one of these. It's just a little plastic flap sticking out the back. I've watched a number of hours of TV on that thing, and the little stand made it that much more convenient.

Re:Other interesting comments

[badasscat]

Pretty simple premise, really. If you're sitting in a plane, having a little wire stand would mean the iPod could sit up on the tray table for you to watch without having to hold it the whole time.

It's called a dock, and Apple sells them for $39.

If you don't need docking functions, try one of these, or these, or these, or these.

Would it be cheap for Apple to have included one? Sure - that $15 one is just a little piece of plastic, I'm sure it costs about 45 cents to make. But what would Apple gain from it? They're not going to sell any more iPods because it comes with a stand, and they're just going to annoy their accessory makers. One of the things that's kept the iPod so popular is this cottage industry of accessories that's grown up around it - people know they have many options to customize their iPods, so it makes them more likely to buy (vs. another player that may have a smaller selection of cases, stands or other products available).

I do personally wish the iPod still came with a dock, but I don't just want a crappy little stand. And I understand why Apple took the dock out of the package - it hasn't hurt sales any and it's let them do these feature and spec upgrades without raising prices at all. I'm not defending their removal of the dock from a consumer's standpoint, but I do understand it from a business standpoint.

Re:Other interesting comments

[Anonymous Coward]

He's got a point. Quicktime Pro is a $30 upgrade no user should have to pay for just to do this job.

Uh, the "job" in question is converting your already-pirated movies. You don't need QTPro for anything else.

iTunes can easily convert between MP3, AAC, WAV or AIFF -- it ought to do the same for MPG and MOV videos.

QuickTime can't convert MPG audio streams due to licensing restrictions. So, you would get video with no audio. Why would you want that?

Re:Other interesting comments

[sh00z]

If you don't need docking functions, try one of these, or these, or these, or these.

Or, if you're truly cheap, just roll your own.

Re:Other interesting comments

[westyx]

I just want to save .mov files from the internet/apple's movie trailer page. I can't do that without paying $30? I don't want to encode, or change image size .. i just want to save and watch. Not something that I think I should have to pay for.

Re:Other interesting comments

[SeaFox]

You don't have to pay for Quicktime Pro to save trailers from the site. I've done it before and I can't recall how, but you have to poke around in the source code of the page to get the url of the actual movie file.

Re:Other interesting comments

[westyx]

they've changed that - the source code points to a 200 odd byte .mov file, which contains the correct address. you can also packetsniff and find the GET (well, until they encrypt that, anyways). the annoying thing is that there's an option to cache files on the hd, but they save in an opaque format (.qtch) which no one has managed to reverse engineer yet.

Re:Other interesting comments

[Scudsucker]

Quicktime Pro is a $30 upgrade no user should have to pay for just to do this job.

Wouldn't iMovie suffice for this?

Scratching...?

[DustyShadow]

Seeing as it looks very similar to the ipod nano, does the video ipod suffer from the same screen scratching problem?

Re:Scratching...?

[KylePflug]

Ask it this way: Seeing as how it's essentially teh same design that ALL iPods use, why does the Nano suffer exceptional scratching?

A: Because people stick it in their pants pocket with keys and change.

Sure, the iPod line has always been prone to cosmetic damage, that's by far my biggest gripe with the units. But the reason the nano was particularly suspect to thise was not because of construction, but becuase of form factor. Same reason my tablet PC gets teh screens scratched to hell; not because it's not scratch-resistant (it's far more so than many laptop screens), but because it's designed to be used with your palm resting on it and a pen tapping on it for hours at a time.

Re:Scratching...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you just admit that Apple messed up with the Nano's construction? Sure, I would expect keys and change to scuff up an iPod. But you can easily put a nice big scratch on a Nano with just your fingernail. That's a design flaw. If you have an Apple store nearby, I suggest you take a look at the display Nanos. They are secured to the table, so they haven't been in anyone's pockets - just subjected to people's fingers as they play around with them. But they will still look like hell, while the other display iPods will look more or less fine.

Fair use...

[msauve]

"Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research." - http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html (emphasis added)

Re:Fair use...

[Threni]

> Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction
> of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news
> reporting, tea

Yes, but he's admitted to being in contact with someone who admits to breaking the law. Is he not worried about being told to reveal his sources?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2005/07/07/wpress07.xml

Clarification

[Fatal]

or even hourlong TV shows shortened by stripping out the commercials

Don't you mean 'or even 40 minute long TV shows that would usually be drawn out to an hour with commercials'

Firewire?

[Coolnat2004]

I know that the new iPods don't come with a firewire cable, but do they still support firewire cables?

Re:Firewire?

[od05]

NO it does not support firewire. If you have a 2 year old PowerBook you're back to USB 1.1

Re:Firewire?

[Blondie-Wan]

Not for syncing. FireWire can be used to charge the battery, but not to transfer data.

Re:Admitting to breaking laws? NOT!

[Ruvim]

Didn't Scifi.com put the last eisode of a season one of Battlestar Galactica online for free itself?

Maybe soon...

[szrachen]

Not yet, but I'm sure it will soon...

http://ipodlinux.org

Direct stream copy?

[tepples]

But aren't divx and xvid just MPEG-4 video in an AVI wrapper, such that a VirtualDub style program could just Direct-Stream-Copy the video to an MPEG-4 wrapper?

Re:Direct stream copy?

[siliconjunkie]

But aren't divx and xvid just MPEG-4 video in an AVI wrapper

DiVX and xvid are the DiVX codec and the xvid codec (in an AVI wrapper)

Re:Direct stream copy?

[CryoPenguin]

Yes, DivX and XviD are MPEG-4. But they use Avdanced Simple Profile whereas the iPod only supports Simple Profile.

Re:Direct stream copy?

[Robo210]

Actually, no. Divx and Xvid are MPEG4 implementions. There are, however, too complex for the ipod to support (as another poster said, the ipod only supports simple profile and baseline profile.)

Re:Direct stream copy?

[springbox]

From the XviD FAQ:

"What is XviD?

XviD is an ISO MPEG-4 compliant video codec, so designed to compress/decompress digital video. It's a open source project, which is developed and maintained by a handful of skilled and interested engineers from all over the world."

And I should mention while DivX is similar to XviD, DivX is a broken MPEG-4 codec in some respects

Re:Direct stream copy?

[evilviper]

But aren't divx and xvid just MPEG-4 video in an AVI wrapper

Yes, Divx and Xvid are MPEG-4. H.264, however, is not the MPEG-4, as least not as you know it. H.264 is different, and far more complex than MPEG-4.

