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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.'"

11 of 310 comments (clear)

  1. Re:But... Can I put my divx's etc on it? by siliconjunkie · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  2. Creative Zen Vision by ChaserPnk · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

    --

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  3. Re:Sweet! by leenoble_uk · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes, but how does pr0n look on it?

    like this

  4. Re:Missing accessories by zigziggityzoo · · Score: 3, Informative

    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?

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    Zing!
  5. Re:Sweet! by athmanb · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  6. Re:Direct stream copy? by siliconjunkie · · Score: 2, Informative

    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)

  7. Re:No, you're not! by jacklexbox · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  8. Re:Direct stream copy? by evilviper · · Score: 2, Informative
    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.
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  9. Re:Missing accessories by TCQuad · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  10. Re:lousy photo storage, so-so MP3 player by iainl · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

    --
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  11. Re:lousy photo storage, so-so MP3 player by Yosho · · Score: 2, Informative

    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).

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