Video Icons in iTunes 5 Spawns Speculation

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

An Ars journal article (http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2005/9/12/1202) points to new "Gift Video", "Buy Video", and "Add Video" icons found in the most recent release of iTunes 5.

The article blurb points to this as definitive evidence that Apple is planning a "Video Store".

More likely, these icons will be used to sell Music Videos as previously reported (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/07/20050718105536.shtml) in July. At that time, the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was seeking to license music videos to sell through the iTunes Music Store. The songs were expected to cost $1.99 a piece.

Apple has already started bundling music videos (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/05/20050509215340.shtml) with some songs as far back as May of this year.

[hipvictor]

but i'm still waiting for the "buy full length feature film in high definition" icon

[Pyro2b]

I really hope for movie downloads soon.

[zv470]

cool, and what about a iTunes Global Music Store? :)

[AppleFoussa]

As much as I don't see as much use for it as a song, this might work. in the end it's the song people want. I can see throwing some parties with the music videos playing on top of the songs. I'm quite sure this will not average 60 music videos per person...

[Lacero]

Sounds more like downloadable music videos.

Apple should release a bittorrent-like iTunes protocol for handling news clips, movies and video talkshow podcasts.

[narco]

I also read somewhere that there was an .ogg icon, but no support for it. Same with .wma. I really hope they release this video iPod, or at least a new iPod with more disk space because I've been iPodless for 2 weeks!

Fishes,
narco.

[Dagless]

Apple really should try harder in hiding these secrets

[corywoolf]

Old news... move along, nothing to see here.

[ryanw]

What about selling actual MOVIES? I wonder how much disk space a full length feature film would take encoded with H.264. Once the next gen DVD Players are in full swing it would be easy to burn a purchased H.264 movie to disk to play on your dvd player.

[Object-X]

What good does it do to sell music videos without the ability to watch them? iPod AV is coming. Probably next year.

[Mac_Freak]

Apple may now put those new Xserves to work. I still can't imagine downloading full length movies in HD over the internet connections that most people have.
Music videos are cool thing to have, so far I have about 5GB of them in iTunes.

[ibook30]

What about selling actual MOVIES? I wonder how much disk space a full length feature film would take encoded with H.264. Once the next gen DVD Players are in full swing it would be easy to burn a purchased H.264 movie to disk to play on your dvd player.


Anyone know how much space a full lenght movie would take up encoded in H.264 ?
And is it fair to assume that is the likely form (H.264) ?

[FoxyKaye]

Cool on the videos - I remember the advent of VCDs in the 80s, and there were even a couple proprietary formats that I don't think will play on any machine today. They were cool: U2, Madonna, and a few others released them. Of course, at the time regular CDs were like $30, so these were like $50, but hey, if you had the $$$ you could play music videos on your very own TV without having to tape them from MTV.

Now, if Apple would only do something with the "Ogg" icon buried in iTunes as well... :rolleyes:

[jerrybrace]

Anyone notice that if you go to http://www.apple.com/movies you get a forbidden message instead of a 404 (Page not found).

That is interesting...

Jerry
embraceware.com

[blogo]

What about selling actual MOVIES? I wonder how much disk space a full length feature film would take encoded with H.264. Once the next gen DVD Players are in full swing it would be easy to burn a purchased H.264 movie to disk to play on your dvd player.

It would require a large amount of bandwith. Just encoded in H.264 720p the size of the files will become several gigabytes in size.

[millar876]

i use handbrake to rip movies to my HD to put on my psp for those long nights on the night shift and if i just let it do its own thing, a sdandard def dvds main feature (the movie) gets squished to about 800MB and it looks no difrent to the origional on my 42" DLP HD rear projection TV.

[Chundles]

I also read somewhere that there was an .ogg icon, but no support for it. Same with .wma. I really hope they release this video iPod, or at least a new iPod with more disk space because I've been iPodless for 2 weeks!

Fishes,
narco.

It's very late so my sarcasm detector is off but those .ogg and .wma icons have been there for ages, like iTunes 3 ages. Macworldhave an article somewhere about using iTunes and a Quicktime plugin to enable OGG playback.

[millar876]

by the way its the H264 video/AAC audio .mp4 setting i use single pass 1000kbps (average) 128Kbps cbrAAC @44.1KHz

[Object-X]

What about selling actual MOVIES? I wonder how much disk space a full length feature film would take encoded with H.264. Once the next gen DVD Players are in full swing it would be easy to burn a purchased H.264 movie to disk to play on your dvd player.

I really don't see this happening. Why "buy" movies when you will soon be able to watch "on demand" anything you want? Besides, how is Joe Consumer going to be able to backup the terabytes of data that his out of control (HD) video collection is going to take up? This is an impossible situation for the general public, not too mention expensive. By the time cost comes down enough to handle it, video on demand will be available via cable and satellite. Trying to manage a large collection of movies and TV shows is impractcial when you can just sit down on your couch, pick the movie or show, and watch it and not have to worry about it.

Movies and music are not the same. Let's face it, have you ever been over to a friends house and seen hundreds of video cassets from their recording addiction? Do they ever watch all that crap? Granted, if they could access it quickly and easily they might, but most movies or shows you will only watch a few times. Why buy them and worry about protecting them when you could just view them on demand when you feel like it? I think Jobs knows the cable companies will undercut anything Apple would do in this area.

Besides, music is going to make Apple a very succesful company in the long run.

[akhomerun]

when i tried to sync a video podcast (diggnation), i got a message that went something like this:

"error: transfer of [filename] could not be completed because this type of file can not be played on this type of ipod"

if that's not blatantly obvious, what is?

try synching the video cast of diggnation to your ipod, you'll get the same thing

[Steven1621]

Anyone notice that if you go to http://www.apple.com/movies you get a forbidden message instead of a 404 (Page not found).

That is interesting...

Jerry
embraceware.com

VERY interesting. good catch. if you go to something like apple.com/video, you get the 404. hmm.

[camomac]

Anyone notice that if you go to http://www.apple.com/movies you get a forbidden message instead of a 404 (Page not found).


yes.. interesting... i wounder if it is a placeholder for the upcoming movies...

[Toe]

iTMS = iTV Media Store

:)

[AmigoMac]

Apple really should try harder in hiding these secrets

Wallstreet trick... share price up! up! up! ... it will be a long time before we see this.

[~Shard~]

This is great news, although not surprising. So the million dollar question will be, when?

As for downloading full-length HD movies, I see 2 problems with this:

1) One of the attractions of iTMS and why it works, is immediate gratification. A user wants a song/album, and BAM, he has it in a matter of minutes. Downloading a movie could take ages, H.264 or not.

2) Further to this, there would be technical limitations. The files would be huge, requiring a lot of disk space (on both ends, and yes I realize storage is cheap, but still....). Also, what kind of bandwidth would not only the end user require, but what about Apple's back-end? How would they support thousands of people simultaneously trying to download movies at 100-200 kbps (or whatever their cable/DSL line rates are)? The infrastructure on Apple's part would be intense.

Anyway, just a couple of thoughts. And then of course, there's the not-so-easy task of signing the major Hollywood labels on to provide the content. Because right now, how much truly legitimate and legal content would there be to put on an iTVS/video iPod?

Just my thoughts. :cool:

[nagromme]

iTunes has been moving toward video for a long time--and already had some for sale. So it's not big news exactly, but it's always fun to see hints of the future hidden in the app :) Probably just for music videos and other short content for now. Movies? Maybe someday, I'm not holding my breath. (But note that unlike with music, subscription plans DO fit people's habits for movies.)

But video iTunes doesn't mean video iPod. The "analysts" who are so sure the market is clamoring for a video iPod would be quick to jump on the tales of "video iPod poorly received--most users just want music." Which is true.

