New iPods - Video Support, TV Episodes, Music Videos

[skinEman23]

The question is; can we burn shows to DVD, like music to a CD?

I was wondering that too... I haven't been able to find any info on it so I'm guessing no. If you can't burn these shows to DVD, a large number of people aren't going to go for them. I know I don't want to watch a lot of TV from my 12" PB screen.

 

[bosrs1]

Where's my new 15'' PB???

Next year when intel is in them.

 

[ddrueckhammer]

Cracking the encrpytion is illegal, but there is another law that states you can legally make a backup of anything you own. It's a legal contradiction. It's not illegal to rip if it's used as a backup and you do not:
1) Run it in two places at once
2) Distribute it to others

However, it is not legal to crack the encryption.

If Apple made some deal with the movie companies I'm sure they'd allow Apple to write an app that rips DVD's and applies a DRM, however, I think the movie companies are too paranoid to do that.



Anyone know if the shows can be burned to a DVD or VCD?

I think you are dead on right about the movie companies being too paranoid. This goes for the music industry too. I think that if both the music and movie industry would get with the program and offer people what they want at a "reasonable" (i.e. not higher than it is currently priced) price then they would start raking in money by the truck-load.

 

[texasmafia]

Burning shows

The question is; can we burn shows to DVD, like music to a CD?

I just burned the 3rd episode of LOST to a cd. Didn't take long at all. It is encoded with the same DRM that the songs you buy off iTunes are so only those who are authorized can play videos you buy.

I'm guessing if you can burn onto cd than dvd is possible as well.

 

[JavaNut]

So bummmed...

I notice the new iPod is USB-only. So the transition is now complete - none of the current iPods support Firewire.

I would love to use this with my iMac (iLamp) at home, but alas! only USB 1.1. I can't see syncing 60gb at 1.1 speeds. I am dying to buy an iMac but am thinking I might wait for the intel version or perhaps the FINAL PowerPC iMac. Anyone else feel this way?

 

[nagromme]

LACK of firewire, no matter if because of peecee is LAME, you can not longer use your ipod to boot off. how much more cost would it have been for add this... pennies, mere pennies.

Apple has no reason NOT to want Firewire--they are fully committed to it in other products. So if it's not there, I really think it IS for cost or size reasons. (Coupled with near-zero, although vocal , demand.)

2nd: MISSING of the extra port (i don't know the name) next to the headphone jack KILLS many extra's that were developed...hmmm no more wired remote...

Apparently the docking connector can handle all of that--so if someone wants to make a wired remote, they still can. The docking connector can also provide power, like the old connector could. (Today's newest iTrip uses the docking connector only.) So now we have just one special iPod connector instead of two. I approve of that, and I bet accessory makers do too.

3rd: Form factor, doesn't this also kill many aftermarket devices like the new numark??

Every change in iPod physical size affects some accessories. It's a given. New ones will come out quickly for the new models. And there are still a lot of people out there to buy the old ones too. Nothing will be "killed" by Apple not keeping the same shape forever.

(And the new dock adapter helps future docking accessories keep working EVEN when the shape changes!)

 

[LaMerVipere]

I just burned the 3rd episode of LOST to a cd. Didn't take long at all. It is encoded with the same DRM that the songs you buy off iTunes are so only those who are authorized can play videos you buy.

I'm guessing if you can burn onto cd than dvd is possible as well.

If it's the same kind of DRM used on purchased iTMS tracks, I expect it to be cracked verrry soon.

 

[swingerofbirch]

Review of Today's Announcements

At the end of Jobs' special presentation today he said, as he always does, "It's all about the music." He went on to extoll the virtues of the new iPods, point out that they have larger screens, more capacity at the same price, and that video is a bonus. That's a tricky suggestion.

How do you make an iPod that is video capable without making the video the main draw of the iPod? Well for one you can not call it the video iPod. Check.

Apple has never wanted the iPod to be a video player. However I would guess that whatever chipset they use inlcudes video playback whether Jobs wants it or not. Including video playback support probably costs very little compared to excluding it. And the whole world waited for Apple to introduce a video iPod, and lots of other companies are putting out portable video players.