You'll have to re-encode videos, and H.264 encoding is very slow.

Re:Direct stream copy?

[Durandal64]

h.264 is also known as MPEG-4 AVC, Advanced Video Coding. It's part of the spec, just a very advanced one.

Re:Direct stream copy?

[evilviper]

Why do some people feel the need to (re-)state the obvious?

Re:Direct stream copy?

[haruchai]

What was so obvious about either of those statements?

Re:Direct stream copy?

[evilviper]

What was so obvious about either of those statements?

The fact that I already said (almost) as much in my post, for one.

His two (entirely redundant) sentences are only one statement. I don't know why you call that two statements.

Re:Direct stream copy?

[siliconjunkie]

Right, Divx and Xvid are MPEG4 implementions. But the other poster's comment suggested that if the iPod supports MPEG4, and Divx and Xvid are just "MPEG4 in an AVI wrapper", then perhaps the iPod supports Divx and Xvid (which, as you have stated, is incorrect).

Re:Direct stream copy?

[haruchai]

On re-reading his comment, I can see that he essentially makes only one statement. Nevertheless, his statement is a clarification of your own statements, which are somewhat confusing or contadictory.

You state " H.264, however, is not the MPEG-4, as least not as you know it", which only implies to the casual reader that there is a similarity between H.264 and MPEG-4 but your next statement " H.264 is different, and far more complex than MPEG-4 " contradicts the idea of a similarity and then suggests they might be completely different standards.

His statement indicates that MPEG-4 encompasses more than one encoding standard within a single spec. That was not obvious from your original post.

Test video here

[Anonymous Coward]

I screen recorded this using SnapZ Pro X in the Video iPod's 320 x 240 pixel MPEG-4 (one of two formats) from a Real file. Requires Quicktime.

ENJOY!!

Converters from other formats should be soon arriving.

uh, not anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

Turns out the new iPod has 44 Khz recording capbilities. Don't know why the ditched that particular restraint but, hey, you can now record your favorite cover band doing an awful version of "Walk on the wild side"

Re:uh, not anymore

[MightyMait]

Who modded the parent down on this?!?! This is actually big news (if true). The last bit was funny (if a bit cruel).

Re:uh, not anymore

[MightyMait]

I just checked, it's true!! 44.1 KHz stereo recording. See this page and search for "Voice recording settings".

Replace the Wheel with a full sized touch screen.

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPod could compete with the PSP by replacing the screen/touch wheel version with a full sized touch screen.

The touch screen could approximate the 16:9 format of HDTV.

The iPod 'Wheel' could be displayed when you touch the screen in a certain location. You could see a display of the original formatted screen/wheel.

After selecting a video to view, the wheel vanishes and gives you the whole side of the iPod in Widescreen mode.

They would need to boost the size of the battery by a couple of millimeters of thickness to get some more playtime with the bigger screen.

In addition to the widescreen format touch screen, the actual display elements could be Organic LED (OLED) if that would help produce a brighter picture and clearer display.

(See Epsons OLED: http://www.epson.co.in/aboutus/newscentre/OLED.sht ml )

Some touch screen technologies could be even more sensitive than the current wheel technology.

Also, a icon list of videos (like in the new iTunes 6) could scroll down the screen in landscape mode, and then the user could touch the little icon to begin playing Christina Aguilera or the next episode of LOST, or watch Toy Story in it's original format.

That's the next logical step for the iPod, then it could simulate an HDTV type experience on a 4" screen.

Now, if they would only up the resolution to 1080p and add a Universal Dock to HDMI adapter, you could take your favorite movie over to your friend's house and watch your iPod play connected to their 42" Plasma HDTV!

Can't burn to CD

[Snaller]

So you are stuck with a file on your harddrive - sounds like a good deal to me... not.

Re:Can't burn to CD

[Zorque]

People still use CDs? I've burned one CD-R in the 7 months I've had my iPod, and it was a copy of Hiren's Boot Disk. I doubt it's a big issue, seeing as how the iPod has tens of times the space of a single CD and at least 5 times as much as a DVD.

Re:Can't burn to CD

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure you can burn the data file to a data CD if you want to back it up.

Why are people surprised they say you can't burn these. When they say that they mean burn as a disc you can just stick in a DVD/CD/etc player. There is no standard for that.

No you can't make music CD's out of video. And what are they supposed to do? Have it create stripped down DVD's without a menu? And since it is protected content, it would have to be a CSS encrypted DVD. Is that even possible? Imagine the licensing they would need. region encoding?

Also, sounds like a waste of space for one video. Or maybe put multiple video's on each dvd. But you still lack a nice menu, so maybe have them just run back-to-back with no breaks... yeah i want to do that...

Someone, anyone, tell me how they could make video-burning as simple as music CD burning. Has to be very common and non-tech user friendly (so VCD is out, not all players do that, nor would the average person know what that is, let alone that would have to reencode unless there is mpeg4/h264 vcd formats supported by ALL players).. Basically a select what to burn, put in a disc, out pops a disc you can play in your standard video player...

suggestions for format?

Re:Can't burn to CD

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Apple we are talking about. :) They make the best DVD authoring suite(s) around!

Consumer Level:
http://www.apple.com/ilife/idvd/

Pro Level:
http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/dvdstudiopro/

Clearly Apple has the technical ability to do it.

You got it spot on here though:
"And since it is protected content, it would have to be a CSS encrypted DVD. Is that even possible? Imagine the licensing they would need. region encoding?"

The reason you can't burn the shows to disk is because the industry wouldn't like it. Burning would cut into their Full Season DVD sales, and the slippery-slope arguments that arise from CSS-free copyright material are too much to deal with at this point in time. Nevertheless, Apple has made a huge breakthrough with their distribution of licensed TV content over the internet. Awesome.

Someone, anyone, tell me how they could make video-burning as simple as music CD burning. Has to be very common and non-tech user friendly (so VCD is out, not all players do that, nor would the average person know what that is, let alone that would have to reencode unless there is mpeg4/h264 vcd formats supported by ALL players).. Basically a select what to burn, put in a disc, out pops a disc you can play in your standard video player...

It would appear you haven't fully tried the iLife suite. Go down to your nearest Apple store, or ask a Mac savvy friend if she can make an account on her machine.

Take a digital camera, borrow a DV camera, grab some CD's or MP3's, and make yourself a DVD of your girlfriend, pet, neighborhood, anything.

The Apple stores have DV cameras hooked up to some of their machines, so you could honestly drop by the store every week and create and publish a video podcast right from inside!

Give it a go, burning DVDs rock.

