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Video iPod Screen Test

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the now-i-never-have-to-unplug dept.

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.'"

4 of 310 comments (clear)

  1. Admitting to breaking laws? by rdwald · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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?
  2. Watching videos on the computer... by WarpedMind · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  3. Am I the only one? by jacklexbox · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

  4. Replace the Wheel with a full sized touch screen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!