“I’ve been playing with a new iPod with video, the Apple Universal Dock, and the new Apple Remote for the past week, and I have two observations,” Paul Thurrott writes for WinInfo.
“First, despite years of experience with portable video, I’m super impressed with both the iPod video and the video formats (MPEG-4 and H.264) that it utilizes; even at 320 x 240 (or 480 x 270, as I’ve encoded my widescreen videos in), these movies look great blasted out to a large TV set, albeit with sub-DVD-style artifacts here and there,” Thurrott explains.
“Second, I’m suddenly hooked on the TV show “Lost.” I purchased the show’s premiere episode via iTunes to test the iPod, and now my wife and I are several episodes in and there’s no turning back. My TV watching habits tend toward horror movies, history and travel shows, and comedies like ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘Family Guy,’ and I find most network TV to be reprehensible and unintelligent. But ‘Lost’ is just good stuff. I guess TV is like anything else: There’s good buried in there with the bad. The trick is to find it,” Thurrott writes.
Thurrott also discusses how he recently switched Internet providers and now can’t get his network-attached Dell laser printer to work properly, “the weirdest thing happened on my main desktop PC: After a few days of printing fine over the new network, it now refuses to print to the Dell, and crashes any application that tries to print (Word, Outlook, StarOffice, whatever). Then, Word just started crashing all the time, and let’s face it: I use Word all day, every day, and it never, ever crashes. So I switched the default printer to the Microsoft Office Document Image Writer, and .. voila. No more crashes. That is just unbelievable. Days later, I still haven’t solved this issue. What a mess.”
Sounds like all is still “working normally” in Windows-land here.
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Related articles:
Has Apple’s Steve Jobs saved network television or simply helped hasten its death? – October 28, 2005
TV network presidents see no threat from Apple video iTunes+iPod – October 27, 2005
BusinessWeek: Apple iPod+iTunes video marks new era for digital media – October 27, 2005
TV Critic: Apple iPod video strikingly bright, crisp, very fluid; TV will have to reorient itself – October 27, 2005
Thurrott: Apple iPod ‘the new standard by which all are measured – highly recommended’ – October 26, 2005
Chicago Tribune: Apple’s new iPod is a showstopper – October 26, 2005
PC Magazine review gives Apple’s new video-capable iPod 5 out of 5 stars – October 21, 2005
CBS News: New iPod shows ‘Apple will continue to dominate portable digital media player market’ – October 21, 2005
Apple’s video-capable iPod and iTunes are first vital link in new distribution paradigm – October 21, 2005
USA Today: Apple’s new iPod + video: world’s foremost portable music players have gotten only better – October 20, 2005
Comprehensive review of Apple’s iPod 5G with Video – October 20, 2005
The Motley Fool: ‘Apple’s new video-enabled iPod is about to save the televised content industry’ – October 20, 2005
Ars Technica reviews Apple’s new video-capable iPod – October 20, 2005
NY Times Pogue: ‘watching video on new iPod’s 2.5-inch screen is completely immersive’ – October 19, 2005
MSNBC columnist: after initial coolness wears off, Apple’s video iPod will wind up in dresser drawer
Apple’s $1.99 iTunes TV show downloads may be ‘the savior of good television’ – October 17, 2005
Apple opens Pandora’s box for the media business, could have profound long-term consequences – October 17, 2005
BofA analyst: Apple video play an ‘evolutionary opportunity,’ 9.3m iPods to be sold this quarter – October 17, 2005
Apple has the potential to change not just the audio industry, but the whole entertainment industry – October 17, 2005
Advertisers welcome Apple’s iTunes Store commerical-free content – October 17, 2005
New York Times writer can’t think different: ‘video iPod may not be ready for prime time’ – October 17, 2005
Cringely on Apple video experiment, future 802.11n Apple Video Express, Sony TVs in Apple stores – October 14, 2005
Podfather: iPod porn is going to be huge – October 14, 2005
Forrester Research: Apple transformed music distribution, now it is doing the same for video – October 14, 2005
Watching episode of ABC’s ‘Lost’ on 2.5-inch iPod screen surprisingly compelling – October 13, 2005
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Apple’s new iMac G5, iTunes 6, iPod video designed to bait Hollywood – October 13, 2005
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Using QuickTime Pro to create videos for playback in new Apple iPods – October 13, 2005
Analyst: Apple has just produced ‘the tipping point’ for entertainment content – October 13, 2005
Apple’s video play likely to unsettle movie, TV, advertising and retail markets for years to come – October 12, 2005
Apple unveils new 5th generation iPod, now plays music, photos, and video – October 12, 2005
He should start pounding it with his head. Perhaps, he might see the light of day…but, I doubt it.