Re:Can't burn to CD

[wheany]

suggestions for format?

DVD.

Put the title of the video in a menu along with a still or moving thumbnail of the video. Works just fine with MythTV.

The friend...

[Snaller]

...is on the way to Gitmo as we speak ;)

No, you're not!

[mbaciarello]

Well, if your're crazy, then HackADay.com is your asylum: that's precisely today's hack.

I don't have neither gadget, but looks like that Videora iPod Converter is using PSPVideo9 codecs to prepare video for the iPod. Donate if you enjoy it!

Re:No, you're not!

[jacklexbox]

THAT is crazy, I did NOT read that article either, but using pspVideo9 to create iPod videos is something that I have been wondering about for a while, and amazingly, I was right! It is possible. Awesome, free (LEGAL, as apposed to stealing QT7Pro) ways to make iPod vids.

Re:But... Can I put my divx's etc on it? YES

[kizzbizz]

I'm sure this is on ALOT of peoples minds right now who are considering the new iPod, especially those with large libraries of "home" movies.

Well, if your video clips are in divx/xvid/etc, you will have to convert them to h.264 (One of the playable codecs) in order for it to work.

Download this program, there is a 30 day free trial included. It allows you to batch encode your videos so you can run it all night. The resulting files, depending on your encoding level (I did the lowest, as its just for the little screen), will probably take less space than the originals. That's all you need.

It's an iPod regardless.

[vicgolgo13]

I don't see why everyone is having a hissyfit about not wanting to buy the video iPod. It's essentially an iPod with video added on for no extra cost.

What's that you say?

Did I stutter??? It's an iPod with Free Video Capabilities.

If you don't like the video aspect of it and just want an iPod that plays music, guess what? It still plays music! Just don't download any videos to it and you'll be fine.

People are missing the point that the new generation iPod is an improvement altogether: Thinner case and improved battery life.

Re:It's an iPod regardless.

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

If I was looking to buy a new iPod, then great, a video mode which I doubt I will use often (can't watch too many videos jogging or driving down the road with my iPod plugged in), but the new iPod does offer a lot in terms of price/features for new buyers. Its 1/2 the price of my 3 year old 3G iPod with more features.

But, I own a 3G iPod, and when you start to compare what you get with a 3G with a 5G, you realize that Apple hasn't really brought much to the table in terms of convinceing old users to upgrade.

color screen: nice, but doesn't add anything to the experience

photo playback: nice again, using it as a photo library to take on the road, but how many times are we in a position of just needing to show off our life's photos on the spur of the moment. Not many.

thinner, naturally: new electronics will always be thinner, lighter, cheaper, I am not going to upgrade just to lose a little weight or pinch a few millimeters.

video playback: a novelty, I firmly agree that watching video on small screens is for short bursts only, perhaps video podcasts is the only thing I am missing, but I don't watch MTV because I can't stand vapid and meaningless music videos and I own a PVR and DVD recorder, so all my TV videos are free.

Ultimately, I bought an iPod because I wanted to have my whole music library on my person, so I could listen to any music I wanted in a very capable and stylish device. All the bells and whistles added afterwards are all nice, but superfluous.

Video capabilities in the new iPod isn't earth shattering. Its a color iPod playing a slideshow at 24fps sync'd to a music track, really. I mean, I am sure 4G iPods could playback video with a firmware update.

Anyways, I think most of the hissyfits come from the millions of iPod users and fans asking Apple to give them a real reason to upgrade, other then design revisions and firmware tweaks. Give me a touch screen LCD the size of the whole iPod, PVR capabilities, game support and 50 hour battery life, I.E. stun me. Instead, Apple will trickle out minor innovations every 6 months and expect the world to put it on a pedestal every time.

Re:It's an iPod regardless.

[EggyToast]

Critics are missing the point, yes. Critics often miss the point, though.

Everyone else is buying or thinking of buying the new iPods ;D

I do think this is the sign that "it's time." People want to take video with them, on a small device that makes it easy, without messing with formats or other shit. Critics say "Archos does this better," and they do -- I've got an iPod for music, and an Archos AV420 for video precisely for this reason. In no way would I swap my Archos for the current iPod. But I'd swap my iPod for the new iPod.

After all, the people who actually want iPods are saying "oooh, bigger screen, slimmer body! Hey, it can do some video stuff too!"

Re:It's an iPod regardless.

[mh101]

when you start to compare what you get with a 3G with a 5G, you realize that Apple hasn't really brought much to the table in terms of convinceing old users to upgrade.

You forgot one, that is the primary reason I want to get one of these - hard drive space. Even if there were absolutely none of the other improvements you mentioned, I'd still get myself a new iPod eventually. I have a 30 GB 3G iPod (30GB was the max way back when I got mine), and it's starting to get a little cramped, so unless my remaining free space gets filled before Apple releases another iPod, I'm definitely getting one of these new 60GB models. (Yes, I know the 4G had 60 GB models too, but my iPod wasn't as full then so I couldn't justify the cost yet...)

Its a color iPod playing a slideshow at 24fps sync'd to a music track, really. I mean, I am sure 4G iPods could playback video with a firmware update.

Well, it's not quite that simple. Decoding and displaying 24 JPEGs per second is a whole lot easier than decoding 24 h.264-encoded frames per second. I personally don't think it's as simple as giving 4G's a firmware update to play videos, as they more than likely just don't have the processing power. (Disclaimer - I don't know anything about the chips inside them, so I could be wrong)

Re:It's an iPod regardless.

[Anonymous Coward]

companies that build portable video devices are not looking at this ipod as just a music player with some video capabilities. they are looking at this ipod as the competition (and they should).

Deviancy just got mobile!

[Anonymous Coward]

Already I am fantasising about taking the bus, my pr0n collection primed with the very best high KWAL-itee sound bleeding headphones at my side.

but if you have a cheap employer

[grahamsz]

Then you'll find yourself with a 15" screen in economy class. I did a little business travel with my old fujitsu lifebook and seat spacing wasn't enough to allow a comfortable viewing angle. I thought about buying a $200 dvd player for that situation, now the ipod is breaking into that market and i might do that instead.

also the ipod is more discrete and should have better battery life than a laptop decoding a video.

did he say anything about . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

how when plugged into his car speakers, it was able to belt out the new Fountains of Wayne rocker, "Maureen," loudly enough to be heard perfectly, even though he was going 70 mph in a convertible with the top down?

Nope.

[SamAdam3d]

No, it does not support the firewire protocol at all.

