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Portables (Apple) Hardware

iPod Video Coming to a Car Near You 823

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the seeing-is-believing dept.
_am99_ writes "In the "one more thing" media event today, an iPod that can play Video was announced. The initial content seems to be music videos that can be purchased from the iTunes Music Store." In related news aquachannel writes "Apple has just updated their iPodYourCar page to include a slew of new car companies. This means that there'll be a lot of cars that you can buy off the showroom floor and use your iPod with your car - right off the floor and out of the box."
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iPod Video Coming to a Car Near You More

iPod Video Coming to a Car Near You

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  • Finally... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rovingeyes ( 575063 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:27PM (#13775226)
    This would be a big hit if they can stick to that price of $1.99 per video and have variety in the content provided. Already they have a winner with music videos and Pixar offerring six short films. MTV has turned in to a channel that has nothing to do with music. Also I don't have to put up with all the crappy vidoes with MTV stupid logos and artwork, assuming Apple is going to just give me a clean video. Along with that it'd be nice if they can provide other content like stand-up routines or I'd love if Jon Stewart could force comedy central to provide it's videos for video ipod.

    • Re:Finally... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Golias ( 176380 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:30PM (#13775258)
      Music videos are commercials for albums. Yawn.

      Being able to download TV shows is a much bigger deal, especially shows which I otherwise would not have free access to, such as the new Doctor Who episodes from the BBC.

      • Re:Finally... there *are* TV shows available (Score:5, Informative)

        by enrico_suave ( 179651 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:55PM (#13775536) Homepage
        ABC has LOST and Desperate Housewives up for $1.99 in itunes right now...

        see flickr photo of LOST page [flickr.com]

        i mean it'll have to be a much more extensive library, but it is an interesting baby step in the right direction... (that is till we find out the DRM times out/expires or something... wondering what I'm *buying* for $1.99 exactly)

        e.

        • Re:Finally... there *are* TV shows available (Score:4, Informative)

          by porcupine8 ( 816071 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @02:22PM (#13775805) Journal
          From Apple.com:

          From there, the sky's the limit, because you own purchased video forever. Watch as many times as you choose, share between five computers, burn to data CDs or sync to the new iPod.

          Sounds like it's exactly like the DRM for music, except you can't burn actual DVDs. Until someone posts the workaround next week.

          • Sounds like it's exactly like the DRM for music, except you can't burn actual DVDs. Until someone posts the workaround next week.

            If it is quicktime video all you have to do is just convert it to an *.m2v or some other MPeg2 format. You can buy a Quicktime codec to do this or use Final Cut Pro. Then you have make a DVD image through some type of program than can ecode a DVD disc. (like DVD Studio) If you actually have paid for DVD Studio Pro you can then burn it to DVD. Otherwise, you can use roxio to burn t

        • Disney, of all companies (Score:5, Interesting)

          by mblase ( 200735 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @02:59PM (#13776130)
          What amazes me is that Disney (owner of ABC), which was the last major media company to start selling DVDs, was the first company to provide downloadable video to Apple this way.

          Granted their partnership with Jobs' Pixar Animation Studios was probably a big reason they agreed, but nevertheless -- this is a big switch (IMO) from the Disney I used to know. Hopefully it won't be long before other studios and networks see the download numbers for "Lost" and jump in. I bet if HBO can be persuaded to offer their shows on the iTMS (iTunes Media Store, now, I suppose), sales at the Store would skyrocket.

          • Re:Disney, of all companies (Score:5, Insightful)

            by MetaPhyzx ( 212830 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @03:14PM (#13776258)
            Keep in mind they may also see the way the RIAA companies are acting now about the 99 cent price point ITMS has. This time, the content providers have hindsight. I suspect there will be a serious effort to keep Apple from entrenching themselves in this media market as well as they did music. Personally, I hope those efforts fail :)
          • Granted their partnership with Jobs' Pixar Animation Studios was probably a big reason they agreed

            IMO Jobs (via Pixar) essentially putting his money where his mouth is will really help with this.

            OTOH I remember Eisner sitting in front of a congressional panel moaning about Apple and their Rip. Mix. Burn, campaign and how evil it was in light of how Dinsney's latest blockbuster, Monsters, Inc. was being downloaded over the net. I don't think it was until afterwords that someone pointed out to him the same Jo
        • I just downloaded Lost. I figured $1.99 was worth seeing the video quality, finding out out the file size, and watching my favorite TV show of the season while I work. ;-)

          The file is indeed 320x240, and for 43 minutes and change, is 197 megabytes. The download took a little time; I'm not sure how much since I forgot to clock it.

