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Apple Launches Video Podcasting For iTunes
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Sep 15, 2005 02:53 PM
from the new-things-to-look-at dept.
from the new-things-to-look-at dept.
phaedo00 writes "Apple has launched support for video podcasting in the Podcast section of the iTMS. Ars Technica has a decent write up of the news along with speculation on what this means in the way of a video iPod and Apple's recent application for a patent on the phrase 'iPodcast.'" From the article: "The quiet, fanfare-less launch (in fact, it's not even clear when it was launched) is a bit surprising for the company, but there may be a reason: there's not too many video podcasts out there in the wild. Furthermore, video podcasts are currently only playable on your computer, although it seems clear enough that a video iPod is on the way. If you didn't believe it before, you should definitely believe it now. For now, it looks like video podcasting support is limited."
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Stupid article (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Stupid article (Score:2)
I'd think that was a patentable invention.
Or maybe a magic word. Like a really good word for spells and stuff. If the word was actually a sufficiently good device for making frogs fall from the sky, wouldn't that be patentable?
Or possibly a really long string of letters, like GATTACATACGA..., which made a patentable gene? Is a gene a word?
Obviously... (Score:5, Informative)
Obviously, as the Ars Technica article correctly reads, they applied for a trademark on "iPodcast".
Video iPod (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd be really interested to see what Apple can do for video on a portable jukebox. iRiver's implementation, while nice, seems a bit 'after the fact' so I know there is potential.
It's what you put on it (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Video iPod (Score:3, Interesting)
All the modern *color* iPods (starting with the iPod Photo models) can do video based upon the abilities built into the chipset. Apple just hasn't enabled it.
For video podcasts, I can't see why Apple won't enable it. For watching movies, well, that's a different ballgame. I think that will be limited to future iPod Video models
Video iPod Obsession (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it is time for the media (and public) to realize that the Video iPod ISN'T just around the corner, and that it may not be available for years yet, if ever.
I don't think a vide
Some video podcasts are cool (Score:5, Informative)
as is Systm:
http://revision3.com/systm [revision3.com]
Re:Some video podcasts are cool (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.filefarmer.com/techshows/ [filefarmer.com]
Interesting Comparison (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Interesting Comparison (Score:2)
There is also a huge difference in the skill necessary to shoot video footage well and shoot still pictures well.
nothing new here (Score:5, Informative)
The Dawn and Drew show even had a little video as part of their iTunes rss feed.
Apple already has a specialized "ipod videocasting" application - it's called iMovie.
The "news" will be an iPod designed to support video playback right out of the box.
News to Rocketboom... (Score:3, Interesting)
I bet they're surpirised to hear of this "new" functionality....
I think the writeup my be a bit misleading... (Score:5, Informative)
I noticed that iTunes could handle "video podcasts" in the last version (4.7?) and there's a little writeup of the capability paired with del.ici.us [del.ico.us] over at lifehacker [lifehacker.com]:
http://www.lifehacker.com/software/entertainment/
Does it mean that a video iPod is "on the way"? Not neccesarily. iTunes has had the ability to play video for a while, and podcasting video is not much different from podcasting audio. Parse
the rss, download the associated media, add to a special playlist. I think the feature was added as an afterthought or experiment: "hey, we can add a couple lines and support this!".
The video iPod remains the white whale of Apple enthusiasts. Often speculated about, never seen.
Re:I think the writeup my be a bit misleading... (Score:3, Informative)
Cringely on Apple's plans - July 14, 2005 (Score:5, Informative)
The overall discussion [pbs.org] was about Intel/Apple, but it seems he called this one (at least the first part) right.
If Apple Trademarks "iPodCast"... (Score:2)
On that point, how can the term "iPodCast" even be granted, given that a similar and close term "PodCast" already exists and is used by everyone ?
Re:If Apple Trademarks "iPodCast"... (Score:2)
Its all in trademarking for a specific class of product.
PSP support (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe this is something Sony would like to collaborate with Apple on?
Tech Review Graph (Score:5, Interesting)
there's not too many video podcasts out there in the wild.