I'd love video on an iPod just for fun. But I'd hardly ever use it--certainly less than I show people photos. Apple would only want to add it as another "little extra" like photos or the stopwatch. That would be fine. But the media would PERCEIVE it as a some "huge gamble" or something. They wouldn't LET it be a minor feature. And so when people didn't use it much, it would make Apple look bad--even if they never MEANT it to be some big deal.

So I think the hype about video iPods is the very thing that will stop it from happening.

(For now. Someday, with TV-out, the market may be ready to truly demand such a thing--among the public as a whole, not just geeks like me :) )

[Toe]

I really don't see this happening. Why "buy" movies when you will soon be able to watch "on demand" anything you want?
Because Apple will revolutionize the movie industry.

Instead of being able to select from any of the few thousand movies Hollywood wants you to watch, you will be able to buy any movie anyone has made.

That will be downright revolutionary. Think iMovie. Of course, 95% of anything is crap, but well made movies can be distributed without having to, um, "do favors" to movie industry execs.

And stop thinking of movies as ~90 minute features. Once Apple gets them completely out of the theater, they can be ten minutes of 17 hours.

And anyway, I suspect that you won't actually buy... more like renting at blockbuster or netflix. Download, watch, overwrite with the next one.

[Toe]

One of the attractions of iTMS and why it works, is immediate gratification. A user wants a song/album, and BAM, he has it in a matter of minutes. Downloading a movie could take ages, H.264 or not.
Streaming download. You can start watching before it has completed the download. Same as with music now.

Also, you're assuming all movies are ~90 minutes. Why not also have 10 minute movies or whatnot? Since you're not stuck paying a fixed price and sitting in a theater, why do movies have to be 90-120 minutes?

[shawnce]

cool, and what about a iTunes Global Music Store? :)

Talk to the various governments (national and local even) around the world.
Talk to the various trade organizations and unions around the world.
Talk to the various "record" companies around the world.
Talk to the various copy write holders around the world.
...etc...

...and get them to remove legal barriers that exist.

Then talk to Apple.

[jerrybrace]

As I mentioned earlier - http://www.apple.com/movies - this would tell us for sure that we're just not talking about music videos.

iTMS = iTunes Media Store
iPod + Media

Video/Movies = Hollywood Movies, Indie Film outlet, Music Videos, Video Podcasts

Talk about "Spawns Speculation" - we'll see.

All iPods have color screens now as well. Perhaps iTunes will be able to convert any video type to an iPod video encoding and resolution size (keeping the high res video on your computer). Think the current Mp3>ACC as MOV,AVI,DIVX to iPod Video.

Jerry
embraceware.com

[iMeowbot]

Apple has already started bundling music videos (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/05/20050509215340.shtml) with some songs as far back as May of this year.
Exactly, this has already happened, it's not an upcoming secret.

[Mike Teezie]

I really don't see this happening. Why "buy" movies when you will soon be able to watch "on demand" anything you want? Besides, how is Joe Consumer going to be able to backup the terabytes of data that his out of control (HD) video collection is going to take up? This is an impossible situation for the general public, not too mention expensive. By the time cost comes down enough to handle it, video on demand will be available via cable and satellite. Trying to manage a large collection of movies and TV shows is impractcial when you can just sit down on your couch, pick the movie or show, and watch it and not have to worry about it.

Movies and music are not the same. Let's face it, have you ever been over to a friends house and seen hundreds of video cassets from their recording addiction? Do they ever watch all that crap? Granted, if they could access it quickly and easily they might, but most movies or shows you will only watch a few times. Why buy them and worry about protecting them when you could just view them on demand when you feel like it? I think Jobs knows the cable companies will undercut anything Apple would do in this area.

Besides, music is going to make Apple a very succesful company in the long run.

Agreed.

So if I could buy movies today from Apple in an iTMS-fashion.....why would I?

Right now we have iTMS. Buy songs, listen to songs on computer - OR - put songs on iPod.

If we had a movie store, we could watch movies on our computer, and that's it.

Problems with having my movies on my computer:

- I've got a big fancy Apple Cinema Display, and movies look really great on it. (h.264!!) But I'd wager that most people don't have displays like many of us here have, because they have no need.
- Even with my display, I want to go into my living room or bedroom to watch movies, where I can be comfortable.
- I work at my computer. I want to go into another room for downtime. Not sit here and think about that website that needs finishing while I'm watching Kill Bill.

These are just some of the bumps in the idea of an Apple Movie Store, I'm sure there are more.

What about this?

Say Apple built a Tivo-ish box. WiFi built in, to connect to your home network. 80 gig hard drive, could really be even smaller.

Instead of Blockbuster, Netflix, or whatever - you download movies into your Mac for $3.99, the Mac sees the Apple-Tivo box as aa mounted disk, and the downloads go straight into the box. And in 36 hours, it's gone. Just like a rental, but without the physical DVD.

The interface is akin to iTMS. You go, browse movies, and hit a "rent now" button.

Piracy wouldn't be any more of a problem than it is now with this method. I can easily drive 5 minutes to Blockbuster, rent whatever, and rip it onto my computer. But I don't.

Download times would be long. But, how long does it take to get a movie from Netflix? A couple of days? And you have to bother with the mail, and all that.

Best part of this idea? Ive gets to whip up a sexy box and a remote!!

What do you guys think?

[Yvan256]

What good does it do to sell music videos without the ability to watch them? iPod AV is coming. Probably next year.

iTunes = computer. They can do it without an AV iPod.

[MacRumoron]

Im hoping they will also sell porno videos or maybe free porn clips, i dunno

also, HD format would be great

[shamino]

I really don't see this happening. Why "buy" movies when you will soon be able to watch "on demand" anything you want?
Some of us don't like the idea of the entire universe of media becoming pay-per-view.
Besides, how is Joe Consumer going to be able to backup the terabytes of data that his out of control (HD) video collection is going to take up?
Re-read the mesage you replied to. He was talking about burning the movies to DVD. I think it will be a very long time before someone figures out a way for a computer bug/virus to destroy a DVD sitting on a shelf.
... have you ever been over to a friends house and seen hundreds of video cassets from their recording addiction? Do they ever watch all that crap? ... Why buy them and worry about protecting them when you could just view them on demand when you feel like it?
Maybe because I don't want to fork over another $5-10 every time I click the "play" button.

[~Shard~]

Streaming download. You can start watching before it has completed the download. Same as with music now.

This would definitely help, but again, I think about the bandwidth requirements, and hundreds or thousands of people doing this simultaneously.

Also, you're assuming all movies are ~90 minutes. Why not also have 10 minute movies or whatnot? Since you're not stuck paying a fixed price and sitting in a theater, why do movies have to be 90-120 minutes?

I agree, and I wasn't assuming actually, I was going of previous comments in this thread about people asking for full-length (even HD!) movies. I think it is more feasible, as you say, to see shorter movies, or even TV shows for that matter available, and I'd definitely like to see this myself. :cool:

[SiliconAddict]

Took you guys long enough. Was starting to wonder if this would ever going to get posted. :p

[oskar]

What good does it do to sell music videos without the ability to watch them? iPod AV is coming. Probably next year.
when i tried to sync a video podcast (diggnation), i got a message that went something like this:

"error: transfer of [filename] could not be completed because this type of file can not be played on this type of ipod"

if that's not blatantly obvious, what is?

try synching the video cast of diggnation to your ipod, you'll get the same thing


We got Paris Expo coming in just a few days. We might see something new there. The current iPod has seen no major updates in almost a year, except for the change to 20GB and 60GB only. It's about time for an update.

[Dagless]

iTMS = iTV Media Store

:)

ITV is the name of a 50 year old channel in england ;) i dont think they'd be allowed to use that

[oskar]

Old news... move along, nothing to see here.

When exactly did these icons previously appear in iTunes?

[shamino]

Streaming download. You can start watching before it has completed the download. Same as with music now.

