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Touch Screen Video iPod Coming Soon?

Lets hope its doesn't scratch as easily, especially if you have to touch the screen that video actually places on as well. I can't wait to see if this is true. Maybe they can use the technology about making each pixel a camera, then it could be a digital camcorder as well
 
All this talk about larger displays. No one seems to consider resolution. 320x240 looks exceedingly worse the larger you go. Is Apple going to abandon all the content they have been adding recently or would they actually produce a larger (3.5") display but keep the resolution at 320x240? What a waste. Apple could learn something from Sony's PSP. It's a great platform for watching videos. Add a hard drive and remove the controllers on each side and you have a Video iPod. Why cripple it with a crappy display?
 
tkermit said:
I quickly made up an image of what I'd like the iPod to look like...
Click to expand...

If this rumor is true, I bet this is exactly what the new video iPod will look like. The ultimate in simplicity.
 
wordmunger said:
What if they made it slightly longer than the current iPod, kept the physical clickwheel, but with a much larger screen?

The crappy mockup below would be less than 1/2 inch longer than the current model.

edit: on second thought, it woudl probably be designed to be used horizontally:
Click to expand...
That would never fly because if you are a lefty it doesn't work.
 
grapes911 said:
It wouldn't be very hard to have a setting to switch what side the wheel is on.
Click to expand...

It wouldn't be hard to have the iPod know what orientation it's in at any time and configure the wheel and the screen to display content to fit. My digital camera does this (so the photo's are automatically rotated the direction you took them). It's a sub $200 camera, and the feature is pretty useless, so you can bet that it was trivially expensive to add.

Anyways, I was just today thinking about trading up my 4gb nano for an iPod video. Just don't know if I can part with the nearly industructable tiny little piece of perfection that is the nano. (Yes, mine is industructable! I don't baby it, and only have a cheap $6 skin, and absolutely perfect shape still... I don't know how people are breaking screens on these things so easily, unless there was a serious manufacturing defect!)

The more I think about it, the more I think that to get me to switch to a full sized iPod video, it'll need a lot of new features, like a big hi-res LCD. video in for recording TV/etc,and an included remote and cradle for TV connection/charging. Something like this addresses some of that, but not all.
 
I want to see a Video iPod with a larger screen that runs a mini version of Mac OSX on it (with touch screen). It will run Pocket versions of iPhoto, iTunes, iMovie, Garageband. Pocket Safari for wireless web along with Pocket iChat (uses built-in camera). A huge following of third-party development could occur thanks to Xcode 2.3 that supports the new platform.
 
tkermit said:
I quickly made up an image of what I'd like the iPod to look like.

It would have an orientation sensor, like the Powerbooks have, so it can instantly change the position and orientation of the click wheel based on the iPod's orientation.

The click-wheel "picture" of course only shows, when you actually touch the face of the iPod (except when it's in the vertical music-mode).

The advantage of basically keeping the way you use an iPod unchanged is that nobody has to relearn anything and people that just want to use it the way they've used an old iPod could continue to do so.
Click to expand...

Well done, I liked your horizontal picture. I think the real issue is screen quality. What can Apple fit in there for a reasonable price?
 
Maybe with a Nano Clickweel???

wordmunger said:
What if they made it slightly longer than the current iPod, kept the physical clickwheel, but with a much larger screen?

The crappy mockup below would be less than 1/2 inch longer than the current model.

edit: on second thought, it woudl probably be designed to be used horizontally:
Click to expand...

Nice mockup - but I think it'll be just only slightly longer than the current iPod, but with a Nano clickwheel to save space? You also want to be able to use all current dock and accessories...

(Can anyone do a mockup?)
 
I hate touching my 5th gen iPod now to avoid scratches...so i dont think i'll ever use a touch screen ipod if indeed it does come out..🙄
 
hayesk said:
I think paying five dollars for a cup of coffee is insane, but yet there is a Starbucks' on every street corner.
Click to expand...
You're right, maybe it will work. I was ambivalent about the iPod when it was introed too, so what do I know? But I do know they won't be getting my money for the videos, at least not in their current state. If I can download a whole season of a show for $20-$25 at decent quality in 640x480 resolution, then I'm listening. But short of that, no thanks.
 
freeny said:
Ill take 3!!!

