CONFIRMED! iPod w/Video support!

[HN]

Originally posted by: spanky
anyone else think it's weak that both new imacs come with 512mb ram? i would have thought they would have offered a "beefy" model. i guess that's down the road.

as they support up to 2.5GB, wouldn't it be cheaper to buy the extra ram separately than to have them include more with a markup? (as long as you don't have to buy some MAC specific ram or something)

 

[UNCjigga]

Originally posted by: sygyzy
Why is anyone intrigued by this? The only major change is the video playback and that's limited to specifically the content they are going to provide for you. It hasn't been announced anywhere that you are free to put any video you want on there. You are going to be limited to downloading Despeate Housewives and watching Disney music videos (Hillary Duff?). I am somewhat joking about the content, but you get what I mean.

What I do care about are: larger screen and thinner size. They can keep the video.

P.S. I'd LOVE a video playback device and *I* would definitely watch music videos, movies, and shows on that thing. However, like I said, they are limiting content on the device. It's not like you can put anything you want there.

Umm, I think it will let you import movies from QuickTime Pro.

 

[Dubb]

Originally posted by: Viper GTS

Originally posted by: mwmorph
pretty sure not. AAC is a very good almost(i'd say 90-95%) lossless quality codec if you rip it right though.

Given enough bits to work with virtually any codec can sound good, AAC sounds quite a bit better than MP3 at any equivalent bitrate, but is nowhere near lossless.

As far as lossless codecs go AAC is great. Smaller filesizes & better quality than MP3.

Viper GTS

I think you have a typo - lossless AAC doesn't have smaller filesized than MP3

and vorbis is still better quality per MB than either AAC or MP3, and isn't a proprietary BS format.

 

[cliftonite]

I am going to wait for a nano with more storage.

 

[secretanchitman]

oooh, new 30GB/60GB ipods in black look dead sexy. i want one! and they bloody got slimmer! how did that happen...?

^_^

 

[MadPeriot]

I can't believe I got mine but the 20Gig colorless for almost that price. I hate technology always coming out with something better!

 

[0roo0roo]

interesting. now the torrents just need to leave in the commercials so the mpaa has no ground to stand on. then it will be awesome.

 

[onza]

www.apple.com

its offical

 

[The Linuxator]

This has been predicted LOL !!!!

Oh and BTW ipods are a total fad , sorry must say my opinion

 

[fs5]

Originally posted by: The Linuxator
This has been predicted LOL !!!!

Oh and BTW ipods are a total fad , sorry must say my opinion

yeah, a 4 year long 'fad'. :roll:

 

[The Linuxator]

Originally posted by: fs5

Originally posted by: The Linuxator
This has been predicted LOL !!!!

Oh and BTW ipods are a total fad , sorry must say my opinion

yeah, a 4 year long 'fad'. :roll:

Dude I can't undersand it I have tried it what's the big hype abou,t I have 450 Songs @ 1 GB I don't see the need for a 40 / 60 GB storage capacity, I don't see the need for the iTunes BS I don't like having software managing my music files I like copying my mp3s in and out of the player, plus I don't see any real advantges of using iPods, and for the price it's absurd and if there are any advantages for the iPod most ppl that buy them don't know about the pluses and minuses, becasue that's not why they have bought iPods for, they have just bought them because they have seen U2 singing a lousy song that is made of 5 or 6 words to advertise an iPod....sigh

 

[imported_Lucifer]

Originally posted by: The Linuxator

Originally posted by: fs5

Originally posted by: The Linuxator
This has been predicted LOL !!!!

Oh and BTW ipods are a total fad , sorry must say my opinion

yeah, a 4 year long 'fad'. :roll:

Dude I can't undersand it I have tried it what's the big hype abou,t I have 450 Songs @ 1 GB I don't see the need for a 40 / 60 GB storage capacity, I don't see the need for the iTunes BS I don't like having software managing my music files I like copying my mp3s in and out of the player, plus I don't see any real advantges of using iPods, and for the price it's absurd and if there are any advantages for the iPod most ppl that buy them don't know about the pluses and minuses, becasue that's not why they have bought iPods for, they have just bought them because they have seen U2 singing a lousy song that is made of 5 or 6 words to advertise an iPod....sigh

You can store data on the iPods too.

 

[synergyo1]

why do people care what strangers buy and use..... >.>

 

[jalaram]

Originally posted by: The Linuxator

Originally posted by: fs5

Originally posted by: The Linuxator
This has been predicted LOL !!!!

