If you just buy individual tracks, yes. Full albums are $9.99 for the most part. Still cheaper than me going to the store and paying at least $14 for the same CD.
Regarding the missing artwork... I always just bought the CD, ripped it, transferred it to my iPod, and put the CD in a box in my closet. There are some CDs that I haven't even looked through the booklet. And for the albums I've bought from iTMS that included a PDF of the booklet, I usually just look through it once then never again.
But if having the booklet, jewel case, and physical CD is important to you, then by all means buy it from the store. Not everyone has the same wants/needs, and that's perfectly all right.
Many of the racing games I've played, some of which are several years old, have lens flare in the game. Very cool effect to see when you're driving around. Perhaps it hasn't been done yet in FPSs... I haven't played any in a while.
My understanding was that bandwidth was measured in megabits per second so I multiplied by 8 as well to go from bytes to bits. I always get the upper case and lower case 'B' thing mixed up.
Yeah, for encoding you'd need a powerful Mac Mini, but I think the decoding side of things wouldn't need to be too much. If Apple can decode 320x240 H.264 video with the chip in the iPod, it should be possible to build (or find a supplier that can) a more powerful decoder to handle HD resolutions, or at the very least 480i for SD. I don't think they'd need much of an audio decoder, since they could just pass through the audio stream to a standalone Dolby Digital/etc. decoder.
But I'm sure something like this would still be a long ways off, as there's obviously lots of issues to work out first.
I've been predicting the same thing... Imagine a Mac Mini with a new version of Front Row with PVR functionality, plus a Video Airport Express device would be awesome. That would fly off the shelves I bet.
I just did some math though... The video would have to be compressed for this to work - 320x240x16 at 30 FPS would require 295 mbps (unless there are errors in my calculations which is possible...) so there's no way even that low resulution would work over a 56mbps wireless connection.
Some sort of compression definitely is a must. Apple's proven with the new iPod that it would be simple to add a similar (but higher resolution) decoder to a new Airport Express device, but the important thing would be ensuring that the Mac or PC the video stream is coming from has enough power to compress it in realtime.
OrgName: Internet Assigned Numbers Authority OrgID: IANA Address: 4676 Admiralty Way, Suite 330 City: Marina del Rey StateProv: CA PostalCode: 90292-6695 Country: US
Before I moved and lost it, I had a "450 watts of crushing power" sticker that was on my blender, that I stuck on the fridge. Perhaps it would have been funnier on my brother's truck.. =)
It's not "pure crackpottery"... didn't you see that popular documentary that came out several years back? IIRC, it was titled "Men In Black." You should be able to find a copy in your local video store.
Close... the truth is that many of us Canadians actually are Extraterrestrials. You just named a few examples yourself. "Men In Black" is based on a true story, from little-known Canadian history.
You may have heard of the Avro Arrow. In actuality, the Arrow was one of the first landing craft to arrive here, and the Avro Arrow "project" was started as a cover story. When it was determined to be too dangerous to have the craft still around and intact, the "project" was "scrapped" and all the craft were destroyed, and the general public was none the wiser.
I've had no problems with full-duplex communication using Skype on my Mac, and others at work have used it on their Windows PCs with no problem. I would suspect your half-duplex issue is related to your specific setup.
Right now, I am almost done watching all six movies back to back (ROTJ is next up) and I take a quick break, and what do I see but a Slashdot article about watching all six simultaneously. =)
Too bad I didn't think of this... I could have squished an entire day of movie watching down to approx. 2 1/2...
How did you do it? I assumed you'd have brought in a track from iTunes to the audio track, and that there was an "Export audio track" option, but I couldn't find it (maybe there was one, and they removed it in iMovie HD?) And I couldn't drag the audio track directly back into iTunes either. I also just tried a similar thing with GarageBand but that didn't work either. I can drag an un-DRMed file in, but it doesn't let me drag in a DRMed one.
In any case, the problem with doing it this way is it involves decompressing the file, then recompressing it again. And since you'd have to do it on a per-track basis, it likely would be quicker to burn an audio CD full of tracks and rip them all back in.