Also, you're assuming all movies are ~90 minutes. Why not also have 10 minute movies or whatnot? Since you're not stuck paying a fixed price and sitting in a theater, why do movies have to be 90-120 minutes?
Already happening in some parts of the internet. For instance, TheForce.net (http://www.theforce.net/) already maintins a large archive of Star Wars fan films (http://www.theforce.net/fanfilms/).

[Juventuz]

When exactly did these icons previously appear in iTunes?

I think that he's referring to the fact that others sites made same announcement last week when iTunes 5 was initially released.

There are pics of the buttons out there as well.

[swissmann]

but i'm still waiting for the "buy full length feature film in high definition" icon

AGREED. Why MPEG-4 why not H.264. It is so much better lets please make the jump.

[VanMac]

I really don't see this happening. Why "buy" movies when you will soon be able to watch "on demand" anything you want? Besides, how is Joe Consumer going to be able to backup the terabytes of data that his out of control (HD) video collection is going to take up? This is an impossible situation for the general public, not too mention expensive. By the time cost comes down enough to handle it, video on demand will be available via cable and satellite. Trying to manage a large collection of movies and TV shows is impractcial when you can just sit down on your couch, pick the movie or show, and watch it and not have to worry about it.

Movies and music are not the same. Let's face it, have you ever been over to a friends house and seen hundreds of video cassets from their recording addiction? Do they ever watch all that crap? Granted, if they could access it quickly and easily they might, but most movies or shows you will only watch a few times. Why buy them and worry about protecting them when you could just view them on demand when you feel like it? I think Jobs knows the cable companies will undercut anything Apple would do in this area.

Besides, music is going to make Apple a very succesful company in the long run.
Disagree.

I buy DVD's all the time now. I have well over 100. I would love to buy the movie online for say $7.99 and back it up to DVD media. I would likely buy 2 per week.

[shamino]

AGREED. Why MPEG-4 why not H.264. It is so much better lets please make the jump.
H.264 is part of MPEG-4. See Apple's description (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/technologies/h264/) of H.264. Specifically, note the following:
QuickTime 7 features a state-of-the-art video codec called H.264, which delivers stunning quality at remarkably low data rates. Ratified as part of the MPEG-4 standard (MPEG-4 Part 10) ...
What has been colloquially known as "MPEG-4" is actually only one possible CODEC supported by the spec (MPEG-4 Part 2). Note the wording of Apple's comparison:
... H.264 delivers the same quality as MPEG-2 at a third to half the data rate and up to four times the frame size of MPEG-4 Part 2 at the same data rate. ...

[oskar]

I think that he's referring to the fact that others sites made same announcement last week when iTunes 5 was initially released.

There are pics of the buttons out there as well.

Oh, I thought it was just one of those posts where someone is just saying "who cares"? :)

I don't think we'll be seeing the whole movie business deal in iPods or in iTunes for a while. However I do think Apple will make an video-capable iPod soon.
Maybe Apple will focus only on letting you playback music videos from the iTMS and your own small content. I believe iPhoto got this feature in iLife '05. If that were the case, it would probably mean that you could be able to playback pretty much anything on the iPod.

[bankshot]

Someone needs to be the strict parent and tell Apple they can't play around with movies until they fix all music playback issues. "No dessert until you finish your dinner, Stevie!"

Heh. :p

[Proud Liberal]

Because right now, how much truly legitimate and legal content would there be to put on an iTVS/video iPod?

Just my thoughts. :cool:

I guess I have a completely different "vision" of a video iPod...I don't think it would be so much for downloading movies from iTunes. Rather, I see it as a device where you could load converted Tivo programs/ripped DVDs to the iPod, much like what you can currently do with the Archos AV400/700 players.

Just my opinion/2 cents/own personal wishlist!

[Cooknn]

A Hi-Def VOD movie store like iTunes would be the next killer app. That being said, we're still waiting for the 970MP Quad Power Mac (http://everythingapple.blogspot.com/2005/03/chud-tools-reveal-apples-970mp-quad.html) that was revealed in monster.app via CHUD tools last March as well. Could still be a while for either of these hidden jems to show up on the streets :(

[~Shard~]

I guess I have a completely different "vision" of a video iPod...I don't think it would be so much for downloading movies from iTunes. Rather, I see it as a device where you could load converted Tivo programs/ripped DVDs to the iPod, much like what you can currently do with the Archos AV400/700 players.

Just my opinion/2 cents/own personal wishlist!

I think that would be excellent as well. And as I stated above, my comments regarding full-length movies was simply in response to many others' posts requesting that functionality. I, too, think watching TV shows, etc. would be very cool.

[noelister]

It would be neat if Apple struck a deal where one could legally rip a DVD onto their hardrive and encode it for computer/ipod playback. These rips would be tied to a single user, like with a purchased song from itunes.

[plastikimo]

OMG, speaking of H.264, I just realized that Steve kept emphesizing that it is scalable from an HD cinema display down to the size of a cell phone screen. I bet you he will reinforce this feature when it comes to iPod Video.

And i bet its gonna be one of those classic "now why would we need it to scale down videos that small?" steve would ask the audience, followed by a grin, and chuckling by the audience. (similar to how he introduced the nano.

Think about it why would they bother announcing its scaleability over and over, if it wasnt gonna be applied to their 1st party products.

[jiv3turkey748]

i doubt buying music videos will get that popular when you can watch them for free, but i think selling movies would get huge

[Proud Liberal]

I think that would be excellent as well. And as I stated above, my comments regarding full-length movies was simply in response to many others' posts requesting that functionality. I, too, think watching TV shows, etc. would be very cool.

I agree about watching TV shows, sporting events, etc...If I could watch these on a video ipod, which also had my entire music collection, then I could eliminate the need to travel w/my portable DVD player (I travel alot for my job). Besides, Apple's gotta do something w/all those 1.8" 80GB drives that they got from Toshiba!

[SiliconAddict]

All of this depends on several things. The biggest being:

What is this movie designed to be played back on?

If its designed for a portable video player, such as a PSP, or DVD player sized device then I can easily see file sizes being in the 100-200MB range with solid quality. Such a file size would easily be doable on a movie store as long as there is substantial distribution of the network. (e.g. Servers scattered all over the US across the backbone and the tech used is something along the lines of a Bittorrent P2P system.)

However if we are talking something that is designed to be played back on a TV or, god help us all, a HDTV then we are talking a HUGE data file that needs to be downloaded. I just don't see a system in place that will download that in a timely manner. I mean netflix has been talking download services for a while but as far as I can tell they are trickle downloads. moderately fast downloads that happen over a days time. But as an impulse purchase site in the same design as iTMS? I just don't see it happening without some serious bandwidth happening. Maybe in 10 years when fiber or high speed wireless starts hitting the streets or whenever Internet2 comes out. But for now? Anything other then portable movies on a smallish screen just won't work.

[Stella]

it will never happen until there is some DRM... ( Hopefully something other than DRM from microsoft ) Film companies would never allow this to happen until such a time.

The BBC will start a trial to broadcasts of their tv output over internet.. hope they don't limit it to just the UK. Even if I had to pay a subscription, I'd pay it in a moment.

BBC output is generally way better than a lot of output over here.

[SiliconAddict]

We got Paris Expo coming in just a few days. We might see something new there. The current iPod has seen no major updates in almost a year, except for the change to 20GB and 60GB only. It's about time for an update.

Doubt it....No Jobs Keynote = No new nifty toys. Unless this is some uber sneak attack from Apple who WILL have a keynote at the last second, but I doubt it.

[shamino]

OMG, speaking of H.264, I just realized that Steve kept emphesizing that it is scalable from an HD cinema display down to the size of a cell phone screen. I bet you he will reinforce this feature when it comes to iPod Video.
Of course, this simply means the CODEC will work with a wide variety of different resolutions. It does not mean you can take a video compressed for a phone's display, blow it up to a theater-size screen, and expect to have anything close to a good-looking image.