This has caused some problems for people with some accessories, for example, belkin makes an alternative to the camera connector for the ipod, and it uses the firewire protocol through the dock connector. It will no longer work on the new ipods. Apple's will, as it uses usb to transfer over the dock.

Anyone see the resemblance?

[Aenema]

Uncomfortable, small screen, and gives you a headache...
Its like a commercial airline without the actual airline!

Pocket PC

[klubar]

Actually with the Dell you can have both a SD and a CF card at the same time... In about 512 MB you can store an entire 120 minute video... thats gets you to 4 video "on line". Stick a spare in the carrying case and an entire day's worth of music.

Don't forget the Pocket PC device also has WiFi and bluetooth, so you're all set for a BT GPS receiver.

Although a bit more pricy than an iPod...it does much more. The only downside is that you don't get those trendy earbuds and the battery life is short. (Not taking a page from Apple, the Axim has a user replacable battery--in fact you can pack a spare for long trips.

Re:Pocket PC

[snuf23]

I've found that resizing and compressing the video down to 320x240 you can store a 90 minute movie in less than 200MB with good quality.

Re:Pocket PC

[JazzCrazed]

Actually, I put 1-1.5GB XviD-compressed full DVDs on my Microdrive. I usually compress to a resolution of 704 pixels wide, and the Axim is able to downscale it to 640 just fine using Beta Player. It was a daily habit of mine a while back to take a DVD backup to keep me occupied on the subway (now ebooks do that job).

Microdrive was the best thing I bought for it. I also have a 512MB SD card in there, but I use it for applications (documents and files go on the MD).

To blur the iPod functionality lines a bit further, I could try this - although Windows Media Player is hardly my most used app.

How useful was TV walkman ?

[Anonymous Coward]

TV walkman has been around for more than a decade. It didn't take off because the size is too small except for the few that can tolerate it: the feeble. If you can't be without video viewing for a few hours, you really need to get a real life. And who has the time to convert video from DVD to a format to this size, for a one-time viewing? Who watches any video more than once? Will anyone spend a few hours transcoding from DVD to mini-screen so a 1-hour TV show can be (if you squint) viewed? Movie trailers? Well, yeah! All right then. What's the MPAA got to fear? Few will bother watching pirate movies on a punky little viewport.

Brother, can you spare $30 ?

[Anonymous Coward]

QuickTime Pro 7 isn't worth $30 ?!?

Ok, using only $30 worth of your time,
write a better application, from scratch!

(Oh, and then do us all a favor and Copyleft/GPL it,
  here is the link if you need a reminder:
    http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html )

If you really can do that, let me know
- I know some people who want to hire you. (@ $10 an hour!!!)

Re:Brother, can you spare $30 ?

[Monkelectric]

Thats a straw man argument. I can't make a car on my own for less than 5 million dollars ... that doesn't mean any car has a value of 5 million dollars.

Re:Brother, can you spare $30 ?

[toddestan]

Who says anything about writing your own applications? The Video iPod claims that it supports MPEG4, in which case I'm pretty sure I could convince AutoGK to create compatible xvid files at a cost of $0. Of course, AutoGK is a Windows program, but I'm sure there are other options out there if you look.

Online Video

[Francisco_G]

Hopefully this will push QuckTime to be the standard format for internet video, like on websites and such. After all, if you are going to post content wouldn't you rather it be available on the most popular portable media player? If I never have to view another .WMV on my Mac I'll be happy.

Re:Online Video

[ruiner13]

More importantly it pushes standards compliant video and audio formats. There is no secret voodoo about creating video for it, they tell you exactly how to make them on their website. No DRM needed. The fact that QuickTime just happens to be the defacto player for this standard is just a nice bonus (ok, a really nice one). If you don't like QuickTime player, you don't have to use it. You may not be able to view the FairPlay wrapped files, but that is a small loss for some.

Re:Online Video

[Mr2001]

God, I hope not. QuickTime Player is, without exaggeration, the worst video player app I've ever used. It doesn't even work in full screen mode without a paid upgrade.

Re:Online Video

[Lars T.]

Then you have not used Windows Media Player.

Hell, was anybody ever able to use the fast forward button in that one?

Re:Online Video

[Mr2001]

Actually, I have used WMP, and I find it to be superior to QT Player in every way. I don't even notice the fast forward button.. if I want to skip ahead, I use the seek bar.

Re:Online Video

[Lars T.]

Which often doesn't work either.

Reference videos

[CODiNE]

Anybody have one of this iPods yet? Care to test out a reference video for me?

What I mean is, using QT Pro... grab a short selection, copy and paste it into a new movie. Now when saving using the radio button down at the bottom and save it in the smaller format. In QT 7 this is called Reference video, but in early it was called something else.

Now try and play the reference movie on the iPod. Does it work right?

Thanks. :-)

Re:Reference videos

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have one to test, but am pretty confident this wouldn't work. A reference movie just contains a reference to the other file. Take away the other file, and it breaks.

Re:Reference videos

[CODiNE]

Well yeah, I mean with both of them there. I'm wondering if the chip onboard has full QT support or just the MPEG4 decoding bits.

New Audio Recording - 44.1 KHz, stereo

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, now they can:

http://www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html

Two recording formats:

Low Quality Recording: 22.05 KHz, mono - Speech Recording
High Quality Recording: 44.1 KHz, stereo - Music Recording

Ask and you shall receive.

I've Been using Pogo Products to do direct to MP3 recordings for over two years now, and I have been very happy with the results (Radio YourWay LX - built in microphone / mic in/ line-in):

http://www.pogoproducts.com/

What I REALLY like about the Pogo Products is that they record directly into an MP3 file (encoding levels / quality is user selectable)
Recording directly into MP3 saves time, and makes good use of a 1GB SD card. (1GB holds quite a long speech recorded at 56/44!)

So your musical friends can now record to their iPod or make quick demos using a Pogo Radio YourWay LX 512 MB + 1GB SD/MMC Cards...
http://www.pogoproducts.com/radioyourway.html

( I've been hoping that if Pogo Owns that technology (hardware MP3 encoding), that Apple would buy the whole company just to add MP3 recording into the iPod. But I don't know if Pogo owns the technology,
or if they are repackaging someone elses chips into their products...)

Re:But... Can I put my divx's etc on it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there an easy way to convert divx/xvids/other avis seen via torrents to play on this?

Yes but...

[Doyle]

Can it play ogg theora...?