Before Apple introduced videos and these new iPods, I thought that if Apple ever did video they would wait until they could do it in a big way to revolutizonie it. Jobs always talks about the scalability of H264. I conceived of some mechanism by which a user might downlaod a show or movie in high def and as it's being sycnhed to an iPod it's down scaled in quality (much as i THINK occured with the ipod photo????).

On the iPod front, the new models are probably nice, but the whole thing looks pathetic. All the arguments against a video iPod have already been made by Jobs time and time again. Who wants to look at a tiny screen? Who can walk and watch a TV show, or drive and watch a TV show? If you're sitting, why not just watch a TV! Or your laptop if you're on a plane! Laptops have better battery life for playing back video and the screens are exponentially larger.

And then there's content. 5 TV shows, none of which I would watch on a plasma screen if Apple was paying ME to watch them. Lol...

EDIT/ADDITION: bit torrent lets you download HD tv shows in a few hours...i missed smallville the other night, downloaded it by bit torrent, and it's better than DVD quality, it's illegal i'm sure, but it beats picking from 5 shows to watch at VHS quality

next up an imac review (it's much more positive)

 

[BGil]

If it's the same kind of DRM used on purchased iTMS tracks, I expect it to be cracked verrry soon.

Why even bother cracking it when you can just download the same shows and more from Bittorrent for free and often in high-def?
Either choice is illegal.

 

[MarkCollette]

ipod video (black) = $299
+$25 invisible shield = $324
- $30 edu discount = $294
- $50 i feel ripped off by my last ipod's battery discount = $244

my new ipod 5g $244

my fianceé telling me off for buying another toy then being happy because she gets my old ipod instead of her shuffle, priceless.

They come with a shield now.

 

[jettredmont]

What about 20Mbps DSL2? You can get it here in Europe for extraordinarily low prices. About €25 including free VoIP internet telephony and with some ISPs even with digital television. Can your cable connection hold a candle to that?

Exactly. Cable modem bigots are as funny as DSL bigots. It all depends on location. For example, where I live Cable and DSL both offer 3Mbit downstream and 768 upstream, but actual Cable speeds tend to max out at 1.5-2Mbit except in the middle of the day and the middle of the night. So, here, DSL wins hands-down. Next town over, though DSL maxes out at 1Mbit (although reportedly they plan to upgrade that) ...

Never understood the odd fanboism about cable modems. Just plain silly.

2.5 inch screen
320x240
260,000 colors
MPEG4, h.264 Video Support
Video Out to TV
Holds over 150 hrs of video



150 minutes, maybe, but not hrs. Yeh, Apple's website says this!

Anyone care to explain why this is not an error?

Umm, because a 60GB iPod can hold 150 hours of H.264/320x240 video?

150 minutes... sheesh, a 4.7GB DVD can hold that with a nice high bitrate MPEG-2 compression. Obviously 60GB would hold a lot more than that, even without the lower resolution (4x) and lower bitrate per pixel allowed by H.264 for the same quality.

these new smaller ipods kind of nock the nano on its a**. Why would anyone buy a nano now that the new 30gig is so much more slender? unless you dont have many songs, I wuldnt see the point. Anyone here able to find a reason to own both?

Flash memory won't crash like a hard drive might.

Nano is lighter.

Nano is smaller in all dimensions.

Nano is $50 cheaper.

For certain people, each of those is enough to push them to Nano instead of iPod. Same arguments existed for Mini, remember? And Mini didn't have the Flash advantage going for it. And just which model was the best-selling iPod? Hmm?

So, do the TV shows have commercials? Any way to fast forward through them?

No commercials in the TV shows. That was stated directly by Steve in the keynote.

 

[plastikimo]

im not gonna look through 14 pages to find this, but has anyone noticed that the iPod no longer comes with FireWire? I recharge my current iPod through FireWire, will the new iPod be charged through the USB cable? And is USB 2.0 just as fast as firewire, or what?

 

[1984]

"Hours prior to Apple's October 12, sources have clarified to Think Secret recent confusion surrounding Apple's iPod announcement today. In brief: the iPod will be feature video playback capabilities but it is not the video iPod and Apple may not bill it as such."

Oh give it up already! You were wrong. Suck it up.

 

[macam]

The next person to say "No FireWire! AAAAAAAHH!" is going to put me over the edge.

The iPod still supports FireWire.

LOOK! You can buy a FireWire cable from the Apple Store for $19.00!

"Compatible with iPod models with dock connector, except iPod nano."

Yes, but you can only charge with the firewire now. You can't sync with it anymore, the nano has the same problem!!!!!! Therefore anyone who has a mac older or as old as mine has to sync all their songs via USB1 connector. And trust me - i have done this on a 4gig nano and it took long enough to tick me off - but to do this on a 30/60 gig... is taking the mick! I didn't know you couldn't do this when I got the nano and I wasn't best pleased as you can imagine! USB1 sucks... so badly I have only had the time to only do it twice with my nano - and I've had the thing 3 weeks!!!!!!! You do the maths my friend.

So if anyone wants to say 'No Firewire' then let them as they are so totally justified! Imagine sending 20gigs worth of video... oh man that would suck. Let them moan.... it's their perogative and if you ask me, they have a damned good reason to.

macam

 

[cheekyspanky]

Anyone got a better picture of what this free case will look like? They showed it very briefly in the keynote and it looks like a mini sack almost. But Steve said they had a hands on area so does anyone have a better idea?

 

[KindredMAC]

iTunes 6 no no with G3 iBooks?

Hey folks....
I jsut tried to view a preview of the movies on the iTunes 6 store and nothing happened. I am up to date with everything and running 10.3.9 on a 900MHz G3 iBook. I checked the requirements on Apple.com and it actually makes comment of video needing at least a 500MHz G4.

I've done tests comparing my iBook to an original 500MHz G4 Graphite Tower and my iBook toasted it in Adobe CS Collection. Could this be a similar issue as the AV portion of iChat is to use a DV Camera instead of an iSight????

Anyone know anything more than me yet about this?

Thanks!

 

[ddrueckhammer]

Hey folks....
I jsut tried to view a preview of the movies on the iTunes 6 store and nothing happened. I am up to date with everything and running 10.3.9 on a 900MHz G3 iBook. I checked the requirements on Apple.com and it actually makes comment of video needing at least a 500MHz G4.

I've done tests comparing my iBook to an original 500MHz G4 Graphite Tower and my iBook toasted it in Adobe CS Collection. Could this be a similar issue as the AV portion of iChat is to use a DV Camera instead of an iSight????

Anyone know anything more than me yet about this?

Thanks!

I think you need to download the new quicktime that was released today.

 

[podfuture]

iTMS movie store is a mess

In fact, a honking mess right now.

Why? Because all of the videos many of you said would not be wanted are being bought at a blinding pace! (ok maybe the new will wear off).

USA please go to bed so I can download my shows!!

 

[berkleeboy210]

In fact, a honking mess right now.

Why? Because all of the videos many of you said would not be wanted are being bought at a blinding pace! (ok maybe the new will wear off).

USA please go to bed so I can download my shows!!

PodFuture, You've done it again my friend. Any more predictions for the future?

And Yes, the Movie Section is really slow for me too.

 

[madmaxmedia]

The bitrate is 128kbps on these. They will look fine on traditional TVs and the iPods screen but on ED/HD TVs via the s-video dock I don't think they will look too good. They certainly look like **** on my powerbook full screen at 1024x768. I want to be able to fill up my two external drives with 800x600 content from the ITMS at $1.99 per show for TV and $14.99 for new release feature films and stream them via 802.11n to my airport express video which will be connected to my HD plasma when it comes out. I have been dreaming of this since I first started using Netflix. The technology is here but I'm afraid that the content companies will be too greedy to let this happen...

I just downloaded the first episode of Lost. I have a 15" AluBook.

While obviously it can only look so good, I am actually extremely surprised that it is quite watchable full screen. There is enough trickery going on (interpolation, etc.) so that the video is not blocky. It's not razor sharp either, but from a normal viewing distance (maybe 2 ft.) I am actually impressed (again considering the original resolution.) I will say that the 2x viewing is better. I recommend you try it, it's only 2 bucks.

For output to a regular TV set, I think these shows will look just fine. On anything better, of course you're stretching it!