Actually, there is a very interesting graph in this month's Technology Review concerning podcasts. The graph shows the percentage of podcasts available by subject, versus the percentage of podcasts viewed by subject. Music is, of course, the genre that most podcasts are in, and the genre that most people view. However, erotica is one of the smallest genres by availablilty, and one of the largest by viewership. Porn driving technology again, it seems. :)
Re:Tech Review Graph (Score:3, Informative)
Democracy Now! is podcast in video form as well. (Score:2)
In iTunes, you open the window that shows the album art, and right there is the video feed.
Why so quiet, Apple? (Score:3, Interesting)
I have to wonder if Apple isn't promoting this feature because they're not sure how to bill it. Without a video iPod, it doesn't fit well within their "package deal" of the iTMS, iPod, and iTunes.
Bandwidth? (Score:2, Insightful)
Audio podcasts consume large amounts of bandwidth for the host; not just from the content itself, but the constant retrieval of the RSS feeds from podcast clients, as well.
Video podcasts using the same distribution methods would be highly inefficient. But, perhaps an combined solution using syndicated bittorrents would be feasable, like this guy [gotilk.com] proposes.
// J
If Apple was Smart (Score:5, Interesting)
Then, Apple could simultaniously release a new "accessory" for the Ipod. It would be a line of larger portable screens. The screens could have some sort of dock(maybe on the side) that the Ipod could snap into and feed video out to the portable screen while letting you use the clickwheel for control.
Doing something like this would give ipod owners a new "item" to purchase if they so chose. And, I imagine it would sell very well because now, in addition to entire music collections, you could have entire movie collections with an optional screen to get good viewing off of.
Of course, later apple could release a "video ipod" model as well with improved video out quality and perhaps a larger built in screen for ipod owners to "upgrade" to when their old ipods finally wear out.
It would be a win win situation for everyone and boost apple's hardware sales across the board.
Re:If Apple was Smart (Score:2)
VIdeo can be simply though (Score:2)
It's not like the iPods are going to be decodinbg MP4 files themselves for some time!
Re:If Apple was Smart (Score:2, Informative)
Re:If Apple was Smart (Score:2)
Smart people already here... (Score:5, Informative)
I've been noticing all the podcasting cognoscenti in Silicon Valley are simultaneously doing their podcast and shooting video of it. What do they know or suspect that we don't?
- Former TechTV ScreenSavers host Leo Laporte, Patrick Norton, John C. "I get no spam" Dvorak and others are doing TWIT [www.twit.tv] and just announced video is next.
- Former ScreenSavers hosts Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose at Diggnation [typepad.com] are shooting video while they podcast and Kevin Rose is doing SYSTM [revision3.com]
- Robert X. Cringley's NerdTV debuts [pbs.org]. Now you may be wondering, "So what?". It's IPTV [wikipedia.org]...that's what. There aren't a lot of great examples out there yet, but most of the smart podcasters -- who are mini-celebrities or have something people would like to see -- are simultaneously podcasting and shooting video (many in high definition just in case). Read an article about a new report here [bbc.co.uk].
- Silicon Valley podcaster John Furrier from Podtech [podtech.net] is embarking on video to augment his podcasting.
Wired magazine has a great article [wired.com] discussing blogging + video = vlogging. While everyone's attention is on podcasting [wikipedia.org], vlogging [wikipedia.org] is the next hot trend that has almost taken off. This Apple announcement oughta help.It's so hard to believe in anything anymore. If it weren't for my lucky astrology mood watch, I wouldn't believe in anything.
Steve Martin, Comedian
Lots of Video-Casts out there (Score:2)
I don't think it will take off (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think video podcasting will take off in the same way as audio podcasting.
It's technically pretty easy to make a decent sounding audio podcast (are we going to have to call it that from now on?). All you need is a decent microphone to record it on, a piece of software to edit it with and you're good. Recording voice so that it sounds good and natural is easy.
Making a decent video podcast is more demanding. I know good video cameras are getting cheaper and cheaper but no matter the quality of the camera you're still looking at somebody's home video unless the lighting is done properly, the sound is recorded by someone who knows what they're doing[1] and you're looking at a person who does not look like he's living in his mom's basement.