Will start different use of video

[jim_mcneely]

If it takes off at all I think what this is going to do is usher in a new form of video that is suited to small hand-held devices. No one is going to want to sit and watch a 40 minute TV show on one of these, your arm would fall off and your eyes would permanently cross. It's too small, its just wrong. However, for short music videos, that go with a song, and short independent video podcasts, this is going to be a somewhat new medium. Creative people adapt to the canvas that is available; TV shows are not what this is going to be about. Even with normal DSL it takes too long to download, it destroys the impulse buying part of the equation. Who in their right mind wants to spend 20 minutes downloading an episode of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES?! However, songs with good or clever videos to go along with would probably sell better. However, I want one so I can listen to Glenn Gould play Bach on the piano. Who cares about the video?

Get a free video ipod

Re:Will start different use of video

[BenjyD]

The BBC and Channel 4 have a huge catalogue of short films (~10 minutes) available which would be perfect for video iPods - things like Marion and Geoff or Black Cab. I wonder if they've thought of releasing them on iTunes?

Watch TiVo MPG2 content?

[xqos]

I spent ages upgrading my DirectTivo so I can pull the movies off and edit out the commercials. I would love to be able to convert them to Ipod format (MPG4) and watch them. Is there a compatible converter I could use to do this? Is it legal?

Roadmap of future iPoddisplays

[Anonymous Coward]

2005 = 320 * 240
2006 = 640 * 480
2007 = 800 * 600
2008 = 1024 * 768
2009 = 1280 * 960
2010 = 1440 * 900
2011 = 1680 * 1050
2012 = 1920 * 1200
2013 = 2560 * 1600

Re:But... Can I put my divx's etc on it?

[generic-man]

Yes, there is.

There are also automation programs like ffmpegX (for Mac) that can write appropriate movie files.

Converting Videos

[marcybots]

I really am favorable towards the video Ipod, but Apple has really got to give away video conversion software for free with the video ipod, unless they do they are really shooting themselves in the foot. Why would I spend 300-400 dollars on a device then another 30 so I can convert my home movies? That is really lame, and I really agree with Walt Mossberg that it should be within Itunes, instead of having to pay for a separate program. Mossberg is a great tech writer and usually right about these things in the long run, and Apple should listen to him.

Re:Converting Videos

[marcybots]

Not only do you have to pay to convert videos, its also a separate program, which is not a elegant solution at all, and very complicated and very un-ipod like in design. That is why the ipod is cool, its simple, elegant and easy to use. I have owned many mp3 players and they all sucked compared to my ipod, hopefully the video ipod will be as good at doing video as the music ipod was at doing music within a generation or two.

Re:Converting Videos

[Kichigai Mentat]

You know, this makes me wonder, does anyone know what the video specs are?

This reminds me a little of the PSP's video playback capability. After a little while, people were releasing software to conver the videos. It only took a little longer before FFmpeg had a PSP preset. Perhaps we'll see an iPod preset in FFmpeg or something like it, soon.

Anyone know anything about this?

Re:Watch TiVo MPG2 content?

[Warlock7]

Quicktime Pro will allow you to change the format, you have to get the MPEG2 add-on though. Sure QTP is legal, whether or not the DTivo is or not is the real question...

It's in quicktime 7

[bach37]

Quicktime 7 lets you export> then save as ipod movie.

Re:It's in quicktime 7

[mh101]

Yes, but first you have to pay $30 to buy Quicktime Pro and unlock that functionality, as the parent post referred to.

Re:It's in quicktime 7

[Anonymous Coward]

serialbox

Re:It's in quicktime 7

[fsterman]

Which is really lame since the native CoreVideo API will do the same thing, which is why there are a thousand other apps that will code everything that Quicktime does. Even so, TFA said they got FFmpeg and another opensource video encoder/decoder. There is also a tiny, one line, hack to change it from regular to pro, no serial needed.

Re:It's in quicktime 7

[iMacGuy]

CoreVideo is not a replacement for QT, it just does those fancy GPU ripple effects. Of course, downloading QTAmateur to do this is free. And iMovie will do it.

We need an open gaming handheld.

[tepples]

So now that MP3 players can play videos as well, what's next? Maybe they can add support for video games. Wait, they already have those...

No. The Nintendo DS and Sony PSP are closed systems, meaning that the legitimate method to get code running relies on some sort of cryptographic handshake that only the console maker knows, allowing the console maker to approve or deny all programs. The iPod 6 might be the first chance at an "open" handheld video game system that doesn't have to be imported from the Republic of Korea.

Aha, but...

[SuperKendall]

The key is he had a 70MPH tailwind.

market research

[usernotfound]

okay i'm a few months away from getting one, so this will be the start of my research. do any portable video players have a USB port that i could plug a USB memory stick into it for transfer? i'm also looking for video output, and audio output. and have digital audio out?
if there's not a sweet player out there, i'll just wait for apple's Video Airport thingy. anyone have any suggestions?

in 2 hours?!

[vonbismarq]

Now i've seen it all -- just in case you couldnt get your hands on one fast enough, there's a company that will deliver an iPod in 2 hours. Absurd. Why would you ever need anything that fast? Apparently they've been running stealth in San Mateo for 6 months or so and have sand hill bouncing like schoolgirls -- LicketyShip.com

I guess its not a bad deal if you need stuff right away. It apparently costs the same as overnight delivery. Do a lot of people ship stuff overnight?

Designtechnica has an in-depth review

[Anonymous Coward]

http://reviews.designtechnica.com/review3298.html

So these videos are only available in 320x240 resolution? It sounds like the picture quality is pretty good.

lousy photo storage, so-so MP3 player

[idlake]

To me, video on these devices is a gimmick. A useful application would be photo storage. But they turn out to be rather poor for photo storage, even though Apple offers them for that purpose: the camera/flash-to-iPod transfer is so slow and power hungry (according to reviews) that the battery runs out before transferring a single large card, and Apple doesn't even list any compatible CF readers. So, I ended up with another photo storage device.

The iPods are OK MP3 players, but even as MP3 players, they are mediocre in terms of features and functionality. Other MP3 players fully integrate disk, photo, and music player functions--you copy files to the device and they are accessible. With iPod, you must use a special application. And the fact that after all these years, Apple still hasn't figured out how to let you safely remove removable devices without dragging them into the trash can first is sad.

All of this is unfortunate, because the devices look nice, have nice screens, have a generally good UI, and have good sound quality.

Re:lousy photo storage, so-so MP3 player

[10Ghz]

Other MP3 players fully integrate disk, photo, and music player functions--you copy files to the device and they are accessible.

On my iPod Mini, the songs are automatically synced the moment I plug it in the computer. No need to drag files around.

And the fact that after all these years, Apple still hasn't figured out how to let you safely remove removable devices without dragging them into the trash can first is sad.