          The video is compressed very well. It looks clear and crisp, and the audio sounds great. In fact, I scaled it up to full screen and had a cluster of people watching a few choice scenes (we were trying to identify the manufacturer of the reel-to-reel drives ;-) ). The video is very watchable.

          This will be interesting... I wonder what sorts of bonus material they will include?

          Also, its interesting to note that video is not very well integrated into iTunes (for Windows). For example, when I right-click on the file, it still says "Show Song File." Also, you'd think that Apple, being Apple, would stick my downloaded videos into another folder than "My Music" in "My Documents."

          These are small things. However, these are the things that Apple generally gets right.

          ~ Mike

          • Re:Finally... Just downloaded Lost... some info.. (Score:5, Interesting)

            by Altima(BoB) ( 602987 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @07:31PM (#13778133)
            One thing I noted was that I couldn't find a way to get the video to full screen from within iTunes. I opened the file from my paid copy of Quicktime to go full screen.

            Anyway, as you say, the compression is impressive. For 100mb less than what you'll find on bittorrent (albiet not in 16:9) you get the whole program without ads, and also (and this is in my opinion pretty big) no intrusive messages along the bottom or top of the screen placed by the television network. It's one of the most obnoxious and annoying practices on U.S. TV (a network bloated with advertising places MORE advertising along the screen's margins during programming? No thanks.) If you were to download what is basically a TV rip from Bittorrent, these advertisements are unavoidable even if the normal ads are cut.

            The quality looks just as good as what you're likely to find on BT, as is the sound. I even put it on fullscreen on my 23" cinema display, it still looks great. I give this a thumbs up. Not having seen more than a couple epsidoes of the original Lost, I'm tempted by the $34 download of season 1, a little cheaper than the DVD, but no extra features and lower res... Decisions decisions...

            • Re:Finally... Just downloaded Lost... some info.. (Score:5, Insightful)

              by skiflyer ( 716312 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @09:53PM (#13778820)
              Help me out, because I'm genuinelly curious. For four more dollars you get the DVD with no DRM, which you can rip with free software down to a portable format, which comes on its own physical media in case you ever have to free up some harddrive space, which has all the extras (if you care). So in other words, you spend an extra 4 dollars and you get both versions.

              I don't get why you'd even consider the download. I see the value added in buying tonights episode of Lost if you missed it and want to watch it on the train tomorrow, but once it's out on DVD I'd need a much better price break than 11%... personally I would've expected pay per view kind of prices, 3-5 bucks for a movie, maybe 10 bucks for a season of Lost, I dunno if that would even cover cost of bandwidth, but it's about what it's worth IMO.

              Now, the real nice gadget is the Tivo (or whatever DVR) to IPod dock, so people who already have a DVR can take their TV shows on public transit and airplanes and such without paying again.

    • Re:Finally... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mysqlrocks ( 783488 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:32PM (#13775281) Homepage Journal
      Pixar is also making six short films available through the iTunes Music Store for the same $1.99 USD price.

      Yep, the $1.99 price point seems pretty nice. I think this is the beginning of the end for DVDs and services around DVDs (Blockbuster, NetFlix, etc). Putting Pixar content up there is a way to show the movie industry, "Hey, look what we can do here. Extremely low distribution costs, instant access for customers." Does anybody know if this video content is HD? If so, then the format wars for HD DVD will become meaningless pretty soon.

      • Re:Finally... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by calibanDNS ( 32250 ) <brad_staton@@@hotmail...com> on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:42PM (#13775391)
        Does anybody know if this video content is HD?
        According to Steve the video availabe through iTMS is all 320 x 240, which is the native resolution of the new iPod. Far from Hi-Def, but probably just right for the screen size that it's intended for.

        I doubt this will have much if any impact on the HD DVD format wars since most people won't see this as a device for watching video on their TV. Apple is marketing it is as a portable video device, and if it works then that's what it will work as. I expect in the next year or so that we'll see them introduce a product similar to AirTunes Express, but with video capabilities. That's what would really get me excited.

        • Re:Finally... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Golias ( 176380 )
          When I'm on the road, whether for business or for tourism, I like to travel with a laptop, a case of DVD's, and an RF adapter for hacking my way into the TV sets typically found in hotel rooms.

          I might still travel with the laptop sometimes, but for 90% of the non-business trips I take, this new iPod looks like it could be the ideal replacement. The small size makes it easier to carry around, and much easier to watch in a coach seat on a plane. With the AV cable, I'll also be able to use it on hotel TV sets

      • Re:Finally... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Overly Critical Guy ( 663429 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @02:06PM (#13775643)
        It should also be noted that Apple is a member of the Blu-ray group, so expect to see those drives in next year's Macs. I thought it was obvious six months ago that HD-DVD was dead in the water, and now with Dell, HP, a ton of movie studios, Apple, and others backing Blu-ray and H.264 over HD-DVD and VC-1 (WMV9), the writing's on the wall.

        Right now, Apple's videos are at 320x240, probably for bandwidth reasons as well as the fact that HD H.264 decoding requires a powerful machine that most don't have yet. But this is a start--Apple is quickly becoming the forerunner of "digital media" (finally, a use for that buzzword that actually applies).

        • Re:Finally... (Score:5, Informative)

          by That's Unpossible! ( 722232 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @03:44PM (#13776514)
          "Right now, Apple's videos are at 320x240, probably for bandwidth reasons as well as the fact that HD H.264 decoding requires a powerful machine that most don't have yet."

          Au contraire, the new ipod specs say it supports:

          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

    • Re:Finally... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Overly Critical Guy ( 663429 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:38PM (#13775348)
      Uh, is anyone kind of wondering why Slashdot didn't also mention iTunes 6 (five weeks after iTunes 5), Apple releasing a living room media center app called FrontRow with an iPod-like remote (which has 6 buttons compared to Microsoft Media Center's 40 buttons), a new iMac with built-in iSight cam, television shows for sale from ABC, etc.?

      Instead, it's kind of like..."Yeah, it looks like they released video-based iPods and some other stuff. Hey, here's stuff about cars. Ho-hum."
      • Don't forget the best reason to use iTunes 6--they softened the sharp window corners. :)

        Seriously though, they smoothed out the sharp corners of the whole interface. It was actually bugging me in version 5, as trivial as that is. I didn't like the really sharp corners at all, and I know a lot of people were complaining about that. When you're using an app all the time like iTunes, it helps to have it look and feel nice.

      • Re:Finally... (Score:4, Informative)

        by dr.badass ( 25287 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @02:05PM (#13775631) Homepage
        Apple releasing a living room media center app called FrontRow with an iPod-like remote (which has 6 buttons compared to Microsoft Media Center's 40 buttons)

        Bear in mind that the button comparison is a bit skewed, as Windows Media Center's remote includes functions for that archaic device: the television.

      • Re:Finally... (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @02:55PM (#13776089)
        I'm surprised they didn't release a remote with only one button.
    • As long as I can put my own videos (e.g. recorded with a TV capture card) on the iPod, this is awesome. If it's for the store only, forget it.

      • No problem... (Score:3, Informative)

        by mblase ( 200735 )
        As long as I can put my own videos (e.g. recorded with a TV capture card) on the iPod, this is awesome. If it's for the store only, forget it.

        You can add any digital video to iTunes 6 (and to iTunes 5?), as long as it's Quicktime-playable. Presumably anything you have in iTunes will then sync with your iPod. So yeah, it looks like any video you record yourself can go to your video iPod.

  • Erm...TV Shows? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lxt ( 724570 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:28PM (#13775231) Journal
    I think the *biggest thing* is the fact you can now download TV shows, like Lost, for $1.99 an episode. I think that's pretty earth shattering...a 3 minute pop video, or a 45 minute TV show for the same price?

    • Re:Erm...TV Shows? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by zookie ( 136959 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:30PM (#13775266)

      Even more than the price comparison, the big deal here is that Apple has gotten a big content provider to agree to a different distribution method than broadcast TV. Up until now, you were lucky to get the content providers to agree to video-on-demand for cable subscribers (only HBO and a few other cable outlets signed up). If ABC is going to offer shows for sale via Internet download, this could be a watershed event.

    • Re:Erm...TV Shows? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Seanasy ( 21730 )

      Makes you wonder: When did Apple and Disney (ABC) become friends again? Smart move by Disney in my opinion.

  • From Engadget (Score:5, Informative)

    by dancpsu ( 822623 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:28PM (#13775236) Journal
    Act I: The iMac G5. We sold over a million of them in its first year. What better place to put the computer than right behind the display? Today we're introducing and all new iMac. [It looks extremely similar] Three great new features.

    (1) It's even thinner. The 20-inch is now thinner than the 17 used to be.

    (2) iSight videocam. The new mac has an iSight built in. The camera has even better specs. Right out of the box videoconferencing without any extra stuff. We wrote a new app called PhotoBooth. [Demo: It has a built in flash - the entire display flashes. There are special effects including "Warhol" and effects that morph your face goofily.]

    (3) Front Row. It s a new way to experience the media on your computer. It's an incredible way to enjoy your music, your videos, and your photos ... from your sofa. We've done a remote control, Apple style. It's got six buttons. [Demo: He presses remote and a menu for Music / Photo / DVD / Video zooms in. There's a giant iPod-style interface for music. "I can enjoy my music from across the room and see the artwork."

    Photos navigates through everything in iPhoto with slide show effects for albums.

    "Now, a lot of people watch DVDs in their iMac, and it would be nice to control them from across the room. Now you can." [Loads DVD of The Incredibles with menu that blurs out the typically unusable menu on the DVD with an iPod-style menu. Movie posters and trailers in HD format streamed from apple.com] This remote control, I just wanted to point something that to me captures what Apple is all about. [Shot of huge button-congested remotes next to the tiny 6-button Apple remote]

    Specs: Bluetooth, Superdrive, Mighty Mouse standard. 17-inch $1299. 20-inch $1699. Available today.

    Act II: The iPod. We announced yesterday that we had shipped almost 30 million iPods. Our market share, 75% of all MP3 players shipping. Five weeks ago we introduced the iPod nano. And you know what? We shipped over a million iPod nanos in the first 17 days, and we could not meet demand. But what about the white iPod? It's been a huge success for us. And therefore, we're going to replace it. The new white iPod. And yes, it does video.

    Specs: Same width and height as current model, but thinner. QVGA (324 x 240) pixel 260,000 color 2.5-inch display. h.264 and MPEG-4 at 30 fps. TV out. 30GB and 60GB models. Same width and height. 30GB is 31% thinner than the curent 20GB model [Making it 0.44-inches thick--say wha?]. 60G is 12% thinner than 20GB. 30G up to 75 hours of video, $299. 60G up to 150 hours video, $399. Shipping in one week.

    And, by popular demand, we make it in black. They also come with a nice carrying case, to keep 'em all perfect. [Thin plastic sleeve--aw shucks]

    [AD: U2 performing live. Oh wait ... it's on an iPod! New silhouette ad with Eminem -- it's not silhouette but a limited color palette. Steve likes the ads so much he runs each one twice. ]

    The new iPod will be 30% thinner than the current 20GB iPod (making it 0.44-inches thick--say wha?), and will feature a 60GB version (which should be thinner than the current 0.63-inch thick 20GB iPod), and editions of both in black.

    What's the device named, you ask? The iPod. That's it, just The iPod. Well spare you the Prince jokes. The iPod will have TV out.

    Stevie has iTunes 6.0 up there--only about a month after introducing iTunes 5.0.

    iTunes 6.0 will also feature video and the iTunes Music Store will feature Fairplay DRMed video downloads (big surprise, right?).

    At launch over 2,000 music videos will be made available at a cost of $1.99 apiece. You can download iTunes 6.0 starting today.

    Oh, and one more thing...

    It's not only music videos you can buy. No, Apple's set up to allow you to purchase TV shows for $1.99 apiece. Get Desperate Housewives or four other ABC shows premiering on iTunes at two bucks an ep. Videos are native QVGA resolution.

    More details to come...

    • Re:From Engadget (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dancpsu ( 822623 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:33PM (#13775288) Journal
      Act III: iTunes. You know, we have distributed over 200 million copes of iTunes now in the world, and those are only the copies we know about. iTunes in the US has an 84 percent market share for all legally downloaded music. We released iTunes 5 just five weeks ago, but a lot has changed. And so today we're introducing iTunes 6. We've been busy!

            1. (1) Gifting. This has been the most requested feature. You can gift (i.e. buy) iTunes songs for someone else by song, album, or playlist.
            2. Customer reviews.
            3. Just for You. Personalized recommendations. We're going to be recommending albums and singles based on what you've bought before. It's going to be a beta, we'd like your feedback on it.
            4. Video. If we're going to be able to play video on the iPod we're going to need away to buy video. Starting today we have 2,000 music videos for sale.[Shows Madonna catalogue]

      What do they cost? $1.99 each. But we didn't stop there; we're adding some other videos you can buy. Pixar is putting up six of their award-winning short videos. $1.99 each. We are downloading videos 320 x 240, which is the native resolution of the iPod. They're about the size of six songs. All songs are governed by FairPlay. You can play them on up to five computers. They're not rentals. You own them -- they never time out. [Demo of gifting, customer reviews, Just for You, and videos including "Vogue," a U2 live exclusive. Demo of watching U2 video using Front Row on an iMac, playing photos and videos from an iPod on a big screen]

      One more thing...

