Video Icons in iTunes 5 Spawns Speculation

[~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 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.

VCDs 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 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:

1. Download movies at $5 each ($10 for really long features or new releases).
2. Watch them on the computer all you want
3. Burn them to DVD if you like so you can play them in the living room or at other people's houses
4. 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]

think logically different

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.