Well, I can unmount the Mini by dragging it to the Thrash. Or I can hit the nifty "Eject" button in Finder or iTunes. Or I can right-click the icon on the desktop and choose "Eject" from there. How else would you like to do it? There's already 4 different methods to remove the removable device.

Re:lousy photo storage, so-so MP3 player

[danigiri]

"And the fact that after all these years, Apple still hasn't figured out how to let you safely remove removable devices without dragging them into the trash can first is sad."

Have you tried to remove a removable device on a PC (say, an USB memory stick)? You need to go to a tiny icon on the task bar, use a contextual menu, and two crazy screens show up with non-intuitive options, etc. Ridiculous.

At least the MacOSX option is consistent.

Re:lousy photo storage, so-so MP3 player

[idlake]

Have you tried to remove a removable device on a PC (say, an USB memory stick)? You need to go to a tiny icon on the task bar, use a contextual menu, and two crazy screens show up with non-intuitive options, etc. Ridiculous.

Bullshit. On Windows, you just unplug the thing when you're done. And on a correctly set up Linux machine, you also just unplug the thing.

Re:lousy photo storage, so-so MP3 player

[idlake]

On my iPod Mini, the songs are automatically synced the moment I plug it in the computer. No need to drag files around.

Yes, that works when you plug your own MP3 player into your own properly configured Macintosh running iTunes. That's one simple usage scenario.

But lots of people are using their MP3 players differently: they are moving them between many machines, they use different music management software, they copy clips from friends, etc. Those other players still synchronize with iTunes, but they do things like on-device playlist generation and bookmarking, and they are no harder to use than iPod either.

There is no technical or user interface reason why iPod functionality is so limited. Either Apple doesn't have the software development resources to add these functions, or it's a deliberate marketing decision by them to keep you tied to iTunes.

In the end, the iPods are nice looking, reasonably priced players that integrate very well with iTunes, but the fact remains: their on-board software is limited compared to what's out there.

How else would you like to do it?

I want to just unplug it when I'm done. That works on other platforms, why not on Macintosh? It's the obvious and simple thing to do. And don't tell me that it might "interrupt a write"; other platforms deal with that without problems.

Re:lousy photo storage, so-so MP3 player

[10Ghz]

There is no technical or user interface reason why iPod functionality is so limited. Either Apple doesn't have the software development resources to add these functions, or it's a deliberate marketing decision by them to keep you tied to iTunes.

It's a marketing-desicion to keep the user tied to iTunes. Is this news to you?

I want to just unplug it when I'm done. That works on other platforms, why not on Macintosh?

I remember when I copied some files to my USB-thumbdrive on XP. I copied the files, and simply removed the drive from the computer. When I got back home, I noticed that no files were in fact copied. There is a reason why we "safely remove" removable media. We do it on Macs, Windows and Linux. What "other platforms" are you talking about, since I run in to this issue on all three platforms? All three systems tell me to "safely remove" the media, instead of simply unplugging it.

Re:lousy photo storage, so-so MP3 player

[iainl]

Not if you don't want XP to spend the next five minutes whining at you for not wading through three different popup menus for the "Safely Remove Harware" wizard. Clicking Eject in iTunes is lovely in comparison.

Re:lousy photo storage, so-so MP3 player

[Yosho]

Well, let's hope that there weren't any pending operations in the filesystem when you pull your device. Especially if your device is formatted with a non-journaling filesystem! Say good-bye to data integrity.

Filesystems always need to be unmounted before physically removing them. I hope there haven't been too many times when you've lost data and blamed it on the hardware (or you haven't discovered it yet).

Re:lousy photo storage, so-so MP3 player

[Yosho]

I don't know why I see people always go through those crazy screens for unmounting devices in Windows. All you have to do is a single, left click on that "tiny icon", and a menu pops up with all of the removable devices you have inserted. Click on the one you want to remove, and bam, it's gone. Granted, there's no indication that that's what your supposed to do, but there's no real reason to do it the other way, either.

You can also right-click on the device in "My Computer" and click "Eject."

Re:lousy photo storage, so-so MP3 player

[Smurf]

How else would you like to do it?

I want to just unplug it when I'm done. That works on other platforms, why not on Macintosh? It's the obvious and simple thing to do. And don't tell me that it might "interrupt a write"; other platforms deal with that without problems.

In addition to the four methods mentioned by the parent, in the left side of all Finder windows there are two panes. The upper one contains all the directories/devices mounted on the system, including removable media. For removable media, there is a very convenient eject button beside each icon. You click it and the device is unmounted, no questions are asked (unlike on Windows). Don't get offended, but the fact that you didn't know about any of these five methods suggests that you haven't really used a Mac in the last four years (other than sitting on it for five minutes, claiming "this sucks", and leaving).

On the other hand, where did you get the idea that other systems allow you to unplug removable media without unmounting? Or let me rephrase that: just as on Windows or on Linux, on MacOS X you can unplug the device and in more than 99% of the times absolutely nothing bad is going to happen. But some systems (including MacOS X, and properly configured Windows 2000/XP or Linux) have the courtesy to remind you that it is not worth the risk, even though admittedly it is very, very low.

Re:lousy photo storage, so-so MP3 player

[idlake]

Well, let's hope that there weren't any pending operations in the filesystem when you pull your device.

I don't have to "hope", I know that there aren't any pending operations when I pull the device; that's what those big dialog boxes that are telling me that there are pending operations are for, as well as the blinking light on the device. When it is clear that there are no more pending operations, then I pull the device.

Especially if your device is formatted with a non-journaling filesystem! Say good-bye to data integrity.

There is no reason why there should be any more serious consequence of pulling out the device too early than a single truncated file. Furthermore, the correct thing to do is for the system to put up an informative popup saying "I didn't complete writing file XYZ or subsequent files; if you would like to continue, please reinsert the device. If you don't care, just don't worry about it."

I hope there haven't been too many times when you've lost data and blamed it on the hardware (or you haven't discovered it yet).

The only place I have ever lost data from removable devices was on the Macintosh because the Macintosh can't prevent me from removing the device either, but it doesn't actually give me a clear indication of when it is safe to remove. Even worse, afterwards, it doesn't even give me correct information about whether anything actually went wrong or what happend. It just whines and complains about what an ill-behaved user I am. This is really something where Apple screwed up big time, and they should fix it.

Re:lousy photo storage, so-so MP3 player

[idlake]

On the other hand, where did you get the idea that other systems allow you to unplug removable media without unmounting?

Because they do and because it works.

