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Cringely on Blockbuster-iPod Video Distro Plan
MrPerfekt writes "In this week's Cringely column, another one of his hypothesizing sessions actually seems plausible. Blockbuster's retail outlets make good sense for Apple to partner with them for video iPod content distribution. From the article: 'Take your Video-out iPod to Blockbuster, drop it in a kiosk dock then download from the local xServe your choice of 50,000 movies. You can rent the movie or buy it and you can even choose the resolution, which may or may not affect the final price. Take the iPod home, drop it in the dock attached to your TV and watch the movie. H.264 decoding takes place in the iPod in hardware.'"
This isn't going to work. the next time you sync your iPod from your PC, the movie will be wiped. There is no such thing as a two-way sync on an iPod. Content is always from the PC to the iPod.
iPod is basically a hard drive, that can also play the files it stores on its tiny screen.
The fact that it can only play 320x240 does not mean that the video-out has to be 320x240. It could very easily be WXGA or whatever.
For example, my Palm has 480x320 screen where I can view powerpoints, but it can connect to an LCD projector and drive it at 800x600, displaying the very same powerpoints.
As for space, you can comfortably store 2 hours of quality XGA in under a Gig. So, easily get 60 movies per iPod!
Holy hell, a VCR with 120 hours worth of tapes, that I can put in my shirt pocket!!!! Wouldn't you totally hit that?
how big is a dvd quality movie?
Without extras, about 4 GB, or 32000 Mbit.
how fast is usb?
Theoretically 480 Mbps, practically 240 Mbps or thereabouts. 32000 Mbit / 240 Mbps = 133 seconds.
Is anyone keeping track of which of his write ups wind up being accurate?
According to the man's own review he does a reasonable job at around 73-80 percent depending on how critical you want to be.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
Of course, those are a different set of predictions. He makes a set of predictions at the beginning/end of every year, which he rates, and more implausible ones during the course of the year.