Does he personally own any “Caution During Earthquake” Apple computers? I’m sure it would print just fine to his printer, regardless of ISP!
I smell a Mac in Thurrott’s life in the near future…
I fixed the problem by replacing the user. Works like a charm every time.
Nice hearing a PC person comment so positively about the quality of 320×240 video blasted out to a TV.
What’s with all the harsh comments? Geez guys, could you be a little more intelligent with your comments and who you’re ridiculing?
he has a mac.
Actually, so do I… but honestly, the mac crashes as often as the PC, and there are for more strange errors. The difference is, for example, iPhoto will just hang or just quit and not save what I’m working on something.
Or the beachball hell is the most annoying thing. Especially when you’re working on an iMac G5.
the interface is also less responsive.
the Mac is not without his faults.
Gard,
prepare to be needlessly flamed for telling your truthful experience.
I’m super impressed that Paul has a wife. I kinda thought he lived in his parents’ basement with a life-size Darth Maul action figure for a companion.
settle down, welcome to MDN
Gard,
Your head and your ass are not interlockable. One does not reside inside the other.
And your mother is ugly.
Interesting that MDN didn’t comment on Thurrott’s other article – a review of FrontRow. Some quotes:
“[Windows] Media Center is so far ahead of Front Row from a functional perspective that the two products are hard to compare.”
“Hopefully, Apple will do merge this system into something more elegant in the future.”
“In other words, Front Row is pure Apple: Lot’s of style and flash, but not as functional as the competition.”
“There’s a reason Front Row has just six buttons. It doesn’t do much.”
Ouch.
There’s a reason Paul Thurrott has a penis. It doesn’t do much.
I don’t know how many times i have to repeat that the iPod support videos at 720×320 in mpeg-4 up to 2,5mbps bitrate..
As long as it does not surpasses 230.400 pixeles (480×480) you can play any video you want in mpeg-4, and at 2,5mbps you have enough bandwidth to output dvd quality..
So Paul Thurrott does not need to encode their videos in 480×270..
Please MDN, can you post this in big letters in your home page?
Or better, Couldn’t simply Apple change the specs page of the iPod Video and put that info? 480×480 is a 1:1 stupid ratio that no one uses..
640×320 o 720×320 is the good one..
http://www.maxian.com/product_T600.htm
If anyone wanted to know if the iPod (with video) would hurt or help TV show’s, all they need to do is read this story.
“Second, I’m suddenly hooked on the TV show “Lost.”
Oth R Ideas – I guess that Maxian needs to change their webpage as theirs is not the slimmest anymore.. and only up to 30GB – what a rip
Im just a little curious as to why just changing service providers would change your home network – this just doesn’t make sense – Can someone provide some insight as to why this would be?
Good point Coolkamio.
I’ve ben wondering whether it would be possible to have video at full standard TV resolution and use that on both the TV and iPod.
I would imagine that eventually when Apple go into the video distribution business for TV viewing that they will be releasing higher resolution video. No yet – the time is right for that. They’re just testing the waters at this point.
Ideally, one would want to buy video at either standard or HDTV resolution and be able to watch it whereever you want. Add to this, DVR capabilities on your mac and then you have iTunes for TV. Again not yet but coming in the near future I imagine. Got to get those cable and satelite guys onboard.
I had a client whose home I was visiting to sign some documents. He had a last-minute change, so I connected my 12″ PowerBook to his Dell laser printer. OS X recognized it immediately as a Dell laser printer (not some generic printer driver), I printed the changed page, and we were off. Funny how Windows, with which the Dell laser printer is designed to work, can’t seem to do the same.
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Celebration imac.
gonna buy an imac 20″ G5 to celebrate the first indictment of the criminals in the White House. Woohoo!
Hmmm, Maybe he should be using a “simpler-to-do-everything Macintoshes” as PC Magazine noted in this article:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1868138,00.asp
– Mark
Intersting link, Oth R Ideas. Long before the video iPod was announced I wondered why so much of the face of the iPod was dedicated to the click wheel and open area. The logical approach was to turn it sideways and expand the screen to more closely approximate a 16:9 (or, at least, 4:3) aspect ratio. Of course, the user interface (click wheel) would have to be shrunk or relocated in order to fit everything without increasing the size of the iPod.
Perhaps Apple could use a virtual click wheel integrated with the display. One approach would be to have a small menu button that would activate the vClick Wheel interface on the screen, much like an on-screen TV menu, but controlled by an overlaid ghost click wheel.
All thinks being equal, I would think that most folks would like a larger iPod screen packaged within the current iPod dimensions as long as the user interface and performance (e.g., batter life) were still good.
4ever!
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But 320×240? Really?
Tanni,
Go to hell you commie-terrorists low life!