iPod Enhanced Video features in the new year?

[steve_hill4]

My manager was discussing with me on Tuesday about potential returns of 5G iPods based on people thinking it was easy to get video onto them. At least one person had been misinforming customers, (who generally would not always realise how the video features work), that it is as easy to get DVDs onto there as it was music. We were expecting some angry owners to return after Christmas wanting answers.

Anyway, this led to her calling our buyers and being told not to worry too much, apple had something planned for the new year that would help the video situation.

First of all, I am not sure whether they are just reading rumours or actually quoting secret information passed on from Apple. Secondly, with rumours regarding Front Row 2.0, more content availability, and so much more, what video enhancements would they be referring to? They seemed to insinuate to my manager that there would be an easier way of getting your own content onto a 5G iPod, probably using iTunes or other video software.

Not sure exactly what, but if this was from Apple's mouth, it will be very interesting to see what will happen come MWSF.

 

[m-dogg]

While I think it would be great if the added DVD ripping to iLife as a new app or part of iTunes, I doubt it will happen...

I think there might be better odds of opening up the iPod to support more video formats/sizes/resolutions then what it does today.

I think they should at least add support for the digital camera videos. You can add your photos to your ipod, why can't you (easily) add your little videos as well? It does play video after all!

 

[rendezvouscp]

I would really like to see DVD —> iPod be a feature in iTunes. Yes, encryption and copyright are issues, but I know that the FairPlay DRM isn't encoded into the songs you buy until they're downloaded to your computer. If it's legal for Apple to supply DVD ripping with FairPlay DRM, I'd really like to see Apple do that.
-Chase

 

[steve_hill4]

If they want to push the video capabilities, they will need to do something fast. I think if they only allow importing into a format that will work with the iPod, (so .m4v), it would reduce any sharing. As an experiment, I shared a bunch of music files on some p2p software, mostly m4a, but some mp3. The mp3 were attracting some interest, but the m4a seemed to be untouched. I can only assume this was due to those searching not having iTunes, or not understanding the file format.

If they encode to mpeg4, mov or any other mainstream format, you could share it quite far, but as m4v, most will almost certainly leave alone. Since it really needs to be in this format for the iPod anyway, it makes sense. It would however need to be in either iTunes or Quicktime, not iLife, (Windows and all).

If this information is true, they will be making this effort to push it forward come MWSF.

 

[crazyjoeda]

It took me a while to figure out how to get the videos to work, its a bit of a pain or it was untill I found MoviePod. I use to convert useing Quicktime but it took hours MoviePod converts in almost real time.

 

[drater]

is it me or does moviepod seem to, while converting faster, lack as good a resolution than if you were to do it in quicktime or in mpeg streamclip?? just compared some music videos i ripped with both and the mpeg streamclip ones seem better, but it takes longer...which sucks.

my opinion on the movie thing is going to be the ability to rip videos faster via quicktime, i just hope they don't charge for this option. Not that I wouldn't buy it, but many consumers probably wouldn't pay 30 bucks for it.

 

[giffut]

Video iPod Resolutions

The new video ipod 5g already supports a good portion of resolutions, at least regarding 16:9 or similar content.

There seems to be a processing limit of 240000 pixel only for the internal video circuit, but NO resolution lock firsthand for the device. So you easily can produce a mpg4 video with a screen resolution of roughly 720x330 or sth.

Of course, you only will be able to watch this resolution via TV out, the ipods lcd scales it down on the 320x240 resolution. But think of it: It´s basically DVD quality resolution, so via tools like handbrake or ffmpegx you already can get high resolution content on the ipod ergo on your TV.

So transcode your DVDs and shrink them down to 1GB or sth. and carry a couple of dozens movies with you in the palm of your hand. Great, isn´t it?

This capability already makes the ipod video a killer machine for me, at least. No other device on the market has this perfect mixture in form factor, ease of use and quality.

 

[kainjow]

What Apple needs to do to prevent piracy but allow DVD importing onto their iPods is use iTunes to convert DVDs to DRM'ed m4v files. This way they can't be played on other computers, but work on the user's computer. It makes perfect sense!

 

[bepster]

I ripped quite a few DVDs with MacTheRipper/ffmpegx and sure, in mpeg4 the final filesize is around 1-1.3 gb for a fullengh movie, but the quality is crisp on the TV screen!
Ok, it took me a while to figure out how but now it's really easy!

I don't know but I think that apple actually is making a nice buck with all the tv-shows and movies there selling trough itunes!
I am not sure if the copyright/ ripping laws in music and DVDs are comparable, I don't think so!

why make conversion easier?
It just pushes the itunes store and the iPod is so big right now and such a powerfull bandname, they can almost do what they want, you buy it eather way.
Apple doesn't really have competition right now...

 

[wattage]

I am hoping for a 5G iPod this christmas, so I have just started using Handbrake to add some 'must have' movies to iTunes. Problem is there are no chapters in these rips. When using the iPod for movies I will most likely want to skip to really funny scenes vs. watching a whole movie start to finish.

So the question is, How can you easily (strong word I know) add chapters. I did a search on here and found one very complicated route so I wanted to bounce the question of you guys.http://www.quicktiming.org/tutorials/chapter.php.

Another question totally off topic-when adding a link how can I just make the word "Link" the blue link??

 

[Kernow]

Another question totally off topic-when adding a link how can I just make the word "Link" the blue link??

I'm guessing you're using Safari, as there is a slight bug between Safari & MR where the text editing is slightly off. To make a one word link, copy the URL that you want to link to and hit the link button, paste and hit OK. You then have to manually edit out the text between the URL tags to the word you want (leaving the URL that is actually part of the first tag).

If you are on another browser - simply highlight the word you want to be the link and hit the link button