The 'lock-in' is with iTunes. Buy music from iTMS, and the only portable media player it will work with is iPod. (other than burning it to CD and then ripping it back in another format, that is)
OSX really doesn't even need Google Desktop. It's a great thing for Windows as it adds functionality that isn't already there.
I have a Mac at home, and have Google Desktop installed on my PC at work. In my opinion Spotlight is much better than GD for searching. At least with GD2, I was pleased at some of the changes they made that made it more Spotlight-like.
As for that sidebar thing, me and one other guy at work used GD and upgraded to GD2 back when it came out months ago, and the first thing both of us did was turn the sidebar off since both of thought it was just a useless waste of valuable screen real estate (YMMV of course... just because I find it useless doesn't mean there's not plenty of people who love it). But back to my GD to OSX comparison... Looks like you could accomplish the same sort of thing with Dashboard and all the oodles of widgets available for it.
Of course Apple's not going to build DVD ripping into iTunes. That would get them into a huge amount of legal trouble. You can still do it yourself, though, using third-party applications such as Handbrake that can rip the video from the DVD and encode it in h.264 for you.
For converting existing videos to a compatible format, Apple does provide that functionality in Quicktime Pro, but that costs $30 USD. I'm sure a google search will bring up many free video converters.
You also might be interested in reading the guide to creating video for iPods at Ars Technica.
I agree totally with regards to the video Airport Express. I'm guessing they're just going to wait a little to let the video thing expand a little more, then Steve will announce this at a future Apple event. Wireless video out + Front Row + Mac Mini would be an awesome move for Apple.
When I access the test from my work PC, using Windows XP, Firefox 1.0.7, and a logitech wheel mouse, I can scroll the Acid2 test page fine. I don't see any scrollbars though.
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)
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.
...any chance of integrating the grammar-checking code into Slashdot? Or would the code melt-down from an overload after being installed here for more than 5 minutes?
Slashdot Mirror
If you just buy individual tracks, yes. Full albums are $9.99 for the most part. Still cheaper than me going to the store and paying at least $14 for the same CD.
Regarding the missing artwork... I always just bought the CD, ripped it, transferred it to my iPod, and put the CD in a box in my closet. There are some CDs that I haven't even looked through the booklet. And for the albums I've bought from iTMS that included a PDF of the booklet, I usually just look through it once then never again.
But if having the booklet, jewel case, and physical CD is important to you, then by all means buy it from the store. Not everyone has the same wants/needs, and that's perfectly all right.
Been there, done that.
Many of the racing games I've played, some of which are several years old, have lens flare in the game. Very cool effect to see when you're driving around. Perhaps it hasn't been done yet in FPSs... I haven't played any in a while.
Well, then it's not live, is it? :)
I wouldn't be surprised if CBC is looking into the possibility of video podcasts of various shows. They seem to be into podcasting, so who knows?
My understanding was that bandwidth was measured in megabits per second so I multiplied by 8 as well to go from bytes to bits. I always get the upper case and lower case 'B' thing mixed up.
Yeah, for encoding you'd need a powerful Mac Mini, but I think the decoding side of things wouldn't need to be too much. If Apple can decode 320x240 H.264 video with the chip in the iPod, it should be possible to build (or find a supplier that can) a more powerful decoder to handle HD resolutions, or at the very least 480i for SD. I don't think they'd need much of an audio decoder, since they could just pass through the audio stream to a standalone Dolby Digital/etc. decoder.
But I'm sure something like this would still be a long ways off, as there's obviously lots of issues to work out first.
I've been predicting the same thing... Imagine a Mac Mini with a new version of Front Row with PVR functionality, plus a Video Airport Express device would be awesome. That would fly off the shelves I bet.
I just did some math though... The video would have to be compressed for this to work - 320x240x16 at 30 FPS would require 295 mbps (unless there are errors in my calculations which is possible...) so there's no way even that low resulution would work over a 56mbps wireless connection.
Some sort of compression definitely is a must. Apple's proven with the new iPod that it would be simple to add a similar (but higher resolution) decoder to a new Airport Express device, but the important thing would be ensuring that the Mac or PC the video stream is coming from has enough power to compress it in realtime.
Yep, that's my address all right.
