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16GB Flash-based iPod Video Player?

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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Barrons reveals a report by Daniel Amir, an analyst with W.R. Hambrecht, who expects NAND flash growth in the first half of 2007.

Driving the sales of the Flash memory are cited to be the rumored Apple iPod Phone in 4GB and 8GB sizes... but also a "16 GB flash-based Apple iPod Video player" which is expected to be seen in the first quarter of 2007.

Multiple reports have suggested a 4GB/8GB iPhone is ramping up for a early 2007 launch, but no information about a 16GB flash-based Video iPod has been previously reported.

The accuracy of Daniel Amir's reports are unknown.
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2006/12/06/16gb-flash-based-ipod-video-player/
Spock said:
Sweet! a Eyestraining video Nano!!
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Yeah, would/should anyone really be into that? sometimes I feel like I'm numbing my brain with all this constant video stimulation. Even though I only watch things on my powerbook, that means I tend to watch things everywhere. It's taken away from my reading!
 
I can see it...

A player you load up with one or two movies you want to watch for, say, a train or plane trip. It could be ultra thin with a decent-sized screen. I see potential.

Then again...
 
MrFirework said:
A player you load up with one or two movies you want to watch for, say, a train or plane trip. It could be ultra thin with a decent-sized screen. I see potential.

Then again...
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Hmmm.... interestin. That could be a possibility. Add Wi-fi and you will certainly have a swanky ipod.
 
Unspeaked said:
16GB for a video player seems a little weak...
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I think the advantage would be supreme battery life. think about it, 16gb is enough to hold a small number of movies and tv shows, and you could probably get like 15 hours of straight backlit full screen playback on one charge.
 
Unspeaked said:
16GB for a video player seems a little weak...
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Agreed. If this were true, they must not expect it to be used for music as well... and I don't see Apple coming out with a device that is exclusively for video.
 
wkhahn said:
What if this is not flash for the video iPod, but rather the HD hinted to be in iTV? 16GB would be plenty to buffer a video stream.
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You don't buffer streaming data with flash memory since it can only handle a limited number of rewrites (granted the limit is high, but if you use it as a buffer you'll hit that limit pretty quickly). Some type of RAM is usually used for buffering.

Not to mention that 16GB would be enough to "buffer" about 8 movies in H.264, which is a bit overkill as far as caching goes, and easily puts 16GB back into the "storage" capacity.

A portable, flash-based video player with 16GB that can hold 8 Hi-Def movies or 16 Standard-def movies, a few TV shows and a some albums of music? Seems plenty enough to me, considering the size of portable DVD players + 8 or 16 DVDs + burned MP3 CDs...
 
wkhahn said:
What if this is not flash for the video iPod, but rather the HD hinted to be in iTV? 16GB would be plenty to buffer a video stream.
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It would also be able to hold a nice Mac OS X install for lets say MacBook and MacBook Pros??
 
sivancotel said:
I think the advantage would be supreme battery life. think about it, 16gb is enough to hold a small number of movies and tv shows, and you could probably get like 15 hours of straight backlit full screen playback on one charge.
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Screen takes up a really large portion of the battery. The nano not only has flash but a small screen.
 
I think this one is bogus. I think someone who doesn't know and hasn't paid much attention is speculating based on some other rumors or something. Why a 16GB video player? What is the point? That's not enough space to store any kind of library.

It's an interesting idea that the iTV may have a 16GB buffer. But that's a HUGE buffer. I mean, a 16MB buffer would be sufficient in most cases. If it's anything that needs more than 16MB in the buffer, you should probably do something a little more than stream it wirelessly to your TV.

Perhaps the 16GB buffer could be used as a video queue? Transfer and store there for watching? Or download (dare I say Record?) and hold in the buffer until all of it has streamed over the 802.11 connection to your Mac's HDD? I could see that.
 
sartinsauce said:
I think this one is bogus. I think someone who doesn't know and hasn't paid much attention is speculating based on some other rumors or something. Why a 16GB video player? What is the point? That's not enough space to store any kind of library.
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Perhaps only the video part is bogus, i wouldnt mind having a 16gb Nano and it would strain the eyes the video part would be just a cool novelty if nothing else, a "Look what my iPod can do" type of thing.
 
The iPod video with a hard disc is kind of slow, quirky, and heavy. (I have one) A flash video-pod would fix that. (I have owned nanos since they came out)
One doesn't really need to carry all one's movies with one, does one? :) 16 GB is a suitable size.
 
Gosh, who'd a thunk it? Memory prices going down, capacities going up? This has to be a first.

Seriously, a 16GB flash based player of some sort is inevitable, as will a 32, 64, etc. I'd speculate we'll see a larger screen size vPod nano (flash) and a vPod (120GB HD) coming out... a whole new line. Who knows... idle speculation is fun.:)
 
Unspeaked said:
16GB for a video player seems a little weak...
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1) He's saying 16GB for the sake of using NAND Flash-Based memory. The HDD for portable devices is going the way of the walkman.

2) DivX quality video of Season 2 of The Office is just over 3GB. That's several hours of video. Sure DivX isn't the greatest quality, but it's an exchange you make for HD-space.

My guess is that battery life will be the limiting factor anyway, just as it is with high-capacity iPods. Even on an 80GB iPod, you can't listen to 20 days worth of music on a single charge or on several charges, in fact. One can assume that in several charges, at least one of them will be at a computer (as opposed to a wall outlet) and the movie/music selection can easily be changed to suit the users' needs/wants.

NAND is the way to go for battery life anyway, ESPECIALLY if you're pairing it with a larger screen.

-Clive
 
sartinsauce said:
I think this one is bogus. I think someone who doesn't know and hasn't paid much attention is speculating based on some other rumors or something. Why a 16GB video player? What is the point? That's not enough space to store any kind of library.

It's an interesting idea that the iTV may have a 16GB buffer. But that's a HUGE buffer. I mean, a 16MB buffer would be sufficient in most cases. If it's anything that needs more than 16MB in the buffer, you should probably do something a little more than stream it wirelessly to your TV.

Perhaps the 16GB buffer could be used as a video queue? Transfer and store there for watching? Or download (dare I say Record?) and hold in the buffer until all of it has streamed over the 802.11 connection to your Mac's HDD? I could see that.
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There is no logical reason to put flash memory in the iTV for storage because you can easily put a hard drive in with far greater storage space for far less money.
 
It's kinda hard to figure out what this could be about. As others have said, a 16gb iPod for video doesn't seem make a lot of sense on its own. Sure, it's plenty of space for a bunch of videos, but I think it would have to be either tied to another product (like an add on for the iPhone, or the iTV device), or be an entirely new design to get people's attention.
 
sartinsauce said:
I think this one is bogus. I think someone who doesn't know and hasn't paid much attention is speculating based on some other rumors or something. Why a 16GB video player? What is the point? That's not enough space to store any kind of library.
Click to expand...

Just like the Shuffle's 1GB is rediculous for any kind of music library?
 
reflex said:
Just like the Shuffle's 1GB is rediculous for any kind of music library?
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That's why they would call this the iPod Video Shuffle.

Actually, I this this guy might be onto something here...
iPod is for music. It does music well, and only music. It doesn't do video so well, and the new 5th gen iPods don't even to music that well (the interface is too laggy).

I think Apple may actually split up the line. iPod for music (with video playback as an added bonus) and an iTube (or whatever name they choose) for video playback (with music playback as an added bonus).

That way, they only have to focus on doing one thing well, and everything else is an added bonus.
 
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