10 Thoughts on iPod Video
Here’s a full rundown on Apple’s announcements yesterday. A few thoughts:
1. I think the resolution and size of the video images for the downloadable TV shows is done at the behest of Hollywood. Making these shows smaller is a good way to limit piracy.
2. People buy movies in the UMD format for their PSP, so they don’t seem to mind watching videos at increasingly smaller sizes. And they surely don’t want larger iPods. The Nano is selling like hotcakes. The Shuffle is doing very well. Shrinking the main iPod is a bigger priority than increasing screen size at the moment.
3. Apple needs to buy TiVo now. Imagine copying a TV show off your TiVo down to your iPod to go. . . On the other hand, I like that the TiVo is a Linux product. Switching it up to a Mac OS in the background makes it a little less sexy to the geek inside of me.
4.When I buy my next iPod, I’m sticking with the white. Black is fine, but I like the classic look more. I’m surprised, though, that Apple isn’t doing more than just black and white for these puppies. The Minis sold bunches with extra colors.
5. I don’t need a remote for my iPod. Of course, I use it primarily in the car and at my desk at work. Distance isn’t an issue. When I’m at home and want to listen to music, I play it off my computer and through iTunes. What I want is universal integration of the iPod into any new car. Apple keeps making deals, but they’re not there yet. Why can’t car stereos just have a jack in the front to plug any audio device in? Seems so simple, but so few do it.
6. A larger hard drive would be nice. The 30 GB in the new base model would work for me, though. My 20 GB is filled. I’ve started to take albums off it when I add new ones. Those extra 10 GB would be great.
7. But I’m not buying a new one just yet. I want to wait for the NEXT generation of iPods, which will (rumor has it) include a widescreen display.
8. They’ll need to significantly bump up battery life and hard drive size before turning the iPod into a significant video player. Screen size would also be nice, but nobody wants a huge iPod.
9. $1.99 is a nice price point for the TV shows, I think. I doubt anyone will replace their TiVo with this thing. I think it’ll be most popular amongst those who miss an episode for some reason and want to catch it at any resolution before next week’s. Neither LOST nor DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES are repeated on cable over the weekend the way other shows increasingly are today. (THE OFFICE and THE APPRENTICEs, for two.) If a song is a five minute audio file for a buck, two bucks doesn’t seem like a bad idea for 44 minutes of audio WITH video.
10. Don’t know that I’d pay that for a music video, though, or even a PIXAR short. But as the writer at the links says, ring tones are dumb ideas and people buy those by the bushel, too. What do I know?
October 13th, 2005 at 10:53 am
Would you have paid $2 for a copy of the LOTR trailers? The thought makes me tingly. I’d pay it for a portable copy of the Serenity trailer today.
October 13th, 2005 at 11:29 am
Don’t some new cars have USB ports on the stereo system? I heard about that in the news a while back.
Yeah, I’d like one of these, but frankly, I’ll wait till next year, when a few kinks have been worked out and the screen is larger.
October 13th, 2005 at 1:46 pm
Actually, ABC has been running repeats of Lost and DH on Saturday night. I’m not sure if it’s going to be a regular thing though.
October 13th, 2005 at 7:53 pm
I hope they won’t make us pay for trailers, since movie trailers have been part of iTunes for a while. They just need to have it in another Quicktime-derived format.
And yeah, I’d love to have the LotR and other trailers on my iPod.
The next question, though, is how many minutes until porn is available in this format?
October 13th, 2005 at 7:59 pm
Augie,
I’ve just recently purchased an I-Pod mini and I filled it up immediatly. I want to take some stuff off and add new things (like the newest V & S podcast!) but I am not sure how to navigate the I-Tunes interface. How do I take off stuff that is on the i-pod now and put new things on? It only seems to offer a shuffle option which it chooses what items to put on the i-pod from the library options. Thanks
October 14th, 2005 at 7:50 pm
I’m sorry, Augie, but there significant differences between the screen on a PSP and this new video iPod…
A) the PSP screen is significantly, bigger, sharper, AND in anamorphic format. You really don’t have to trim films to fit the screen although no question 1.78 and 1.85 films fit it better than 2.35 ratio films… 1.78, btw, is the aspect ratio for HDTV!
The PSP is NOT HD-capable, but it’s significantly sharper than most LCD screens its size or smaller. It’s far more comfortable to play games or watch videos on Sony’s portable screen than it is on Nintendo portable I’ve tried to date. I don’t have to squint my eyes or adjust the brightness to SEE things comfortably. It’s really much better than you think.
B) You can do a lot more than just watch films on a PSP. Right now, the game selection has around a dozen good games out of 30-40 games tops, but it will grow. Beside UMD gaming, you can hack the system and play PSP-customized emulators for just about any cart-based system pre-N64!
The PSP has become a popular portable SNES-emulator station.
C) It does NOT have the storage capacity of an iPod (limited to 1G cards but 2G and higher cards are in the offing), but there’s no question it has superior video playback on a much bigger anamorphic screen as well as probably better sound output. There’s a limit to how far a system can be shrink before things start to suffer.
I’ve been hearing the Nanos and shuffles do NOT have as good sound output as the thicker iPods.
Look, Sony and Apple really aren’t shooting at the same market at any rate but they do happen to cross over at times.
No question if you’re a music fanatic that the iPod makes more sense as a portable player than the PSP which plays mp3s like everything else on the market. However, for about everything else, the PSP is a better portable bet. Regardless of which you choose to pick up, it’s important to get protective plastic shields for BOTH their screens AND skins to protect the systems from scuffing/major scratch damage.
I wish they’d have made the screens more scratch-resistant on portable systems, but that $5 investment in screen protectors makes sense when you consider you’re paying over $200 for portability! It doesn’t make sense to be a skinflint and NOT protect your investment…