Before I moved and lost it, I had a "450 watts of crushing power" sticker that was on my blender, that I stuck on the fridge. Perhaps it would have been funnier on my brother's truck.. =)
It's not "pure crackpottery"... didn't you see that popular documentary that came out several years back? IIRC, it was titled "Men In Black." You should be able to find a copy in your local video store.
Depends on their motive for coming to Earth...
For building friendships and fostering interplanetary relationships, then staying away is smart.
If conquest is your goal, however...
Canadians are completely off their rockers.
Close... the truth is that many of us Canadians actually are Extraterrestrials. You just named a few examples yourself. "Men In Black" is based on a true story, from little-known Canadian history.
You may have heard of the Avro Arrow. In actuality, the Arrow was one of the first landing craft to arrive here, and the Avro Arrow "project" was started as a cover story. When it was determined to be too dangerous to have the craft still around and intact, the "project" was "scrapped" and all the craft were destroyed, and the general public was none the wiser.
I've had no problems with full-duplex communication using Skype on my Mac, and others at work have used it on their Windows PCs with no problem. I would suspect your half-duplex issue is related to your specific setup.
2 1/2 hours, I mean...
Right now, I am almost done watching all six movies back to back (ROTJ is next up) and I take a quick break, and what do I see but a Slashdot article about watching all six simultaneously. =)
Too bad I didn't think of this... I could have squished an entire day of movie watching down to approx. 2 1/2...
How did you do it? I assumed you'd have brought in a track from iTunes to the audio track, and that there was an "Export audio track" option, but I couldn't find it (maybe there was one, and they removed it in iMovie HD?) And I couldn't drag the audio track directly back into iTunes either. I also just tried a similar thing with GarageBand but that didn't work either. I can drag an un-DRMed file in, but it doesn't let me drag in a DRMed one.
In any case, the problem with doing it this way is it involves decompressing the file, then recompressing it again. And since you'd have to do it on a per-track basis, it likely would be quicker to burn an audio CD full of tracks and rip them all back in.
The 'lock-in' is with iTunes. Buy music from iTMS, and the only portable media player it will work with is iPod. (other than burning it to CD and then ripping it back in another format, that is)
OSX really doesn't even need Google Desktop. It's a great thing for Windows as it adds functionality that isn't already there.
I have a Mac at home, and have Google Desktop installed on my PC at work. In my opinion Spotlight is much better than GD for searching. At least with GD2, I was pleased at some of the changes they made that made it more Spotlight-like.
As for that sidebar thing, me and one other guy at work used GD and upgraded to GD2 back when it came out months ago, and the first thing both of us did was turn the sidebar off since both of thought it was just a useless waste of valuable screen real estate (YMMV of course... just because I find it useless doesn't mean there's not plenty of people who love it). But back to my GD to OSX comparison... Looks like you could accomplish the same sort of thing with Dashboard and all the oodles of widgets available for it.
Of course Apple's not going to build DVD ripping into iTunes. That would get them into a huge amount of legal trouble. You can still do it yourself, though, using third-party applications such as Handbrake that can rip the video from the DVD and encode it in h.264 for you.
For converting existing videos to a compatible format, Apple does provide that functionality in Quicktime Pro, but that costs $30 USD. I'm sure a google search will bring up many free video converters.
You also might be interested in reading the guide to creating video for iPods at Ars Technica.
I agree totally with regards to the video Airport Express. I'm guessing they're just going to wait a little to let the video thing expand a little more, then Steve will announce this at a future Apple event. Wireless video out + Front Row + Mac Mini would be an awesome move for Apple.
When I access the test from my work PC, using Windows XP, Firefox 1.0.7, and a logitech wheel mouse, I can scroll the Acid2 test page fine. I don't see any scrollbars though.
I can't be the only one to have pictured various Final Fantasy characters surfing the net while enroute to their next destination in their airships...
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)
Yes, but first you have to pay $30 to buy Quicktime Pro and unlock that functionality, as the parent post referred to.
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.
...any chance of integrating the grammar-checking code into Slashdot? Or would the code melt-down from an overload after being installed here for more than 5 minutes?
No. Steve said in the presentation that the videos cannot be burned to disc. Maybe the restrictions will be loosened in the future.
No different than when they dropped the floppy drive. I personally cannot remember the last time I used a modem.