As to Chaszmyr note, If you want the resolution to be the same as the screen, then yes. But Ive watched 320x240 Lost episodes via the a/v cable on a 640x480 screen and it still looks perfect. No complaints here.🙂
Click to expand...

It may look acceptable to you, but you are wrong, it does not look perfect. It looks like 320x480 non-interlaced video. Half the resolution, half the frame rate. Actually, full resoltion SD television is 720x486. DVD is 720x480. But 640x480 is the computer monitor version of full resoltion video, since the pixels are a different shape on a television. TV pixels are rectangular, computers are square.
 
Chaszmyr said:
The only concern I have, is everyone's videos (including those on iTMS) are made for the resolution that the 5G iPod uses... Presumably the native resolution on this new device will be very different, will it support the lower res videos, or will everyone need a whole new collection of videos?
Click to expand...

That's why I'm not caring about iPod compatibility for my files... I encode all my DVDs at 60% quality, 720 x KeepRatio pixels. Don't care about the filesize or the bitrate.

My target, anyway, isn't a "real video iPod", it's a "set-top Mac mini" movies jukebox/DVR.
 
HiRez said:
You're right, maybe it will work. I was ambivalent about the iPod when it was introed too, so what do I know? But I do know they won't be getting my money for the videos, at least not in their current state. If I can download a whole season of a show for $20-$25 at decent quality in 640x480 resolution, then I'm listening. But short of that, no thanks.
Click to expand...

You can. It's called going to the store and buying the DVD. Higher rez, nice packaging, bonus extras, and lower price.
 
AJ Muni said:
I hate touching my 5th gen iPod now to avoid scratches...so i dont think i'll ever use a touch screen ipod if indeed it does come out..🙄
Click to expand...
Yes, it would require a major improvement in the screen material to avoid severe scratching with regular use.
 
iPod nano

Wake me up when Apple enables the video playback function in the iPod nano (if it even exists). 😎

I'm encoding a DVD right now (H.264, Quality 50) in 176x112 just to see the resulting filesize. 😀
 
jonah002 said:
I just purchased a new 30 and 60 gig for me and my daughter yesterday because her 4g 20gb broke and I decided to upgrade myself with her. I have been waiting 2 weeks for a post like this before purchasing. And now I make a purchase and this comes up the next day ... My Luck!!!! Anyway, sounds cool, but the fingerprint thing is something I would be concerned with as well.
Click to expand...

That's what happened to me when the first video iPod came out. I was on here waiting for any news and it seemed unlikely. I had run out of room on my 40GB iPod Photo so I eventually bought a 60GB iPod photo, only to see the video come out in a week or so. So I quickly listed my iPod on eBay and purchased the 60GB video iPod.
 
Nano w/ video

Yvan256 said:
Wake me up when Apple enables the video playback function in the iPod nano (if it even exists). 😎

I'm encoding a DVD right now (H.264, Quality 50) in 176x112 just to see the resulting filesize. 😀
Click to expand...

That's what I said in another forum post. Was hoping before the Nano updates that they would have a 4Gig and an 8Gig model that would do video. You can use just the same iPod files, and output to TV with the same audio/video cable.

Report back what the filesize is - would be interesting to see a video encoded for the Nano screen...
 
HiRez said:
I still think paying two dollars for one episode of a low-res, compressed, DRM-ed tv show is insane.
Click to expand...

Oh quit hyperbolizing. What's 2 bucks in today's world? That's chump change for people who have change to begin with. Maybe you don't but then don't complain about it.
 
Well I hope somebody comes up with a clear hard case that can work with the touch screen because I didn't even use my 5G iPod until I bought a case for it to protect the screen from scrathces. If I had to leave the screen vulnerable, I'd never buy one!
 
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