Or let me rephrase that: just as on Windows or on Linux, on MacOS X you can unplug the device and in more than 99% of the times absolutely nothing bad is going to happen. But some systems (including MacOS X, and properly configured Windows 2000/XP or Linux) have the courtesy to remind you that it is not worth the risk, even though admittedly it is very, very low.

Your mental model of how this works is wrong. Users don't pull flash devices at random points in time, they pull flash devices when they think they are finished writing to them.

Well-designed systems indicate when it is not safe to pull the devices (both on-screen and through a light on the device), and when they are done writing, they make it clear that it is now safe to pull the device. So, you watch the indicator and pull the device when it's safe to do so. On the rare occasion you screw up, they give you an error message, but only if something bad actually happened.

Macintosh doesn't give you a clear indication of when it is unsafe to pull the device. In fact, it's so bad that you can't even unplug devices when the system is suspended; Macintosh doesn't seem to unmount removable devices on suspend. On the other hand, Macintosh always complains about pulling the device even if there were no bad consequences, apparently in some mistaken attempt to train the user. And Macintosh doesn't prevent bad device removals either, so the risk of data loss is at least as large on Macintosh.

What should Apple do?
-- They should make sure at the system level that writes to flash devices are more synchronous with application-level operations.
-- They should indicate on the desktop icon that a flash device is in use and has pending writes to it.
-- They should make sure that they write to flash devices in such a way that their indicator lights blink as long as there are pending writes.
-- They should get the OS into a state that it is safe to remove a device when all operations have completed on it.
-- They should put up an error message only if device removal has actually caused an incomplete write, and it should be an informative message (i.e., not require acknowledgement).
-- And they should change the file system code for flash devices so as to minimize the damage caused by early removal of flash devices (this may mean having two VFAT drivers--one for non-removable devices and one for removable devices).
(Some of these things are not yet implemented in Windows or Linux either, but those other systems are closer.)

Re:lousy photo storage, so-so MP3 player

[idlake]

It's a marketing-desicion to keep the user tied to iTunes. Is this news to you?

Yes, this is news to me. It's not a nice thing for Apple to remove useful functionality from their iPod in order to tie people to their music store.

I remember when I copied some files to my USB-thumbdrive on XP. I copied the files, and simply removed the drive from the computer. When I got back home, I noticed that no files were in fact copied.

The same thing can happen to you on Macintosh, since nothing prevents you from unplugging the device too soon and you may not even see the dialog box after the fact. Furthermore, most of the time, the dialog box appears even though, in fact, the data is fine, and the dialog box gives you no way of fixing the problem anyway.

There is a reason why we "safely remove" removable media. We do it on Macs, Windows and Linux. What "other platforms" are you talking about, since I run in to this issue on all three platforms? All three systems tell me to "safely remove" the media, instead of simply unplugging it.

The correct thing to do is to tell the user when the device is in use and to finish with it as soon as possible. When there are no more operations pending, the user should be able to unplug it. For practical purposes, that's the way it works on Windows. That's also the way it works on many Linux systems (e.g., with automount and a short timeout). If your OS has reasonable write semantics, you can watch the blinking light on the flash drive to guess a good time to remove the device.

It is never correct to throw up big dialog boxes with error messages in a foolish attempt to punish the user when, in fact, no error occurred, and that's what Macintosh does.

This sort of thing isn't rocket science, and the Mac just gets it wrong. Apple has always thought they could control device removal perfectly, but they can't. What they need to do instead is improve the UI to reduce the risk of bad device removals and improve the OS to reduce the consequences of bad device removals.

Re:lousy photo storage, so-so MP3 player

[idlake]

Do you make up that sort of thing? Admittedly, XP isn't my main machine, but I have the misfortune of having to transfer data with some regularity, and I can assure you that I can just plug and unplug flash devices and it just works. There is no data loss if you wait for the blinkenlights to stop flashing, and there are no complaints or dialog boxes. And it's the same on my Linux machine (where you can configure automount to mount and unmount the flash drive as it is being used).

Re:lousy photo storage, so-so MP3 player

[10Ghz]

The same thing can happen to you on Macintosh, since nothing prevents you from unplugging the device too soon and you may not even see the dialog box after the fact.

Of course it can happen in Macs as well, I never said that it couldn't. And what should the Mac do? Give the user an electric-shock if he tries to unplug the device without unmounting it?

The correct thing to do is to tell the user when the device is in use and to finish with it as soon as possible.

Well, iTunes DOES have a text saying "updating iPod" (or something like that) with a progress-bar. And the iPod has a text saying "Do not disconnect". I think those are pretty self-explanatory.

Re:lousy photo storage, so-so MP3 player

[idlake]

Of course it can happen in Macs as well, I never said that it couldn't. And what should the Mac do? Give the user an electric-shock if he tries to unplug the device without unmounting it?

I told you what it should do. In a nutshell, it should automatically unmount the device when it is not in use so that I can just unplug it safely when it is not in use.

And if I unplug the device while in use, it should do the obvious thing. So, if I unplug an iPod that is syncing music, some songs don't get transferred, nothing more. And if I unplug a USB stick that I'm writing data to, the data doesn't get fully written, but the file system should remain consistent. Making those things work is something a student could do as a senior project.

Well, iTunes DOES have a text saying "updating iPod" (or something like that) with a progress-bar. And the iPod has a text saying "Do not disconnect". I think those are pretty self-explanatory.

Yes, and that's a problem because there is no reason to tell me that.

Mark my words: Apple is going to fix this in a release or two and do exactly what I described. It's obvious, it's simple, and it's user friendly. And then people like you are going to defend it and are going to tell everybody how amazingly innovative Apple is.

Re:lousy photo storage, so-so MP3 player

[iainl]

No, I didn't make it up. I trudge through the "right-click on the System Tray icon, select 'safely remove hardware', get the pop-up, choose which device I wish to detach, click close, confirm that I really wanted to do so, close the pop-up, usually with a several second wait at each stage" rite on a regular basis on both my home and work XP machines.

I've only just unplugged twice, however - the second time I lost data, and both times I got "helpful" admonishments from XP. But then, this is still the company that decided it was a good idea for Windows to tell you off for not shutting down properly every time the box bluescreened. So I do things the Microsoft way, even though it's annoying.

Why not to do it

[jeti]

1. A touchscreen is not perfectly transparent, and it noticeably lowers the image quality.
2. Using a touchscreen with the fingers will smear it, and you'll never stop polishing the display.
3. All the touchscreens I know are not nearly as sensitive as the touch pads used in mp3 players and they don't give any tactile feedback at all. I don't know whether pressing the buttons behind the scroll wheel of the iPod gives tactile feedback (hopefully), but you can at least feel the position of the wheel itself.

