As everyone including your mom guessed, the big announcement from Apple today involved a video iPod. The 2.5", 320 x 240 screen looks super-sweet, it comes with a video-out jack for playback on your TV, and episodes of Desperate Housewives cost $1.99 (they should really be paying us to watch 'em, but that's another post).

Drool-worthy, no doubt. But if you believe that hardware manufacturers shouldn't restrict your ability to enjoy video files you've purchased and have the legal right to play, you'll be disappointed. Snip from Wired News story:

The video iPod will play music videos, video podcasts and movie trailers downloaded form the updated iTunes Music Store, but will not play movies ripped from DVD, which are typically copy-protected.

However, it will play unprotected movies converted to Apple's QuickTime format, even if the movies are downloaded illegally from file-sharing services, said an Apple representative after Jobs' presentation. It will also display home movies, which can be exported to the iPod via a new function in Apple's iMovie software.

Jobs explained to attendees of the media event that videos purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Music Store employ Apple's FairPlay Digital Rights Management (DRM) scheme, so they can be downloaded and played on multiple computers authorized to listen to and watch protected iTunes content, or transferred to video-capable iPods. There's one caveat, however -- videos you purchase from iTunes can't be burned to other media such as CD-R or DVD-R discs.

Here's a simple, step-by-step guide to using Handbrake for Mac OS X to rip your legally acquired DVDs into the right format to play them in iTunes 6 and the new video iPod -- Link. See also: HOWTO Put Porn On Your iPod. Link. A step-by-step guide for using ffmpegX to convert porn (or pretty much any other movie file you have lying around) to the iTunes/iPod format. Don't forget the lube!

Glenn Fleishman says,

I have been musing on who the hell needs a video iPod all day in the form and design Apple chose.

* Can't transfer TV programs, although if you have an eyeTV (which can't tune digital cable or satellite) you might be able to port the output through a converter.

* Not much content yet designed to play on it.

* Battery life while watching video is rated at 2 to 3 hours, thus not long enough for even a half-country-hopping flight.

* Can't burn the content you buy for it, so you suddenly have a storage and management problem.

* Only by violating the (anti-constitutional) DMCA in some cases can you begin to approximate how this device could be used as a fair use (not FairPlay) extension of one's free TV, pay cable, and owned (not 0wnz3d) DVDs.

So this is for Greenwich-to-Manhattan commuters with disposable cash who don't watch Lost or Desperate Housewives the night before because they're too busy playing squash. They can watch DH on the way into work and Lost on the way back without running out of battery life...just barely.

Now, I'll go all Long Tail on this and say that when the backlist of television is suddenly available in some reasonable form (yes, it will all be frickin' DRM'd to death) then there's an enormous amount of content people will pick and choose certanly at less than $1.99 per episode. I also read in one source that Apple is negotiating with the BBC for access to their massive library.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:33:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments