Video iPods

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2005-10-12 01:50pm

Alright, I'm keeping up with the live coverage of Apple's event going on right now. So far, new iMacs, and as rumored yesterday, Video iPods.

From the coverage:

- iPod: 30GB/60GB with Video - realtime decoding of MPEG4 and H.264. 260,000 colors. Video out.
- 30GB iPod: $299 - 31% thinner than current 20GB; - 60GB iPod: $399.
- New iPods avail next week. Comes with case

Watching videos on a handheld screen is iffy, but the video out makes it worth it. Might have to consider this...

Keep up with the coverage here:
http://macrumors.com/

Dorenn Stark · Post by **Dorenn Stark** » 2005-10-12 03:18pm

Video Ipods sound like a good idea, as does the PSP's umd ability. I personally prefer my music/audio book Ipod, as I can't think of a movie or TV show that can't wait until I am backin front of a regular TV. But if you enjoy taking video entertainment with you, then you should enjoy Video Ipods.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2005-10-12 03:57pm

Only possiblity I see is agian for air traval, which needs all the distraction one can get.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2005-10-12 04:16pm

Mr Bean wrote:Only possiblity I see is agian for air traval, which needs all the distraction one can get.

A laptop is almost certainly going to be better, though.

On the other hand, the video iPod is clearly better than the current models which have the same capacity but a reduced features list and for the same (or about the same) price.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2005-10-12 04:46pm

Mr Bean wrote:Only possiblity I see is agian for air traval, which needs all the distraction one can get.

Don't forget looong cross-country bus rides and/or car trips. Where laptop batteries will clunk out well before an iPod.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-10-12 05:03pm

The Archos media player is nice. A decent screen and around 100 gigs of memory and multi-format compliance help make it a portable library of entertainment. It's a bit pricey at about £500, but you get what you pay for.

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2005-10-12 05:20pm

Look, this is for one thing and one thing only: porn. This may as well be called the porn pod, because thats all that is worthwhile watching on a screen that size.

Itunes? How about Iporn? Would make them millions!

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-10-12 05:41pm

I'm sure as hell not going to watch something on a screen as small as an iPod provides...

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-10-12 05:47pm

Pretty much what I was thinking. The colour screens of the limited edition U2 iPod and the new Nano version are fluff. You don't need such a screen, I mean, they say you can view pictures on them. Great. My phone has a bigger screen and can store many pictures anyway. Useless.

Video? On that screen? No way. If they were going to do a video iPod, then they could have redone it so the design had something of a screen on it, rather than that postage stamp lit in colour.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2005-10-12 06:49pm

Video out would sell it for me. I don't want to watch movies on a tiny screen - but I want to fill my iPod with movies and play them through whatever TV happens to be around. I figure video decoding would murder the battery life on an iPod however - and everything decent is xvid, and I doubt iPods would support that codec.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2005-10-12 07:03pm

Maybe if Sony's next version of the HD5 had such a feature it would be better. The battery life on those are far superior to the iPods and one reason my brother chose it over an iPod he wanted so much (they're also cheaper).

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2005-10-12 07:16pm

For my prefered use (simply a portable media box) battery life is irrelevant, since if I'm bringing the TV-out cable I'll be bringing the charger too. Honestly, how many people here simply use their laptops for TV-out? It's probably always going to be better than the super-portable option, considering codecs et al.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2005-10-12 08:03pm

Alright, all the details are out.

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

Yes, it has Video Out.

The $399 model has a whopping 20 hours of music playback battery life.

It's THINNER than the previous iPod model.

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

Apple has begun selling TV shows, starting with 5 ABC and Disney shows, and 2000 music videos, on iTunes. No Smallville or Star Trek yet

This is actually very good. It's still $299. Yesterday, $299 got you a 20 GB iPod that plays music and displays photos and has TV out. Today, $299 gets you a 30 GB iPod that does everything the old model does, plus plays videos, and still retains the TV out.

I wouldn't want to watch full length videos on the small screen either. TV shows on the other hand I wouldn't mind, being shorter; AND the TV out would be useful for full length movies, as you could stuff the videos on the iPod and hook it to your TV.

And it has H.264 support

All Apple needs now is a way to rip DVD's that applies a DRM in the process so the movie industry doesn't kill them.

IMHO, the PSP's UMD's are a terrible idea- unless they add TV-out to the PSP.

Thing is, you can actually put full movies in this thing. Compare to the PSP; $20 for a UMD movie. If you want to STORE movies, a 1 GB Memory Stick costs $150. That's $400 for a PSP with 1 GB of storage.

Post by **Beowulf** » 2005-10-12 08:47pm

The iPod will play XviD format movies, since XviD is merely in implementation of the MPEG-4 format. It doesn't support the AVI container, so to play it, you'll need to stuff it into another file container. Also, it only supports AAC for the audio, apparently.

This will require transcoding it to AAC. This should be fairly automatible though, so you'll just have to wait a couple weeks until some smart cookie writes a program to do it.

Ypoknons · Post by **Ypoknons** » 2005-10-12 09:57pm

It's got 10GB more than the old ipod at the same price, is black and thinner. It's the same price as the iaudio X5 20GB, has an ID3 tag database, bigger screen and 30fps. Only the Toshiba X30 is smaller, and that isn't going to be out in the States for a while. When it does, it'll probably have crappy Toshiba software.

Apple is flexing its muscles. Their recent pricing stratgies - 4GB flash player at $250, 30GB video at $300 - are serious outclassing the opposition (I know that they get their flash cheap - that isn't the point). Right now only Sandisk can keep up with their 4GB Stanza and the new video ipod is tough to beat in the music with some video catagory - iirc, both the H3x0 and X5/X5L are bigger and only do about 17fps.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2005-10-12 11:06pm

Interesting tidbit from ThinkSecret.

No idea how accurate it is, but:

Apple to announce iPod with video playback, media partnerships later today [updated]
October 12, 2005 - Hours prior to Apple's October 12, sources have clarified to Think Secret recent confusion surrounding Apple's iPod announcement today. In brief: the iPod will be feature video playback capabilities but it is not the video iPod and Apple may not bill it as such. Additionally, Apple will announce a content partnership with the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) and possibly other broadcasting companies that will make content available for download to Apple's device, as noted yesterday.
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The new iPod will look nearly identical to current models but will feature a 2.46-inch display with a 320x240 resolution, about half an inch larger than the current iPod. The video playback capability, which sources say is in fact available in current models but is disabled, will be geared towards watching broadcast content, video podcasts, and other shorter videos, but Apple will not be offering movies to purchase at this time. Instead, the company is hoping to roll out a movie store later in 2006 when the "real" video iPod, which will sport a larger widescreen display wrapped in a new casing, will debut.

Think Secret has also not been able to confirm with 100 percent certainty the capacity of the new iPods, which will be either 30GB and 60GB or 40GB and 80GB, although it seems more likely now that the latter configurations, as originally reported, will be delivered. Pricing will remain at $299 and $399 with two colors at each price point.

In related news, in an effort not to detract from today's iPod announcement -- iPod revenue now accounts for a third of Apple's total revenue -- Apple is expected to deliver the rumored upgrades to its Macs either later this week or early next, sources said.

The 'rumored upgrades' are updated PowerMacs and PowerBooks.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-10-13 12:51am

I'll still be sticking with my Sony portable MiniDisc recorder, which only cost me a fraction of what these do, thank you.

Ypoknons · Post by **Ypoknons** » 2005-10-13 01:44am

Hey, if you want to carry your MD's around, that's your choice.

Maybe it's the city person in me, but I would never stop to grab a new MD from my bag if say, The Darkness started grating my ears.