Personally, I've always wondered what the big deal here is. Any video CODEC should be able to work at any resolution, unless it is completely brain-dead. (Of course, if you don't have good enough compression, huge screens will require an unacceptably large bitrate.)
Think about it why would they bother announcing its scaleability over and over, if it wasnt gonna be applied to their 1st party products.
Using H.264 in small devices doesn't mean you're going to be purchasing full-length movies from Apple.

Scalable compression algorithms are good for any video device, no matter what kind of content you play on it.

[chevyorange]

What about selling actual MOVIES? I wonder how much disk space a full length feature film would take encoded with H.264. Once the next gen DVD Players are in full swing it would be easy to burn a purchased H.264 movie to disk to play on your dvd player.

Oh, 700MB at least, in my experience with Handbrake.

[schaaf]

Hi, new guy here.

Something that caught my attention awhile ago was that the iTMS stopped posting new music videos every week like they used to...

You could check that thing every week and there would be several different new videos, but in the last month or so... nothing, save for a new iPod nano commercial, which isnt that interesting.

just an observation.

schaaf

[Ashwee]

There's also something to do with "DJ Play" in there too, wonder what that is

[chevyorange]

I thought that h.264 was already agreed upon as the next generation HD DVD's formats (and Blu-Ray as well)?

[Windowlicker]

I don't think the movie store is that far if Apple just wants to do it (and the film industry agrees, which is the hard part). I just tried encoding one of my movies to h264 with ffmpegX. I was totally amazed by the quality I got. I squeezed a 1h30min film into a 700mb file with original resolution and 160kbps AAC sound (stereo) and the picture was almost as good as the original DVD. Plus the file was completely compatible with Quicktime.

So, in my opinion a 700mb download isn't that big these days, so in say two years it will be pretty small/normal. If Apple could serve the stuff so that people could start watching it already when downloading this service would work great. Even people with 256kbps connections could use the service quite well.

With 1mbps connection you could start watching almost instantly.

$7 for a movie, anyone?

[ZorPrime]

H.264 is part of MPEG-4. See Apple's description (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/technologies/h264/) of H.264. Specifically, note the following:
What has been colloquially known as "MPEG-4" is actually only one possible CODEC supported by the spec (MPEG-4 Part 2). Note the wording of Apple's comparison:

Exactly, very nicely said.

[shamino]

What is this movie designed to be played back on?

If its designed for a portable video player, such as a PSP, or DVD player sized device then I can easily see file sizes being in the 100-200MB range with solid quality. Such a file size would easily be doable on a movie store as long as there is substantial distribution of the network.
Fortunately, Apple already has such a network. They currently use Akamai to allow services like iTMS and their movie trailer site to work at an acceptable speed under the stress of thousands of simultaneous downloads. The same system should work for larger videos as well.
However if we are talking something that is designed to be played back on a TV or, god help us all, a HDTV then we are talking a HUGE data file that needs to be downloaded.
Maybe, maybe not.

VCD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_CD)s run at 1/4 SD television resolution using MPEG-1 for video and MPEG-2 for audio. Quality is equivalent to VHS. It has a data-rate about the same as uncompressed audio, so an 80 minute CD (700M) can hold 80 minutes of movie. (8.75M/min)

A similar spec, SVCD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SVCD) is almost full SD resolution, using MPEG-2 VBR for encoding. Quality is not as good as DVD, but it's close. It can pack up to 60 minutes of video on a 700M CD. (11.67M/min)

H.264 compresses to about half the size of MPEG-2 at the same quality. (The sources I searched for show compression indicate that it yields sizes between 33% and 75% of MPEG-2.) I couldn't find a comparison against MPEG-1, so for this discussion, I'm also going to assume 50%, although it probably does better.

Given these assumptions, a VCD-quality stream should be about 4.3M/min, or 400M for a 90 minute movie. An SVCD-quality stream should be about 5.8M/min, or 525M for a 90 minute movie. This is doable for people with broadband.

HD content, of course, will require much more bandwidth. That's probably not going to be practical for several more years.
... as an impulse purchase site in the same design as iTMS? I just don't see it happening without some serious bandwidth happening.
I really think it depends on what people expect. SD content with quality similar to VCD/SVCD should end up with files around 400-600M for full-length features. This is large, but not impossible for people with broadband.

As a point of reference, Apple's Xcode developer tools are a 750M download. Over my DSL line, it takes a little less than two hours to download this. So we can estimate that a 400-600M movie would take 1-1.6 hours to download. This is certainly not as fast as people will like, but possibly fast enough to be acceptable.

I have friends with cable modems that get speeds 2-4 times faster than my DSL line. If that 400-600M movie can be downloaded in 15-30 minutes, I think most people will be fine with it.
Maybe in 10 years when fiber or high speed wireless starts hitting the streets or whenever Internet2 comes out. But for now? Anything other then portable movies on a smallish screen just won't work.
IMO, SD video can work now. HD video will need some time, but probably a lot less than 10 years.

IMO, the thing that will make or break video downloads will be DRM. People won't be satisfied with only being able to play the content on computers. And I doubt the copyright holders will allow most films to be burned to DVD.

[railthinner]

I think this article on Wired is telling us where some of the early video content for the first video ipod will come from. Note the association between Gore, Jobs, pods...

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,68824,00.html

[wPod]

im not to excited about music videos. i think those should be free!!! i mean come on they are promotional videos so you go and buy the bands album. but i bet that will be the first thing for sale, music videos. then they will announce the powerPod with video and at the same time the iFlicks movie store for full length movies. come on, they got rid of the mini line so they can use the Al look for the powerPods. . . i bet they are just waiting until closer to the holiday season to make the announcement!!

[nomad01]

We got Paris Expo coming in just a few days. We might see something new there. The current iPod has seen no major updates in almost a year, except for the change to 20GB and 60GB only. It's about time for an update.

Did anyone else see the post off a guy on here (user id: podfuture I think) that pretty much predicted the nano. He had some very specific details about it.

He said the next (possibly video) ipod update was around October 7th and that it would be primarily music videos and film trailers... maybe the reason for the forbidden /movies URL?

Not far off.

Also, does anyone remember the interview with sombody at Apple when the ipod Photo was released? Can't remember who it was but he hinted that there was untapped functionality in the iPod photo. More or less saying it just needed unlocking. Nothing more was heard about it though.

Ahh... here's a reference to it: http://www.engadget.com/entry/6291976886564065/

[narco]

It's very late so my sarcasm detector is off but those .ogg and .wma icons have been there for ages, like iTunes 3 ages. Macworldhave an article somewhere about using iTunes and a Quicktime plugin to enable OGG playback.

That was the point. I'm sure these hidden icons will mean something eventually, but it could be a while before anything ever happens.

Fishes,
narco.

[seriypshick]

Here's want I think apple should and will do.
Movie downloads.

How will it work:
1. Subscribe to movie downloads $20-$25 per month
2. you can dowload u to 2-3 movies (if you transfer movies to another computer you have to enter user/pass kinda like we do it with music files)
3. When You finish watching return/delete the movies
4. Go to step 2

Or if costumer doesn't want to pay the subscription fee:
1. Download 2-3 movies $4 each (same thing if you transfer movies to another computer you have to enter user/pass)
2. When you finish watching return/delete the old movies
3. Go to step 1

[shamino]

Here's want I think apple should and will do.
Movie downloads.

How will it work:
1. Subscribe to movie downloads $20-$25 per month
2. you can dowload u to 2-3 movies (if you transfer movies to another computer you have to enter user/pass kinda like we do it with music files)
3. When You finish watching return/delete the movies
4. Go to step 2

Or if costumer doesn't want to pay the subscription fee:
1. Download 2-3 movies $4 each (same thing if you transfer movies to another computer you have to enter user/pass)
2. When you finish watching return/delete the old movies
3. Go to step 1
I'm sure Hollywood will love you, since you're advocating that all movie downloads be pay-per-view with no ability to actually buy the content.