Re:Why not to do it

[G-funk]

Sounds like you need to spend some time with a DS, the bottom screen looks great.

Re:Replace the Wheel with a full sized touch scree

[10Ghz]

The iPod could compete with the PSP by replacing the screen/touch wheel version with a full sized touch screen.

That's a fucking bad idea! Right now I can use the iPod without even looking at it. I can feel where the wheel is. If it were in a touchscreen instead, I would have to hold the device in my hand and look at it, whenever I want to skip a song or adjust the volume! with touchscreen there would be zero tactile feedback! And the screen would get dirty really fast.

Remember: iPod is a music-playback device. the video is merely an added bonus, it's primary purpose if to play back music.

Oh god, those white iPod earbuds

[Phil Urich]

The only downside is that you don't get those trendy earbuds and...

Oh god, those earbuds. I cannot explain how much I loathe them. What is it that people find so aesthetic about them? Personally, I've taken to wearing the earbuds that came with my Samsung YP-MTetc-etc instead of my normal headphones just so that the blackness and more, shall we say, professional looking design of them can contrast with all the oddly cheap-looking white ones everyone else has attatched to their iPods.

At least the newer stuff since the minis have been partially-coloured (they still look like someone just put a plastic plate of colored plastic overtop of a fundamentally white iPod, though the nanos finally overcome that). Before, with the all-pure-white ones, it really showed off the mass-production monopoly thing. It felt like early Ford Motors inverted; I can just imagine Steve Jobs saying "They can have any color, as long as it's white."

Off topic question about iTunes and video files.

[LordJezo]

Are the videos on iTunes only for play on the iPod or can I play them on my PC through iTunes?

Re:Off topic question about iTunes and video files

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

of course you can play them in iTunes. just in case: you can also play songs and podcasts and movie trailers and audiobooks downloaded through iTMS in iTunes.

Re:Fullscreen Video

[Johnny Mozzarella]

"Hopefully this will push QuckTime to be the standard format for internet video..."

The original poster never mentioned anything about QuickTime Player. QuickTime is a format and can be played full screen by hundreds of free apps including iTunes.

The 2 types of video supported by the iPod are MPEG4 and H264 neither of which are proprietary. If this means less proprietary Real video and WMV on the web, it is definitely a Good Thing(TM).

That looks pretty good

[caveat]

Hell, it's better quality than half the clips I troll of Usenet. pr0ncasts here I come! (Uhhh...that came out wrong, just pretend I never said that...)

Re:Off topic question about iTunes and video files

[g0rath]

Yes, I watched two episodes of Lost that I had missed on my 19" LCD. Some pixelation, sound was good.

No QuickTime support in iPod!

[JonathanBrickman0000]

I wonder if Apple is giving up on QuickTime? The iPod video standards are all non-Apple!

Re:No QuickTime support in iPod!

[iMacGuy]

The ISO MPEG-4 format is based on QuickTime, because everything else is broken. They're not going to give up on it. (Besides, I think it supports MPEG4/H264 in .mov)

Re:But... Can I put my divx's etc on it?

[nutshell42]

MPEG-4 video: up to 2.5 mbps, 480 x 480, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats

XviD supports Simple Profile but videos you've "found" "somewhere" are most likely Advanced Simple Profile or more at resolutions beyond the 480x480 supported by the iPod.

Re:Watch TiVo MPG2 content?

[xpyr]

From what I hear of the specs, it is vcd resolutions which the videos are at that will play on the device with a maximum of 700 Kbps for the video bitrate. Sorry, but the only way they can make it portable is if you can hook it up to special sunglasses where it makes you seem like you're watching a 50 inch tv 10 feet in front of you. "That" will make it truly portable to want to watch now.

You can actually use PSP conversion software

[marcybots]

You can use the same software to convert for PSP as for Ipod video ironically enough, just set the aspect ratio to 320X200 mp4 files, (does not support 368x208 like psp does) is a supported format. Though I am not sure about supported bitrates chances are it will work, though I would wait til you ACTUALLY GET an ipod video before you convert your whole collection. So you can use psp video 9 if you wanted, which is what I will use when I get mine. However, I would like to see it integrated into itunes, just for simplicity sakes, working with one program is better than two.

Re:You can actually use PSP conversion software

[Kichigai Mentat]

You can use the same software to convert for PSP as for Ipod video ironically enough, just set the aspect ratio to 320X200 mp4 files, (does not support 368x208 like psp does) is a supported format.

Oh, I know that, I know that completely. I use FFmpeg on a regular basis, along side MEncoder.

Though I am not sure about supported bitrates chances are it will work,

See, that's what I don't know. I think it's 768 kilobytes for video (I broke down and bought the "Weapon of Choice" music video, partially to experiment with it, partially because I love it and it's impossible to find a decent quality copy), but does that also apply to H.264? Do I have to disable certain things in the MPEG-4 streams? Etc. etc. I'd rather wait a little while, and find out what the max bitrate is, so I can get the most bang for my buck, if you will.

though I would wait til you ACTUALLY GET an ipod video before you convert your whole collection. So you can use psp video 9 if you wanted, which is what I will use when I get mine.

Well, I don't think I'll ever be using PSP Video 9. Mac/Linux users get the shaft on that. Though, I'm thinking FFmpeg can do the job, no sweat.

However, I would like to see it integrated into itunes, just for simplicity sakes, working with one program is better than two.

Too true. That's been the major complaint with the 5G iPod so far. Perhaps we'll see this feature integrated into iTunes 7. Though you'd seriously think that feature would be in there. After all, the program will transcode audio on demand, and it's built off of the QuickTime libraries (Hell, it practically is QuickTime) so it's not a big leap at all.

Re:Replace the Wheel with a full sized touch scree

[FreshFunk510]

Fingerprints would be a bitch though.

Re:Fullscreen Video

[Mr2001]

The original poster never mentioned anything about QuickTime Player. QuickTime is a format and can be played full screen by hundreds of free apps including iTunes.

I suppose you're right, there are projects like QuickTime Alternative that let you watch QuickTime files without Apple's player. They're not very well-known, though, so I fear that any increased popularity of the QuickTime format will only lead to increased use of QuickTime Player.

And then a whole generation will grow up thinking that full-screen video is a luxury feature to be paid for separately. Won't someone please think of the children? ;)

care to elaborate? or...

[Anonymous Coward]

...are you just trolling?

Re:care to elaborate? or...

[Lars T.]

I have never seen a movie were it does anything.