The problem here is that the tech is not ready for 800 x 600 H264 decoding in a iPod. So if you offer better resolution in the store, you then have to re-encode to transfer to iPod, which is a hassle. A major reason why any of this is taking place is because of the iPod.

In a year or so, I am sure they will up the resolution of the iPod and the video content (maybe VGA?). The iPod itself will still only display 320 x 240, but will be able to output say VGA to a TV set. Maybe the average broadband connection will be faster too, so download time won't be so bad with the bigger files.

 

[jettredmont]

I don't think the MPAA will ever allow consumers to rip DVDs to iTunes. I haven't read the whole DMCA but I think that ripping digital content in any form is illegal for any purposes. Please correct me if I am wrong.

It depends on if you do the CSS decryption.

You can copy the contents of any DVD to your hard drive. That's not the problem.

The problem is going from CSS-encrypted video to viewable video. While there are gray-market apps which do this (handbrake looks legit, but IIRC decoding CSS without a CSS license is illegal), Apple wouldn't want to get into that business, correct.

HOWEVER, the iPod CAN get classified as a CSS device, just like any DVD player can get itself so classified. All Apple has to guarantee is a "protected" (MacroVision) output stream, and following the various other tits and niggles of the DVD consortium (region coding support, forbidding fast-forward etc when the disk says to, etc).

That having been said, the "direct" route takes up a lot of iPod disk space per movie. The "indirect" route of decoding on the computer to a lower-bitrate codec/resolution for storage on the iPod would be trickier (you then have to guarantee that no one can get between the unencoded copy and the re-CSS step to capture the video), but not at all impossible.

CSS was designed for DVD players, but it is not limitted to DVDs. The DVD consortium hasn't permitted any other usages of it to the best of my knowledge, but there's nothing in their rules stating that this wouldn't be possible.

'Course, it would require a license fee per iPod from Apple, too. But I think that's pretty small these days (and the MPEG-4 license is, IIRC, larger than that anyway).

 

[bankshot]

Yes, but you can only charge with the firewire now. You can't sync with it anymore, the nano has the same problem!!!!!! Therefore anyone who has a mac older or as old as mine has to sync all their songs via USB1 connector. And trust me - i have done this on a 4gig nano and it took long enough to tick me off - but to do this on a 30/60 gig... is taking the mick! I didn't know you couldn't do this when I got the nano and I wasn't best pleased as you can imagine! USB1 sucks... so badly I have only had the time to only do it twice with my nano - and I've had the thing 3 weeks!!!!!!! You do the maths my friend.

That does suck, since Apple is essentially abandoning a large percentage of their faithful installed Mac base, in favor of selling to the almighty Windows market. However as others have said, this must be due to either cost or size constraints. It either cost too much to get FireWire in this iPod, or it made the thing bigger than they wanted. Sucks, but I'm sure it was a smart decision for the business.

If your Mac is a PowerMac of any kind, you can get a 4-port USB2 hub for cheap ($20 here in the US). I added one to my G4 733MHz tower last month, so I'm not too worried about this particular issue if I were to buy a new iPod (memo to Steve: make it truely gapless and I will buy... ). If you have an older laptop or iMac, then yes it does suck.

 

[jettredmont]

I was wondering that too... I haven't been able to find any info on it so I'm guessing no. If you can't burn these shows to DVD, a large number of people aren't going to go for them. I know I don't want to watch a lot of TV from my 12" PB screen.

Slide in presentation says no burning to CD/DVD of videos.

All other FairPlay "rights" continue in video as they did in music.

 

[podfuture]

And Yes, the Movie Section is really slow for me too.

Worse than slow. Asia server is crashing regularly.

 

[jettredmont]

I just burned the 3rd episode of LOST to a cd. Didn't take long at all. It is encoded with the same DRM that the songs you buy off iTunes are so only those who are authorized can play videos you buy.

I'm guessing if you can burn onto cd than dvd is possible as well.

Correct, as data files DRM doesn't matter (but when you play the file elsewhere you'll need something that both understands FairPlay AND is authorized with your account).

What is NOT allowed is burning to DVD or VCD (aka CD) as video which can then be popped into any DVD or VCD player.