How about this model:


Download movies at $5 each ($10 for really long features or new releases).
Watch them on the computer all you want
Burn them to DVD if you like so you can play them in the living room or at other people's houses
There is no step 4
I'm not interested in movie rentals for the same reason I'm not interested in music rentals. If I buy something and want to watch it many times, I don't want to have to keep on paying for it.

As for why the $5-10 pricetag, that's because most DVDs you buy today cost $10-25. I would never use a download service that cost more than physical media. (Same reason I don't buy albums for $8 at iTMS when I can buy those albums on CD from BMG for an average price of $7/disc.)

[Abstract]

I also read somewhere that there was an .ogg icon, but no support for it. Same with .wma. I really hope they release this video iPod, or at least a new iPod with more disk space because I've been iPodless for 2 weeks!

Fishes,
narco.

So this new icon might not mean anything either? I think there is more chance of this being true than the case with those other icons.


Old news... move along, nothing to see here.

Oh, so you knew about this for ages --- maybe a week, which is how old iTunes 5 is.

Posts like yours are old.

(posting this just woke up in the very early morning from a fire "drill"......sorry)

[corywoolf]

So this new icon might not mean anything either? I think there is more chance of this being true than the case with those other icons.




Oh, so you knew about this for ages --- maybe a week, which is how old iTunes 5 is.

Posts like yours are old.

(posting this just woke up in the very early morning from a fire "drill"......sorry)

rarrr!! Just saying this was on digg.com yesterday morning. Maybe the mods should have an RSS bookmark of the apple portion of digg.com, because they usually get the news before MR does. I don't mean to sound arrogant, but to ME it was old (as in a day) news.

[instantdan]

iTunes has built up on a logic, sort of a learning curve. The first iTunes ads (back when the slot-loading first iMac was the talk of the town) highlighted iTunes as a value added product, which allowed users to burn, rip, etc. Then came the iPod.

Remember when the iPod was launched? did they have the music store?

No, they didn't. part of iPod's success was tackling on people with increasingly big music libraries and offering them a compelling way to carry THEIR music anywhere. Notice the THEIR? it's because since there was no music store, the iPod was a device for them to put music they previously owned (OK, OK, I'll give you Napster/Audiogalaxy etc on this one, but is still proves my point...) Then when people realised that it was reaaaaaaally convenient to have their tunes in such device, bam! iTunes Music Store kicks in. Consumption patterns showed that these kind of devices allowed for people to bypass of all their CDs, which in turn pointed to Apple (and others, too) thinking "Hey, if everybody's just ripping their music and accessing from their computer, why don't we just sell them the digital file?" This, combined with a very clever DRM (almost unnoticeable), was the success of the iTMS. Music videos are relatively new on this learning curve, but then again they have short format, I don't see iTunes selling a full concert... Videos are cool in the same way ads are, because they're short.

I don't see any of the previous happening to video. There's no learning curve from Apple suggesting that they will release full-length features any time soon... Apple would have had a video library categorisation system(like iTunes), to encourage users to handle their video that way... But then again how big is your video library? how much of it is comprised by your own video? And how much of your music library is from music you perform?

For personal videos there's this feature in iPhoto but that's it... then again, how many of us just listen to songs we create in garageband? iPhoto follows the same logic as iTunes, and here it has a key component. pictures are dear to you in a similar way that music is, they evoke memories from you, you get involved. You can do that with specific things, and pop music's short format allows for this kind of associations. But movies? iMovie is for you to edit your own but just because it has an i on its name doesn't mean that it follows the same logic as the previous two apps. I think of iMovie more related to GarageBand. Plus, you can share music quickly, as pictures... not on the internet, with people... but a two hour feature? how will you do that? "hey, take a look at this..." and then two hours later...

How convenient is it to have 10000 films on your pocket? I don't see much people using video features in 3G phones either. I guess your eyes get tired from the small screen...However, a PVR device would make sense, maybe the way to go is to create a clever video on demand system, so that you get streamed content and your account keeps track of what you've paid for so far and doesn't charge you again if you want to see it once more.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love my iPod, and the photo feature is a real plus. When I visit my family, I can avoid the whole CD burning and even bypass the computer to show them my pictures, all I need is a cable and voila! sharing my good moments... This is also useful for presentations.

Oh an you also have the tech issues... what about 5.1 and surround and everything? I mean there are loads of people paying thousands for their home entertainment systems, so I guess a video iPod would have to provide all of these advantages too. AFAIK, there's still no digital device with these kind of ports. I mean, it's not only the video that counts...

And there's always the main difference... music is unobtrusive and pervasive, while video requires your full attention span to enjoy. I just don't think it makes much sense to try to cram up a full feature or a regular sized video in such a tiny device. I like video the way some like their women, big, loud and ready to go.

OK now, this got way too long.

Dan.

[willyjsimmons]

I'll just add that intel recently announced that they are getting into the 'home entertainment appliance' market.

So, I'd figure we might see an Macintel type 'DVR' gadget that would sit atop your digital tuner or what have you, that would have it's own internal storage, plus the ability to 'archive' what you've downloaded straight to your mac.

At present, most cable subscribers only rent their DVRs.

[Object-X]

Disagree.

I buy DVD's all the time now. I have well over 100. I would love to buy the movie online for say $7.99 and back it up to DVD media. I would likely buy 2 per week.

I respect your opinion, and I don't doubt you are not alone; however, my main point is that Apple won't do it. Why? Because there are not enough people like you that would make this revolutionary. Most people will not want the hassle of downloading, burning, archiving, and maintaining a huge DVD library. If you have to backup your downloads to DVD then why not just recored them with a VCR like DVD recorder?

Someone else made the comment that Apple might offer some kind of Tivo like device, but they won't for the same reason: there is nothing revolutionary about it, it already exits and it is offered by cable companies.

Netflix and Blockbuster offer unlimited DVD rentals. I use this service. But you have to wait for them to show up and you are limited in the number you can have. Video on demand with a Tivo like device will allow you to watch anything whenever you want and eliminate the wait. Once people see how convienent that is most will go that direction. I would.

Someone else said they didn't want to pay for every movie, but it will just become a flat monthly fee like everything else. Cable companies will offer video on demand as part of your cable service once it hits critical mass.

Apple movie downloads would not turn the kind of profit that iTunes music store is doing. Thus I conclude Apple will pass and some other company will offer you what you want. Music videos will just be part of the iPod iTunes experiance.

[Doctor Q]

Old news... move along, nothing to see here.Took you guys long enough. Was starting to wonder if this would ever going to get posted. :pI detect a difference of opinion about the significance of this information. I tend to think that Apple would be more careful than to leave messages in their code that revealed a secret video store, given that their program messages are routinely analyzed.

[MontyZ]

.

[hyperpasta]

This is just for music videos. There is no reason to rent/by an H.264 movie in iTunes, that's extreemly counterintutuive.

I also think that video is more suited to streaming to a TV (coughAirport Express2802.11nwithAirVideo) than to watching on a video iPod.

As for music videos, if they sell them in mass quantity they amy want to let iPods play them (coughiPod5Gcough).

[FunkSpaceMonkey]

I really don't care about downloadable music videos.. Am I the only one? :confused:

[inkswamp]

Someday, I am going to have to comb through Slashdot's archive and find the comment I made a couple years back where I speculated on this based on some of the things Apple was doing: major leaps with Quicktime, iMovie/Final Cut type stuff, iPod, wireless, widescreen format, DVD burning, wireless streaming, iPod-to-TV photo features, etc. They even appear to have been testing the "pipes" with their trailer download pages.

Most people responded (and have since responded to similar posts) that I was full of it, but it makes a lot of sense and continues to make sense. If Apple views the computer as the hub of the digital lifestyle and movies are going digital, then it's just a logical convergence.

It seems to me that Apple is very definitely setting the stage for a movie/video download store like iTunes where their hardware plays a big role in making it all convenient, and I've been saying as much for a long time. Imagine downloading a movie via a nicely designed interface like iTunes, streaming it to your TV via some Airport Express-type technology or porting it around on your iPod to play on someone else's TV or your computer at work. Imagine being able to buy the right to burn the movie to a DVD for a couple extra bucks.