      We have one more thing today, a pretty big thing. We're announcing one more thing that you can buy off the iTunes store today, and that is TV shows. What's the number one show on TV? What's the second? Lost. And who has these shows? ABC. And who owns ABC? [Disney logo on screen.] I know those guys!

      Lost, Desperate Housewives, Night Stalker, That's So Raven, The Suite Life.

      Yes, you can buy current episodes, and you can buy them the day after they are broadcast. They're ad free so you don't need to fast forward through the commercials, 320 x 240 again. An hour show is about the size of five albums. Depending on your speed it's about 10-20 minute to download an episode. What are they going to cost? $1.99 an episode for current season and past seasons. We have free previews on every episode.

      Thanks everyone!

    • iMac G5 has semi-sane prices (Score:4, Insightful)

      by green pizza ( 159161 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:37PM (#13775326) Homepage
      I think the coolest part are the somewhat reasonable prices on the new iMacs.

      For $1299 you get 17" LCD, built in good quality webcam, 1.9 GHz G5, 512 MB, 160 GB, dual layer slot load DVD writer, Radeon X600 Pro, 802.11g, bluetooth, a wired funky MightyMouse, a remote control, and a bunch of preinstalled software.

  • Man, was I wrong. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:28PM (#13775237) Homepage
    And here I thought they were finally releasing the successor to the Apple IIGS.

    Or they fixed up the Apple /// even better this time. Or they bristled at the term "Apple ][ Minus" and went back to Integer BASIC without Autostart. Or they followed up on that Pippin console.

    Quiet you, it could still happen.

  • One more thing... (Score:4, Funny)

    by all your mwbassguy a ( 720029 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:28PM (#13775238) Homepage
    no bluetooth. doesnt support ogg vorbis. lame.

  • Video iPod pornography. (Score:5, Funny)

    by CyricZ ( 887944 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:29PM (#13775244)
    Has anyone begun selling Video iPod pornography yet?

  • cool news (Score:4, Funny)

    by Ankou ( 261125 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:29PM (#13775247)
    According to Stuff magazine: [stuffmag.co.uk]

    "You'll be able to buy TV shows from the iTunes Music Store - Desperate Housewives, Lost and more shows from ABC and Disney." I guess that means Terry Hatcher will be getting into MY pants!

  • No Divx support? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tommers ( 893816 ) * on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:30PM (#13775251)
    Even though Apple seems to be doing great with DRMed AAC files on iPods, iPods would have totally failed if they didn't support mp3s to begin with. I wonder if the video iPod will be able to gain traction without supporting the large collections of TV episodes, music videos, and movies that users already have in their collection in Divx format.

    • No Divx...No Problem (Score:4, Interesting)

      by BancBoy ( 578080 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:39PM (#13775352)
      My PSP doesn't play Divx (or XVID, or WMV, etc.) But that doesn't stop me from watching a lot of my weekly video content on it. With an app like PSPWare to do the conversion from a myriad of formats to the quality setting of my choice, I don't have a problem. As the iPod with Video plays H.264 and MPEG4, I would imagine a similiar application will work just fine to do the conversion and loading for you.

    • Re:No Divx support? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by fracai ( 796392 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:39PM (#13775356)
      The difference here is that there was an existing market of home ripping MP3 users. There isn't anything like that for home TV ripping (well, fine maybe a small one). The majority of DivX TV files are illegally procured. Well, they're at best not gained through authorized means and that's hazy enough to be illegall under current conditions.

      I expected Apple to come out with ripping software at this event. Something that would rip DVDs to iPod compatible files. I still do expect that actually. I suspect the biggest hurdle is that they have to get the MPAA on board because the DVDs are encrypted and Apple won't want to create DRMed files from your physically owned DVDs.

      I wonder if it at least plays non-FairPlay h.264 files... Off to the iPod site to check.

      • Re:No Divx support? (Score:5, Informative)

        by fracai ( 796392 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:46PM (#13775434)
        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

        looks like all you need to do is re-encode your DivX as h.264. shouldn't be a problem if you were able to encode the DVD or TV stream to DivX in the first place ... :)

    • Re:No Divx support? (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I wonder if the video iPod will be able to gain traction without supporting the large collections of TV episodes, music videos, and movies that users already have in their collection in Divx format.

      If only it were that easy. The incredibly variety of formats and codecs that people have "collected" precludes this. There is simply no standardization. "DivX" doesn't often mean "DivX, Inc.'s standardized format". It sometimes means XviD, or AC3 audio, or OGG audio or subtitles, or this or that.