In short, a lot more can go wrong when you're moving from just sound to sound and video.
Commercial video podcasting may be interesting. It would be cool to get the news to put on your video iPod. But I think that will be made obsolete pretty quickly with some sort of wireless broadband and mobile phones.
[1] Recording sound for an audio podcast is easy. You speak directly into the microphone. If you have to film the damn thing you'd better move the microphone out of the picture or get a contact mic. Otherwise it will look extremely bad.
iPorn? (Score:2)
"Hello, Apple? Yes, I'd like the new Jenna Jameson iPod Nano, please."
DTV / Broadcast Machine (Score:2, Interesting)
What this means for U.S. broadband (Score:4, Insightful)
So who would be crazy enough to publish (Score:2)
What I would like to see is some way for RSS podcast feeds to be able to make reference only to a BitTorrent s
Tiki TV (Score:3, Informative)
Why video iPods matter (Score:2)
Next up, I hope they consider putting a decent speaker in it. It doesn't have to be great, but it should be decent for reproducing human speech.
ViPods matter, on a plane, train or backseat. (Score:3, Interesting)
And its a democratic idea. The production values are shit (now) but the content doesn't have to be music.
Educational videos (like one I had to watch on IDMS DB) can be downloaded to a ViPod and delivered that way, instead of a bunch of us having to sit and squirm through it, mis
What I would like to see... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is all easily possible today, Steve Mann has shown the way, but I haven't heard of anybody in the video blogging community doing this. Even more spectacular would be if instead of recording directly to the wearable, if it was all recorded, mixed, and streamed via (illegally auto-tapped and legal, depending on the area) 802.11 across the net to a cam server of some sort - you could have a cheap and instant roving IP cameraman/reporter set up, able to go anywhere and report on anything, provided an 802.11 link was found. At the same time, it could record to the hard drive when the link is dropped or such, but the implications for indymedia coverage would be huge. We could actually have a good source for demonstration and other coverage that couldn't be destroyed by police action - indymedia reporters would have nearly the same freedom as regular remote camera news-crews do today, without the expense (albeit, without the quality either).
Imagine wearing such a thing, broadcasting live the latest happenning in your local area, as it happens - for anyone on the internet to see. Imagine if your server capturing all of this auto-inserted paid-for advertisements, to offset you bandwidth bill and maybe also provide a little (or a lot!) of coin on the side. Basically - everyone could become an independent news (or other) broadcaster - provided they could set up the advertising deals and such.
It would be an interesting thing to do, to say the least...
alternative videocast apps & bandwidth prob (Score:3, Informative)
The best one so far is DTV [participatoryculture.org] (mac-only beta right now). The biggest feature this has that iTunes doesn't have is the ability to receive the video podcasts in
Unless iTunes provides some kind of automatic caching for the video files, having just a moderate amount of popularity could kill aspiring video podcasters.
Another app is FireANT [antisnottv.net], which without the bittorrent feature makes me hate it.
DTV also has a built-in directory to find video podcasts, which is pretty cool. They do a good job of making the process easy to use, although their beta is still a little wonky at times.
video and pdfs supported for a long time now... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Article text (Score:3, Interesting)
why read or write when you can listen or speak?
TV was made for losers like this.
LOL Trolls and dumb mods (Score:2, Insightful)
Why don't you mods try reading the whole thing before you mod?
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then, of course, it all syncs with your vPod.
Re:So what? (Score:2)
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:a video ipod? (Score:2)
do you work for some company that made an early MP3 player that is long forgotten? Apple never claimed to create the first MP3 player.... they seem to just be the first ones to get it right. it would not have gotten so popular at that initial price if it was a nightmare to use (like some other players of the time).
Apple was the first to market a windows based UI, so e
Re:a video ipod? (Score:2)
Re:Little Zonky (Score:3, Informative)
This is exactly the sort of thing that makes one want to join GNAA or the jihad.
No more Mr. Nice Guy.