And there's only one computer company out there who is in the position to do it.

And that same computer company has a CEO who is also the head of one of the most popular and influential animation companies and he can speak the language of other powerful people in the film industry, share their concerns.

Seems to me that it's not a question of if, but when.

[coolsoldier]

If Apple does decide to provide movies, I think it's much more likely that they will provide a digital rental service than a purchase service for several reasons:

Price. Buying a movie (recent movies especially) costs too much to be attractive to most of the market. To rent a movie to view within a time span of a few days might cost only $3-$5. To buy a movie to keep on your computer and/or burn to DVD is likely to cost $10-$15 (These prices, of course, are speculative based on the prices of renting and buying DVDs)
Movie Studios. A movie rental service would be much easier to negotiate with content providers. In fact, several major movie studios have already agreed to let existing (PC-only) online rental services like MovieLink and CinemaNow rent their content to customers; it would be pretty trivial for Apple to negotiate a similar arrangement.
Viewing Habits. As has already been mentioned, most movie viewers only watch movies a few times. People may not want to rent music, but the large-scale success of bricks-and-mortar movie rental stores is proof that people are quite content with renting their movies.


All this is pretty trivial, though, because the use of the word "video" instead of the more common word "movie" means that the buttons in the iTunes package probably aren't referring to full-length feature films.

Also, I suspect that the apple.com/movies link is a folder to hold QuickTime movies of e.g. iPod ads, rather than a future web site for a movie store. :rolleyes:

[bit density]

If you haven't seen Tiki TV yet, search for it on Itunes in the Podcast. Start with Episode 8 and then go catch up from the beginning.

VERY GOOD STUFF! :D

[xy14]

In my opinion, Stevey will be creating a new compression format or something, because the way most movies are now, a 90min film would be about 1.5gbs assuming it wasn't hi-def. Maybe, he will make small films to view on the new iPod too. If you watch a movie on an iPod, it doesnt have to be 640x480.

[oskar]

iTunes has built up on a logic, sort of a learning curve.
[EDIT]
OK now, this got way too long. Dan.
Didn't want to quote the whole post (#75). Very good points that I agree with, especially the learning curve thing, and that is why I think Apple has to try to see how much demand there is for movies before they actually do something as big as selling them. In the meanwhile they could sell you smaller (music) videos through the iTMS and allow you to download your own movies to your iPod. This could help them see how much demand there was for full-length movies.
A movie store just isn't happening, IMO. Apple has been barely opening it's music store in just some markets all over the world, not to mention that they haven't been able to open all the iTMS they'd like to.
They got bigger problems to handle, like staying in the computer market for the next 6-8 months, until we finally see the light at the end of the tunnel with the first x86 Mac.

[alwayscrashing]

All this talk about video on iTunes.....

And yet no one ever seems to complain about the poor quality of the music they already sell!

Surely I can't be the only person who finds 128kbps aac not worth what they charge?

What I want is Apple Lossless downloads that I can burn to a CD then transcode to AAC for iTunes and my iPods. Surely that should come before expanding into movies or even music videos?

[~Shard~]

And yet no one ever seems to complain about the poor quality of the music they already sell!

Surely I can't be the only person who finds 128kbps aac not worth what they charge?

The people who downloaded the 500,000,000+ songs don't seem to be complaining... :p ;)

Seriously, I know what you mean. But, for the masses, rightly or wrongly, it does indeed seem to be acceptable. It usually doesn't bother me either unless I'm listening to jazz or classical. And, I'm classically trained (including my ears!) so yes, I can definitely hear the quality level and know what you mean, but in the end, as I said, it's not a huge deal for me... :cool:

[Whyren]

I detect a difference of opinion about the significance of this information. I tend to think that Apple would be more careful than to leave messages in their code that revealed a secret video store, given that their program messages are routinely analyzed.

Or they purposely leave it in the code to a) start the rumor mills and drive up the stock price or b) to divert attention away from what's really coming.

[NicP]

This may make the RIAA happy, because they're getting even more money for what is basically a commercial for a song (that's what music videos really are) that you can see for free on TV. But, I have no interest in spending more money just to see the commerical for a song and take up hard disk space.

The music videos should just become part of the songs they are selling, because online music needs MORE added-value, not Less. There's already the huge savings of not having to press CDs, print color booklets, put them in plastic cases, ship them all over the world and then stock them on shelves. The money-hungry RIAA keeps wanting Apple to raise the price of individual songs while offering no additional value in return.

Like much of the music being produced, so many of the music videos made today are just total crap anyway. This is why the RIAA doesn't like consumers having the ability to buy a single song from a CD full of crap music, they want to force people to buy the whole lot for one or two songs.

i dont understand why everyone things that video clips are a commercial for the song, by the same logic the song is a commercial for the song by being played on the radio. I can go to my local music store and buy dvds that contain the video clips of songs, am i just buying a disk full of commercials? its the same music but with extra audio so i'm actually getting better value for money than if i had just bought the cd.

[Whyren]

All this talk about video on iTunes.....

And yet no one ever seems to complain about the poor quality of the music they already sell!

Surely I can't be the only person who finds 128kbps aac not worth what they charge?

What I want is Apple Lossless downloads that I can burn to a CD then transcode to AAC for iTunes and my iPods. Surely that should come before expanding into movies or even music videos?

Again, it's highly dependent on the type of music you listen to as to whether or not 128 kbps is acceptable, as well as what equipment you're listening through. The main reasons they probably started with 128 kbps was that most people don't care and the fact that most people still don't have high-speed internet connections. A 4 or 5 MB file for many internet users is more than enough to tie up the phone lines for some time. Also, there's the possibility that it's part of the agreement with the record companies: if Apple provided high quality sound files at lower prices, there would be little incentive to buy the actual CDs; thus, the labels get less return on the digital copy, plus they lose money because no one is buying the hard copies they've already paid for.

Apple will probably get higher quality options at some point though, so don't fret. If you're unhappy with the 128 kbps for now, then get a hard copy: then you have full quality, a more secure medium, no DRM, and likely something useful/entertaining/pretty in the included booklet.

[~Shard~]

Or they purposely leave it in the code to a) start the rumor mills and drive up the stock price or b) to divert attention away from what's really coming.

I don't think "rumor-creating" is a viable or acceptable reason for leaving code in an application - software development teams and their managers don't like that. Just look at what happened to the guys who built that flight simulator into Excel. Being accused of releasing bloatware, that was the last thing MS needed with regards to their already-tarnished and criticized image.

[Kobushi]

Anyone notice that if you go to http://www.apple.com/movies you get a forbidden message instead of a 404 (Page not found).

That is interesting...

Jerry
embraceware.com

yes.. interesting... i wounder if it is a placeholder for the upcoming movies...


Interesting, yes. But I doubt apple is leaving that as some sort of placeholder. I mean, they have their own huge server, there is no reason for a placeholder. It's just a directory. However, apple isn't dumb enough to just leave that there accidently.

I don't think "rumor-creating" is a viable or acceptable reason for leaving code in an application - ......

I dunno, apple is pretty crafty not only when it comes to designing awesome hardware, but I think they'd be willing to go out of their way to surprise the masses. The whole music event seemed kind of sudden as well. Apple could be tyring to lead us all astray by dropping semi-subtle hints. Then, nail us with somthing earth-shattering (let's hope, since without nano, it's been a pretty dry year).

Of course, their R&D department could be dropping lines to see how a vpod would be received. (thus far not good enough to invest in the new product line.) It's not a bad idea to have someone "leak" some info, then have a few agents surf the gossip mills to see what people think.

Hey apple agents: don't even think about making your silly vpod until you make me a new laptop!

