* Here's a Link to online video for the CNN Showbiz Tonight segment about the new device.

Leo Laporte and I were guests of host David Haffenreffer (thanks, Techtainment).

* During that segment, our host asked whether this meant death for network television -- au contraire, says Mark Cuban on his blog today. Not death, but rebirth. Snip:

Content has been available for download for years and years. That content could be played on any number of devices, from computers to DVD players to PDAs. Being able to playback a video from the new Video Ipod just like you can play a song from a current IPod, certainly is not a technical marvel.

It is a business marvel. Bob Iger has gone contrary to what every current and previous TV network head has and would have done had Bob not turned the industry on its head with his announcement with Apple yesterday. Bob Iger has saved Network TV.

How ? By completely changing the economic model.

* Violet Blue schools you: HOWTO put porn on your iPod. Link.

* Boing Boing's super-smokin'-sysadmin Ken Snider watches a lot of video content on the go, and offers a few early thoughts on the device specs (he hasn't tested one out in person yet):

I thought I'd throw you my thoughts on the Video iPod, from someone who lined up for 6 hours for a PSP: The resolution of the videos is QVGA (Quarter VGA). The same resolution that the PSP encodes in, except that the PSP's screen is nearly twice the size, and letterbox, which obviously allows you to display movies better. This doesn't apply to most television, however, which seems to be the focus of the iPV.

It comes with the option of tv-out, but I can't imagine that being much of an option, given the resolution - it's less than a quarter of the 752x480 of a Standard Definition TV, and anyone with a TV of appreciable size would see little more than a pixellated mess coming from the iPV.

So, I'll assume for the moment that the primary use of the device will be to watch videos *on the device*, rather than via the dock. Which brings us to content.

The TV shows angle is an interesting one - the format is small enough people won't be ripping them to PC's, if only because p2p/newsgroups has far better quality options available.

Unlike albums, where there may be only two or three tracks you may want, that is rarely the case for TV shows, so there are two possibilities - you use the iPV to collect your favourite show (in which case, you're buying a full 23-episode season, at more than the cost of the DVD set (at least in Canada), or, you're using it to grab the episode you missed here and there, which makes that vast amount of storage far less interesting. The DRM would mean I wouldn't even *consider* buying any content either way until it's cracked, and even then, I'd probably look elsewhere first. Here's why.

Currently, my PSP has a 1GB Memory Stick Duo inside, and on that, I have all my game content, about 6 albums of MP3-encoded music, and an episode of BattleStar Galactica I'd missed and wanted to catch up on. I downloaded the high definition copy from Usenet, and converted it using PSP Video 9 (pspvideo9.com) to watch it. As an added bonus, if I don't get time to watch it on the road (because I decide to game instead), I can come home and watch the HDTV version still on my PC. If I really wanted to, I can remove the music and fit two episodes on the PSP.

So, if the iPV was dropped in my lap today, I would probably copy more music to it than video, since I rarely need more than one or two episodes of anything on it. And the reality is, it would come down to the screen. I can choose between the iPV's smaller (and likely less astounding) screen, or carry the PSP, and have a nicer screen, living with the reality that I'll have to swap videos and music in and out more often. But, as an added bonus, I get the full gamut of PSP games as well. And the cheap version is $100 more expensive than my PSP.

Apple's new thing? Video iPod. But more crap-o copy-blocking

HOWTO rip a DVD with a Mac

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:40:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments