“For me, the start of the year is a time to remove old PC files, clear out the e-mail in-box, and think a bit about the kinds of novel products and ideas that the new year might bring, though it might be more accurate to consider this a list of the kinds of gadgets I’d like to buy next year,” Arik Hesseldahl writes for Forbes.
“Topping this list is a video iPod. Apple Computer is halfway there with the iPod photo. And Microsoft and its many hardware pals, including Creative Labs, have proven that video can be done in a handheld device–though they’ve yet to prove it can be done well. Apple, more than any other company, is up to the task of perfecting this. The experience shouldn’t be about watching video on a tiny handheld screen. What I do want is to output video from the iPod to a TV. An 80-gigabyte hard drive would make it practical,” Hesseldahl writes. “Additionally, I’d like to be able to buy or subscribe to TV shows that I often miss through an iTunes-like service that lets me watch them on my PC or Mac, or save them to an iPod that allows me to watch them on any TV. “
Full article here.
I don’t see myself running out and buying one, but maybe others will.
Wishlist: mp3+g compatibility and video out for karaoke.
TPSB “distance”
But really, how many people, outside of this writer and Bill Gates, want to watch TV and movies on a small screen? I don’t see any reports of handheld video devices flying the shelves.
Get a portable DVD player.
When they come out with a Videopod and a service such as he outlines I will be one of the first in line to get one. It would also be cool if Apple came up with some sort of video viewing goggles so you could watch full screen anywhere.
I can’t see Apple being very interested in this. It’s hardly ground-breaking and as a wish it’s a pretty limited one.
For a really revolutionary – and highly suitable – future for the iPod think: Remote Menus. Any media is made up of two elements: content and a means of manipulating that content (menus, dialogues etc). They don’t have to be tied together in the same space (although, up til now, they always have been). So a wireless iPod would make an excellent remote controller for (for example) a Digital Hub TV, with the iPod displaying menus of channels, recording options, listings etc. Unlike a Microsoft mess, the actual TV screen would be completely clear of all ‘clutter’ (classic Apple simplicity). Directly control the hifi in the same way. Advance this a bit and think of all machines which require any sort of menu (ATMs and ticket machines etc) – all the info could be imputed remotely via iPod menus and then click-wheel ‘Go’ when you arrive at the machine.
Can Apple sue for ideas?
I will say it again,make the Video iPod and let me plug in a pair of Glasses that uses a heads-up display that projects the image onto the inside of the lenses (these things already exist). Then I can rip my dvds and put them on my Video iPod and watch them while on an airplane or in a hotel room. Must have video out to a TV too!
My 2 cents
Apple just needs to make a tablet comptuer!!! DAMM IT. Just do it, I WILl buy one!!! I swear!!!!! Just make a tablet computer. NOW. Then all of it including games will be on it!!
Apple will get into this Video iPod business after MS and all the others have shown the world they don’t have a clue how to do it right. Then everyone will marvel again at how cool Apple is… http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/smileys/#
Apple will get into this Video iPod business after MS and all the others have shown the world they don’t have a clue how to do it right. Then everyone will marvel again at how cool Apple is…
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That’s better!
WARNING WARNING:
Do not drag & drop smilies…
Actually, I’m surprised no one’s made a serious video camera which includes a hard disk. A 60Gb disc would hold (guessing here, based upon importing a SD DV tape) around 5 hours of footage. The drive could be installed in conjunction with a tape mechanism so you could use either. It would be useful for those who record intending to edit straight away (saves the playing back of the tape – you just copy the data via Firewire.)
Surely this is a better idea than those mini-DVD cameras out there which hold 20 mins of video, use discs incompatible with slot loading drives (coz they’re small) and basically aren’t really ready for market. If they’d used mini blu-ray discs, that would be different since you could store more.
Btw, if Apple do stick a camera on their iPods, I’d hope/expect it would be high quality and not like the one’s on phones which are fuzzy at best.
I think this Forbes writer is in for great disappointment in 2005
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How about hooking up your TiVo to your iPod? You could then walk to a friends house and play the video there (as a social thing like DVD night). Or you could then hook up your iPod to your laptop in a plane, train, or automobile for some entertainment.
Personally, I wouldn’t buy it. I REPEAT, I WOULD NOT BUY IT. Why? I just wouldn’t use the feature often enough to justify the expense. And all of you that are for it need to get real (as in existence of reality, not the company). No one NEEDS a video iPod. A Star Wars light saber may be a cool weapon, but no one really NEEDS one.
Gadgetophilia is a horrible condition. Ween yourself from needless gadgets.
I like to watch videos and recorded TV shows on my PowerBook 12″
I prefer to listen to music on my iPod
notatotalsucker wrote: “Actually, I’m surprised no one’s made a serious video camera which includes a hard disk… <snip> Surely this is a better idea than those mini-DVD cameras out there which hold 20 mins of video, use discs incompatible with slot loading drives (coz they’re small) and basically aren’t really ready for market. If they’d used mini blu-ray discs, that would be different since you could store more.”
Uh, have you ever heard of write speeds, bandwidth, and jitter? Well, they are the reasons the thing you mentioned doesn’t exist. A big complaint about digital cameras is the speed at which you can take a second picture. The electronics can’t write the data to memory fast enough. There is literally more data to write to memory than the processors can handle. Now factor in the number of frames per second video is recorded at and the effects of motion on electro-mechanical systems and you get your answer? Ain’t gonna happen any time soon.
I recall what my optics professor once told me… “Electronics (sensors, memory, etc.) are the bottleneck in optical systems.”
Nah.. this Arik guy’s not said much of interest…Quick.. name 5 places you could use this kind of device… Quick.. name 5 places where you CAN’T use an iPod..
There you go..
Portable video is just cumbersome in Nature.. what’s the point of watching 5 minutes of a TV show.. or 20 minutes of a movie..
that’s not portable video.. that portable bastardized cinema..
edgeknight – yea, i know what you mean about memory bandwidths etc… but I was talking about DV, not multi megapixel digital still cameras.
DV tape already works, and playing back a DV tape and dumping it into iMovie or FC (in realtime) also works pretty well too (12Gb/hour of footage). So I don’t quite understand why bandwidth is a problem in the example I gave?
Now, ok, I don’t actually use an iPod for the storage, but my notebook’s internal HDD. Are you saying these mini drives in iPods are too slow for this type of transfer? Some video cameras are quite large and could probably fit a 2.5″ laptop type drive instead.
Hey notatotalsucker & edgeknight,
Actually, the first company to come out with a digital video camera with a hard drive is JVC. They use a 4 GB microdrive and records video in MPEG-2, the DVD compression (4 GB = 1 hr. recording time on highest quality). However, I think it’s only available in Asia for now, but just to let you 2 dudes know that it’s out there. There are 2 models:
http://www.jvc.com.hk/cgi-bin/jvc_phase2/eng/product/product_subcategory.cgi?subcategory_id=80
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