[modernpixel]

I've been wondering this for some time. "iTunes" isn't a very universal brand, it specifically refers to music. So the iTunes Video Store is kind of dumb. I wonder if Apple will call it that anyway (when and if it happens) or if there will be a new brand introduced.

They've become so successful and the iTunes brand is so recognizable, I wonder if they regret not naming it something less specific.

Maybe they'll change it to iPod Music & Video Store or some such thing.

iPod Media Store
iPod Shop-o'-Rama
Steve's Emporium of Digital Rights Managed Wonders

Anyone else got anything?

[Kobushi]

I think someone else here coined the phrase iFlicks


I dit it. :D

[FunkSpaceMonkey]

If you haven't seen Tiki TV yet, search for it on Itunes in the Podcast. Start with Episode 8 and then go catch up from the beginning.

VERY GOOD STUFF! :D

After seeing this, I can see the point in having video in iTunes. I still don't think I'd download many music videos though..

[ebunton]

This is just for music videos. There is no reason to rent/by an H.264 movie in iTunes, that's extreemly counterintutuive.

I also think that video is more suited to streaming to a TV (coughAirport Express2802.11nwithAirVideo) than to watching on a video iPod.

As for music videos, if they sell them in mass quantity they amy want to let iPods play them (coughiPod5Gcough).

I think that movies don't make sense now... They'll first release a video iPod and wait until average internet access speeds grow above a certain limit before offering full-length movie downloads.

However, it think that the time is just right for music videos. They could simply release an video-capable iPod anytime I think. The screen wouldn't need to be huge, since the initial application would be for short music videos. It another great revenue source - buy the track, and if you love it, buy the video to go along with it.

[ebunton]

If Apple does decide to provide movies, I think it's much more likely that they will provide a digital rental service than a purchase service for several reasons:

Price. Buying a movie (recent movies especially) costs too much to be attractive to most of the market. To rent a movie to view within a time span of a few days might cost only $3-$5. To buy a movie to keep on your computer and/or burn to DVD is likely to cost $10-$15 (These prices, of course, are speculative based on the prices of renting and buying DVDs)
Movie Studios. A movie rental service would be much easier to negotiate with content providers. In fact, several major movie studios have already agreed to let existing (PC-only) online rental services like MovieLink and CinemaNow rent their content to customers; it would be pretty trivial for Apple to negotiate a similar arrangement.
Viewing Habits. As has already been mentioned, most movie viewers only watch movies a few times. People may not want to rent music, but the large-scale success of bricks-and-mortar movie rental stores is proof that people are quite content with renting their movies.


All this is pretty trivial, though, because the use of the word "video" instead of the more common word "movie" means that the buttons in the iTunes package probably aren't referring to full-length feature films.

Also, I suspect that the apple.com/movies link is a folder to hold QuickTime movies of e.g. iPod ads, rather than a future web site for a movie store. :rolleyes:


An Apple video rental service only make sense IF you have such a high speed internet connection that you could download the video in a snap, watch it and then delete it without any bad feelings.

I don't know about others, but with my putt-putt 1.5 ADSL connection, I'd feel like the bandwidth and time spent downloading the rental movie would be wasted if it had to be deleted after a certain time limit.

[alexhooren]

ok this is how i see it all going.

music videos will work, selling quite well as gimic purchases. i know two that would probably reach number 1 in the download chart, 'britney spears - toxic' and 'jessica simpson - these boots are made for walking'. i think you see my logic here...

as for movies, people want to buy not rent. so for $9.99 you purchase a movie, which is at most 1gb in size so not too long to download. that movie is then part of your 'account'. so you can delete it whenever you want and the re-download it free of charge. if a bit torrent type network was used the cost to apple would be minimal. you could also back it up to dvd, so its your choice how you keep it... on your hd, on your ipod, on dvd or stream everytime you want it.

then there would be an accessory for the iPod AV. a dock which plugs into your tv which wirelessly syncs with your pc/mac or you can plug your ipod straight into. the iFlicks Movie Store would allow streaming as you download, so with maybe a half hour delay, you could start watching your film on your tv wirelessly. or you could take your ipod round to a friends and plug it into the dock and watch a film that way.

you could also rent the film for 5 days, allowing pc watching, tv dock streaming and ipod transfer (no dvd burning) for say $3.99. so its your choice to own or to rent.

the tv dock would be a $49.99 accessory, which is basically a normal dock with some extra circuits and aiport extreme, plus a remote. could also play music from itunes, or view photos for iSnaps...

[macmax77]

Apple really should try harder in hiding these secrets

Apple should let the secrets out and take advantage of the rumors, use them as a way of marketing

[celebi23]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

An Ars journal article (http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2005/9/12/1202) points to new "Gift Video", "Buy Video", and "Add Video" icons found in the most recent release of iTunes 5.

The article blurb points to this as definitive evidence that Apple is planning a "Video Store".

More likely, these icons will be used to sell Music Videos as previously reported (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/07/20050718105536.shtml) in July. At that time, the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was seeking to license music videos to sell through the iTunes Music Store. The songs were expected to cost $1.99 a piece.

Apple has already started bundling music videos (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/05/20050509215340.shtml) with some songs as far back as May of this year.

Excuse me but, I was the one who found those graphics and I posted them on these forums on Sept. 9th http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=148363
"Found some cool stuff in the iTunes.rsrc and Localized.rsrc files within iTunes. A new "Purchased Movies" icon. And the iPod placeholder from iTunes 4.9 wasn't in there. In no way did it match up with the iPod nano's source column icon. Included the iPod nano pics for fun

http://tinypic.com/dlksp4.png (Graphics relating to a future movie store)
http://tinypic.com/dlkvmh.png (Graphics relating to the iPod nano)

photobucket hosted versions of the pics:
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b355/eisnerguy1/iTunesvideocopy.png
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b355/eisnerguy1/iPodnanocopy.png "
Here's the updated pic with the credit tag
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b355/eisnerguy1/de5b9f32.png


So, I would appreciate if you could change the story to give me credit for finding the graphics.

[corywoolf]

I can see it now, we can only watch 30 second previews of music videos, gone are the days of getting to watch music videos for free on itms. I would rather just get the videos for free off bittorent. Unless they are surround sound mixed with high definition and some other features to make it seem better I think the service wouldn't do well. How about a subscription itms service that unlocks the ability to play music videos on your iPod, along with getting a discount on purchasing songs and maybe even unlimited downloads like napster has. I know Jobs has stated "people want to own, not rent", but he changed his mind about flash players. It would make more sense to have unlimited music videos and a discount on itms with the payed subscription then to expect people to buy a music video they will only watch a few times. Official VideoCasting is also a good bet, it should still be free though. News company's could also post shows with commercials for free on the Video section. It would be cool to have count down with keith oberman available every night for free. And eventually apple could try to allow the transfer of tivo recorded video onto the iPod. I bet a lot of teen girls would like TRL on their iPods for free (with subscription). I don't think they will treat the videos like rentals though, just when you cancel your subscription you can no longer download anymore videos. Eventually a few TV shows might be added (hopefully family guy and ATHF) and then movies.

[shamino]

If Apple does decide to provide movies, I think it's much more likely that they will provide a digital rental service ... than a purchase service for several reasons:

Price. Buying a movie (recent movies especially) costs too much to be attractive to most of the market. To rent a movie to view within a time span of a few days might cost only $3-$5. To buy a movie to keep on your computer and/or burn to DVD is likely to cost $10-$15 (These prices, of course, are speculative based on the prices of renting and buying DVDs)

Your numbers are too high.

It costs $3-5 to rent a physical DVD today. A download-rental service would have to cost less. Why would you pay the same price to get inferior content? Especially if the time to download one movie (probably two hours over broadband) is longer than the time it takes to go to the store?

As for purchasing, DVDs cost $10-25. An on-line purchase plan would have to cost less than that (say, $5-10). Again, why would you pay the same price for inferior content?

Then again, there are tons of idiots who pay more ($3-5) for a ringtone than they do for a full-length song ($1 from iTMS). So maybe they can be conned into paying a premium for inferior content and really long download times. I'm already prepared to laugh at them.

[mainemike]

I guess I have a completely different "vision" of a video iPod...I don't think it would be so much for downloading movies from iTunes. Rather, I see it as a device where you could load converted Tivo programs/ripped DVDs to the iPod, much like what you can currently do with the Archos AV400/700 players.


Sounds like a reasonable possibility to me.

Now, I'm also wondering about the movies themselves (if they are ever offered). Do they have to be full screen HD in order for people to buy and download them? What if the movies were in .h264 format at a much smaller size which fits the screen of a video iPod?

Looking at my son's Playstation Portable I can see where this might be a viable direction. The little UMD movie discs look decent enough on the PSP screen. Yet the movies cost as much as a full-fledged DVD!

I could see someone paying (at a reasonable cost) for downloadable movies that are only large enough to play on a video iPod (could also be scaled up to play on a larger external monitor?)

[MontyZ]

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[Proud Liberal]

I don't mean to sound rude, but I think many people in this discussion are "putting the cart before the horse", so to speak, when it comes to the "video ipod" or whatever it's going to be called. I think many people are expecting something before it's feasible/available. Let me explain (and for the record, I'm by no means a video expert at all).

My own personal belief is that if Apple releases a vpod, it won't be so much for downloading movies from an iTunes-like stored (I think there are too many issues with this for them to make that leap yet), but more so for providing a capability for vpod owners to carry both their music collections AND a few of their own movies/TV shows that have been ripped from DVD/Tivo to a PC/Mac hard drive. I think we need to think of this in terms of "evolutionary acquisition", i.e. vpod version 1, version 2, etc. Just think of how Apple has grown the iPod line as technology has matured/evolved over the last 4 years. I think the vpod will be similar. First introduce something that allows owners to carry both music and movies/TV programming. And yes, I know that there are already devices that do this, but there were also other devices that allowed users to carry MP3 collections prior to the introduction of the iPod. But Apple came along w/the iPod and blew everything else out of the water for several reasons. Why can't they do the same w/a video player? I'm not buying the argument that it would be mostly for downloading & watching music videos - who sits down and watches 2 hours of music videos, anyway (disclaimer: I'm NOT 13 years old, so maybe there's something about the Echo Boomers I'm not aware of!!)

Then the next logical step (a la iTunes introduction) would be to introduce a video store where you can download & buy feature films, episodes of TV shows (like you can buy an entire season of a TV Show at Best Buy on DVD, etc), as well as introducing the next evolution of technology for video devices...

Well I'm done my rant! :) Since this makes entirely too much sense to me, I'm sure it's about as plausible as pigs flying! :p

[shamino]

Playing songs on the radio is also done to sell CDs and promote the artist.
Radio stations play music in order to sell the advertisements that play between the songs.

Record companies give radio stations free/pre-release copies in order to promote CD sales.

These two goals don't always overlap.

[shamino]

My own personal belief is that if Apple releases a vpod, it won't be so much for downloading movies from an iTunes-like store (I think there are too many issues with this for them to make that leap yet), but more so for providing a capability for vpod owners to carry both their music collections AND a few of their own movies/TV shows that have been ripped from DVD/Tivo to a PC/Mac hard drive.
Good insight. I think you may be on to something here.
First introduce something that allows owners to carry both music and movies/TV programming.
Perhaps an audio/video capture device (featuring TV/radio tuners and a FireWire interface) that a user can attach to a Mac and record shows a-la TiVo. (Asteroid???)

Then, allow users to sync recorded shows with an iPod for transport to other locations. The idea being that people can attach their iPod (via the video-out jack) to TVs, so you can play your recordings in the living room or at other people's houses. The nano doesn't have the video out, but with only 2G or 4G of storage, people won't be transporting a lot of video with it anyway.

Then talk with automakers to get interface kits so the iPod's video programs can be played on those overhead screens people get installed in minivans.

I still don't think there will be too much demand for watching videos/movies on the iPod's own screen, but you can pretty much get that for free if you develop the hardware/software for video playback through the line-out jack.
Then the next logical step (a la iTunes introduction) would be to introduce a video store ...

IMO, this could be introduced at any time, once Apple's marketing people think there's a demand for it. (Assuming the movie studios get on-board, of course.) I would expect Disney to be one of the first adopters, due to their relationship with Pixar and the fact that kids movies would be most desirable for playback in minivans.

[MontyZ]

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[Proud Liberal]

Good insight. I think you may be on to something here.
Perhaps an audio/video capture device (featuring TV/radio tuners and a FireWire interface) that a user can attach to a Mac and record shows a-la TiVo. (Asteroid???)

Then, allow users to sync recorded shows with an iPod for transport to other locations. The idea being that people can attach their iPod (via the video-out jack) to TVs, so you can play your recordings in the living room or at other people's houses. The nano doesn't have the video out, but with only 2G or 4G of storage, people won't be transporting a lot of video with it anyway.

The Archos AV400/700 players do just that and they completely bypass the middle step of recording shows to a PC/Mac & then download to the player - you can hook it to your TV/Tivo and record DIRECTLY to the device, and with a 4" screen, it's completely conceivable that you could watch "programming" (i.e. shows recorded from TV or movies ripped from DVD to a HD). It would be a great device for those of us who are "road warriors" for our jobs - instead of carrying an iPod & a portable DVD player, you get the best of both worlds - and you don't have to carry the DVDs!

The technology is definatley there & already being used, just like the MP3 technology already existed when Apple introduced the iPod. But they took it to the next level and I don't see any reason why they couldn't do it with "video". MP3 players didn't really "take off" until AFTER the iPod was introduced and then they quickly became a part of pop culture. Perhaps it will be Apple that will do the same for the PVP industry.

[Loge]

The Archos AV400/700 players do just that and they completely bypass the middle step of recording shows to a PC/Mac & then download to the player - you can hook it to your TV/Tivo and record DIRECTLY to the device, and with a 4" screen, it's completely conceivable that you could watch "programming" (i.e. shows recorded from TV or movies ripped from DVD to a HD). It would be a great device for those of us who are "road warriors" for our jobs - instead of carrying an iPod & a portable DVD player, you get the best of both worlds - and you don't have to carry the DVDs!


If you use these Archos players to rip protected DVD content, then the resulting files can only be played on the device it was transferred to; you can't play from a computer, or output to a TV, and presumably when you replace the device you lose those copies.

[Proud Liberal]

If you use these Archos players to rip protected DVD content, then the resulting files can only be played on the device it was transferred to; you can't play from a computer, or output to a TV, and presumably when you replace the device you lose those copies.

I don't have an Archos, so I'm not too familiar w/the details, but from the reading/research I've done, I wasn't under the impression that the Archos itself could "rip" a DVD. I thought this needed to be done on a PC w/software and then load the file to the Archos for viewing. But if you hook it up to a TV, you can record directly from the TV to the Archos.

[podfuture]

The next big event is scheduled for Oct 7 (+/-). Chatter is that there will be major update for the iTMS and video is the subject. The day will be long remembered.

New Video Gen iPod will be the big story. Smaller scroll wheel, larger, higher resolution display. A few mm thinner than the 4th Gen.

Again and again I hear of an update to the Airport Express to provide video output (analog??). Some speculate WiFi in the Video Gen iPod but maybe the Airport Express product spin is for your desktop as the source.

So Stevie has been a busy boy lately!!

[Loge]

New Video Gen iPod will be the big story. Smaller scroll wheel, larger, higher resolution display. A few mm thinner than the 4th Gen.


So I can transfer content from my existing DVDs to this new device, right?

[madmaxmedia]

So I can transfer content from my existing DVDs to this new device, right?

Yes you will. Maybe not directly with iTunes or whatever Apple software, but you can always rip your DVD and convert to any format/resolution/bitrate. At that point there is no discrimination between your movie and any other video file.