      That said, Ma

    • Yay for brand recognition. (Score:5, Informative)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @02:11PM (#13775702) Journal
      DivX is a CODEC which implements the MPEG-4 bytestream format. Like XviD and the QuickTime MPEG-4 encoder, it produces MPEG-4 bytestreams of the form playable by the iPod (assuming it satisfies the bitrate / resolution constraints, and has an audio stream that the iPod can play, e.g. MPEG-4 AAC) and any other MPEG-4 player.

      • Re:Yay for brand recognition. (Score:5, Informative)

        by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @03:19PM (#13776292) Homepage
        DivX is a CODEC which implements the MPEG-4 bytestream format. Like XviD and the QuickTime MPEG-4 encoder, it produces MPEG-4 bytestreams of the form playable by the iPod (assuming it satisfies the bitrate / resolution constraints, and has an audio stream that the iPod can play, e.g. MPEG-4 AAC) and any other MPEG-4 player.

        Well, there's MPEG4, MPEG4 and MPEG4. DivX/Xvid are MPEG4 ASP, but not the same as MPEG4 AVC aka MPEG4 level 10 aka H.264. And AAC is a sound codec (though used mostly with MPEG4 AVC). Long live confusion.

  • Video iPod -- Who Knew? (Score:5, Funny)

    by JonTurner ( 178845 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:30PM (#13775253) Journal
    Talk about unexpected... that Apple sure can keep a secret!

  • Not just videos (Score:5, Interesting)

    by That's Unpossible! ( 722232 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:30PM (#13775256)
    TV shows (like Lost) one day after they air, and you know damn well what's next... movies.

    A video airtunes device didn't materialize, but a dock with video out and remote control did.

    • Re:Not just videos (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Grond ( 15515 )
      Except the videos are at QVGA resolution (320x240). That's substantially less than even analog TV, much less DVD or HDTV. Don't count on a lot of people ditching their Tivos just yet. Or ditching bittorrent, for that matter. The videos are really just meant to play on the video-capable iPods. Frankly I think they really missed the boat. Knowing Apple, I expect what happened is that ABC/Disney (whom they still have a quasi-relationship with via Pixar) is just testing the waters, rather than Apple not h

      • Re:Not just videos (Score:3, Insightful)

        by tgibbs ( 83782 )
        Except the videos are at QVGA resolution (320x240). That's substantially less than even analog TV, much less DVD or HDTV. Don't count on a lot of people ditching their Tivos just yet. Or ditching bittorrent, for that matter.

        I'm not ditching my HDTiVo. On the other hand, if I somehow manage to miss a show, or decide to pick up watching a show midseason, at $2 a pop, I'd be more likely to go to iTunes than to Bittorrent.

        This looks like a good foot-in-the-door move for Apple. At that resolution, it's not all

      • Re:Not just videos (Score:5, Informative)

        by n8_f ( 85799 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @03:06PM (#13776196) Homepage
        They definitely need to up the video resolution (and they will, once the new video iPod comes out next year and they start integrating this with Frontrow), but I'm watching the first episode of Lost full-screen on my iBook and I have to say, the quality is about the same as the 350MB versions I get over BitTorrent. I thought it was going to be crap, but I am pretty impressed. I won't buy much more (maybe Lost, if I pick up the first season on DVD), because they really need to raise the resolution to at least TV levels (640x480 or 720x480) and I don't want to have to buy it twice, but for just 2 bucks, I think everyone should check it out. Plus, it only uses 40% of my processor, which isn't bad at all.

        I have been waiting for this for so long! Now if I could just get the Daily Show, Peepshow, or The Mighty Boosh....

  • This is ridiculous (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Overly Critical Guy ( 663429 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:33PM (#13775290)
    This is ridiculous. I'm sure I'm not the only one of the several thousands who must have submitted all the OTHER news [stuffmag.co.uk]:

    -iTunes 6
    -New iMac with built-in Firewire camera
    -New app called FrontRow for playing media from your sofa, 6 button iPod-like remote -compared to Microsoft Media Center's 40 buttons
    -New PhotoBooth app for taking pictures that actually uses iMac's screen as a flash
    -Television shows and music videos for sale through iTunes at $1.99.

    Etc....

    Instead, we get "Yeah, they mentioned iPod video today, and here's a lame car link. Disregard all the other news, like Apple taking Microsoft on directly in the living room..."

  • No more eMacs (Score:5, Informative)

    by linguae ( 763922 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:35PM (#13775307)

    I noticed on Apple's page that the eMac is gone. It is no longer on Apple's hardware website (except under "eMac for Education"), and it is no longer sold at the Apple store.

    I guess the Mac Mini must have made the eMac a bit redundant, so sales of the eMac must have dropped tremendously.

    • Re:No more eMacs (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tim1724 ( 28482 ) *
      the eMac is still available for schools to buy, via the Apple Store for Education. (note that it's not available to students or teachers .. only to institutions.)

      Of course, the eMac started out as an education-only product, and it was only after several months of consumer demand that Apple made it available to individuals. I imagine it will stay around for a few more months for schools, and then quietly disappear for good this spring, with Apple telling schools to buy the mini and buy a CRT somewhere else
    • So that's it? vi officially wins, at least on OS X?

  • Amazing... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by NewbieV ( 568310 ) * <victor.abrahamse ... m minus math_god> on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:36PM (#13775321)
    From the report in the New York Times [nytimes.com]:

    Citing a groundbreaking deal with ABC, owned by The Walt Disney Co., a longtime partner of chief executive Steve Jobs' Pixar Animation Studios Inc., Apple's online iTunes store will sell episodes of hit shows "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" for $1.99 apiece, making them available the day after they air on television.
    Yes, it's a tiny video screen, but you can attach the iPod to a monitor using S-Video plus audio cabling. How can an organization like the RIAA justify wanting more than 99 cents per song when you can purchase 44 minutes of audio and video for two dollars?

    • Re:Amazing... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by shark72 ( 702619 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:54PM (#13775531)

      "How can an organization like the RIAA justify wanting more than 99 cents per song when you can purchase 44 minutes of audio and video for two dollars?"

      Because people are buying millions and millions of them at $0.99. They have likely done the research to show that they'll sell millions at $1.49 as well.

      The fundamental thing here is value to the customer. It makes absolutely no difference what else is available for a similar price. If you want that CD for $13, you'll likely buy it despite the fact that a DVD costs $20 or a movie ticket costs $9 or a Urban Outfitters t-shirt costs $16 or a Jhane Barnes t-shirt costs $100 or a cheeseburger costs $4 or a concert ticket costs $40 -- because you want a CD, not a DVD, a cheeseburger or a t-shirt.

      Likewise, if you want a particular song, but you don't happen to want a particular episode of Lost, then the price of the two items relative to each other -- or the price of the item you want relative to anything else on the planet -- makes little difference.

      If anybody reading this is not a fan of the luxury of charging what the market will bear, then great -- figure out how much it would cost you to barely scrape by for a year without vacations or other discretionary spending, and then talk to your boss on Thursday about reducing your salary.

    • Re:Amazing... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hackstraw ( 262471 ) * on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @02:18PM (#13775766)
      How can an organization like the RIAA justify wanting more than 99 cents per song when you can purchase 44 minutes of audio and video for two dollars?

      For one, the 44 minute program was pretty much paid for the night before by advertising dollars.

      But in general, I've noticed this trend as well. Compare the prices for the latest Led Zeppelin releases on CD and DVD. The DVD has about 2x the content (over 300 minutes vs an estimated 180 minutes) in 3 different sound encodings but the CD costs _more_.

      Link for DVD http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 08PX8P/qid=1129144470/sr=8-11/ref=pd_bbs_11/104-09 63173-9088738?v=glance&s=dvd&n=507846 [amazon.com]

      Link for CD http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000 08OWZC/qid=1129144470/sr=8-12/ref=pd_bbs_12/104-09 63173-9088738?v=glance&s=music&n=507846 [amazon.com]

      Oh, people still buy the CDs at the higher prices or via iTunes. Now I know why they are more expensive.

    • Re:Amazing... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Brock Lee ( 648954 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @02:25PM (#13775842)

      Yes, it's a tiny video screen, but you can attach the iPod to a monitor using S-Video plus audio cabling.

      Sure, but realize that it won't increase the resolution beyond what is viewable on the iPod's display.

      How can an organization like the RIAA justify wanting more than 99 cents per song when you can purchase 44 minutes of audio and video for two dollars?

      The answer to that is simple. Music has high replayability. You can listen to a song hundreds of times over the course of a year. But video media, such as movies and television programs, loses its appeal very quickly. I find it difficult to watch most movies a second time, let alone a third or fourth.

      Plus, music is something you can listen to while doing other things, such as walking down the street or working on your computer. Videos are not well-suited to that, and that makes them somewhat less useful. Yes, sometimes less is more!

  • Didn't Apple used to be a computer company? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by reptilicus ( 605251 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:46PM (#13775433)
    Okay, the new iPods and such are nice, and you should understand that I'm a bit biased, as I'm typing this on a 500 Mhz TiBook that desperately needs replacing:

    Where are the upgraded PowerBooks and PowerMacs? We seem to get a new iPod model every two weeks, but no new PowerBooks for over 10 months?

    Grrrrrrr!
    • Apple is making tons of money on iPod, because they're apparently better than anyone else at making MP3 players that people want.

      Making laptops that are better than the competition? Certainly there are a number of people who feel that way, but Apple isn't such a far-and-away leader at laptops as they are at iPods. So it makes sense they should spend more time developing new iPods. (from an "invisible hand" kind of perspective)

      (furthermore, since they're the market leader at mp3 players, and it's not

  • FrontRow Question (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pmike_bauer ( 763028 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @01:58PM (#13775577)
    Does anyone know if FrontRow (and remote) will be available for anything other than the new iMac?

    I can't find any info about this on Apple's site.

  • Classic iPod quotes (Score:5, Funny)

    by fiannaFailMan ( 702447 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @02:07PM (#13775661) Journal
    "Agree with the article poster - Lame. Not only is this a lackluster MP3 unit (which by virtue of being firewire will be limited to Apple Mac owners), but it has virtually no UI wizardry that might define it as an Apple product. A total waste of time."

    "Raise your hand if you have iTunes ...
    Raise your hand if you have a FireWire port ...
    Raise your hand if you have both ...
    Raise your hand if you have $400 to spend on a cute Apple device ...
    There is Apple's market. Pretty slim, eh? I don't see many sales in the future of iPod."
    And of course, the obligatory "Apple's going under:"
    Goofy internal projects, expensive gaffes trying to "diversify" into areas it has only a tenuous relationship to, a complete inability to understand markets, and a constitutional immunity against learning from their mistakes. There is no future in a $400 (about $250 too expensive) firewire-only (5% of computer users) hardrive-based (read: fragile) mp3 player. Any one of these critical flaws might doom the product - take them all together and you have another classic corporate farce. When you see silliness on this level, though, normally you expect to see a raging egotist who is immune to common sense and criticism in some position of power in the company... oh wait, Steve Jobs. Never mind. This just reinforces my steadily growing sense of foreboding about Apple. Yes, I've said this before and been wrong, but I'll say it again anyway. They're living on borrowed time."
    Names hidden to spare any embarrassment.

    See the original thread [slashdot.org] from the time of the original iPod launch.

  • Content Distribution (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bombadillo ( 706765 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @02:35PM (#13775927)
    The real story is content distribution. Apple just broke into the video distribution market in a huge way. Add this video itunes service with the new iMac remote control and you can guess were apple is headed. They are headed straight to your living room. MicroSoft has the same strategy to dominate the living room. MS has chosen another route with their Media Center version of Windows. I would say Apple just took a huge lead. It will be interesting how this play out...

  • What an idea (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ChrisF79 ( 829953 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @02:40PM (#13775966) Homepage
    Just what everyone needs on our highways... video while driving. This is almost as good as drive through liquor stores!

  • Car video! Cool! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @03:00PM (#13776143)
    'Cause you know, I get really bored when I'm driving alone, and it would be really great if I had something to WATCH to help pass the time!

  • What the new iPod can play (Score:3, Informative)

    by mblase ( 200735 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @03:58PM (#13776642)
    For those who care, this is from one of Apple's Quicktime pages at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tutorials/creatingv ideo.html [apple.com] -- it follows a short guide about how to use new Quicktime 7.0.3 to export video to an iPod-ready format.

    By following the steps in this tutorial, QuickTime 7 Pro will automatically create an .m4v file containing H.264 video and AAC audio that is optimized for iPod. iPod can play the following video formats:

    H.264 video
    File formats: .m4v, .mp4 and .mov
    Video: Up to 768 Kbps, 320 x 240 pixels, 30 frames per second, Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3
    Audio: AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 KHz, stereo audio

    MPEG-4 video
    File formats: .m4v, .mp4 and .mov
    Video: Up to 2.5 Mbps, 480 x 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile
    Audio: AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 KHz, stereo audio

  • Smart move making video standard (Score:3, Insightful)

    by misterpies ( 632880 ) on Wednesday October 12, 2005 @04:50PM (#13777016)

    The genius move with the video iPod is that it's not a separate range. From now on, the regular iPod plays video too. That means that millions of people who would have just bought an iPod are now getting a video iPod. Millions will by a video player almost by default.

    Up until now, no-one has managed to shift portable video players because the customer doesn't see a need for them. But some time someone will work out how to make video on the move work, whether it's as a mobile movie library or some watch-on-the-move content. When that time comes, Apple will be in an unassailable position because they will have a virtual stranglehold on the videoplayer market already.

    You have to hand to Steve.

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