Oh and BTW ipods are a total fad , sorry must say my opinion

yeah, a 4 year long 'fad'. :roll:

Dude I can't undersand it I have tried it what's the big hype abou,t I have 450 Songs @ 1 GB I don't see the need for a 40 / 60 GB storage capacity, I don't see the need for the iTunes BS I don't like having software managing my music files I like copying my mp3s in and out of the player, plus I don't see any real advantges of using iPods, and for the price it's absurd and if there are any advantages for the iPod most ppl that buy them don't know about the pluses and minuses, becasue that's not why they have bought iPods for, they have just bought them because they have seen U2 singing a lousy song that is made of 5 or 6 words to advertise an iPod....sigh

To paraphrase an old line, "30 million iPod owners can't be wrong." Just you and I haven't bought one doesn't mean that it hasn't outsold all other mp3 players/brands out there. Some people do want their entire collection in one gadget.

 

[iwearnosox]

Originally posted by: The Linuxator

Originally posted by: fs5

Originally posted by: The Linuxator
This has been predicted LOL !!!!

Oh and BTW ipods are a total fad , sorry must say my opinion

yeah, a 4 year long 'fad'. :roll:

Dude I can't undersand it I have tried it what's the big hype abou,t I have 450 Songs @ 1 GB I don't see the need for a 40 / 60 GB storage capacity, I don't see the need for the iTunes BS I don't like having software managing my music files I like copying my mp3s in and out of the player, plus I don't see any real advantges of using iPods, and for the price it's absurd and if there are any advantages for the iPod most ppl that buy them don't know about the pluses and minuses, becasue that's not why they have bought iPods for, they have just bought them because they have seen U2 singing a lousy song that is made of 5 or 6 words to advertise an iPod....sigh

A fat and ugly wife is just as good as a hot one too, right?

 

[Goosemaster]

mmm....I smell the odor of an ipod fight

 

[akugami]

Originally posted by: sygyzy

Originally posted by: akugami
The issue is that so many anti-fanboys always harping on the deficiencies of Apple and it's products that it gets old fast and quite annoying. Half the time they are wrong anyways. And for a company that is considered irrelevent by so many peope, it sure gets a lot of attention doesn't it?

The other thing is that while there are indeed legitimate questions about Apple's products, the anti-fanboys are so full of p!ss and fire that they come off as ranting lunatics and any legitimate points they have are drowned out by noise.

As for QT7, I believe it can take quicktime obviously, avi files, mpeg1, mpeg2, h.264 and not sure what else. I'd have to agree quicktime's interface sucks. I like BSPlayer myself. If you want a relatively cheap tool for encoding video you can check out Procoder Express. Though it does require the installation of Quicktime and Divx to encode in those formats.

And for the self encoded or non ITMS downloaded videos, it was pretty obvious this was going to be supported. ITunes has included support for video podcast since at least version 4.9. These are of course not going to be governed by Fairplay so it stands to reason that you can import pretty much any video and play it so long as it's done through the iTunes software. Or at least until they come up with a hacked version of software to bypass iTunes when loading songs (and now videos) on the iPods.

The issue, is that you fanboys are so fanatical that you jump on anyone's throat that points out clear shortcomings of any Apple products. Let me guess, the battery life on previous gen iPods which Apple LIED about and was made to pay for by a court was excusable for you? How about the scratches on the Nano? Oh, just get a case say the fanboys. I don't think Apple can ever do wrong. My original criticisms, my personal problems with the new iPods, are still valid. I surely got "0wn3d" with the fact that you can put home movies on the iPod. Great deal. How much is Quicktime Pro 7 again? Another $30. Like I said, I personally don't think encoding video is as simple as 1-2-3. And listen, I don't have any home videos I'd want to encode. What I would like to do is watch episodes of shows I TIVO'd (and not have to pay Apple and Disney) for it. I'd like to watch a dvd rip of a movie I own.

"Half the time they are wrong anyways" - Wrong how? I admiteed for the third time now that I made a mistake regarding putting your own video on there. But other criticisms critics have ever had are objective. How is one "wrong" about battery life or scratches or lack of formats supported, etc? Are they just imagining these problems?

I am excited about the smaller size and the nicie pretty screen. The video, doesn't excite me at all. That was my point.

And in case you are curious, I am listening to Social Distortion on my 4G 40GB iPod as I type this.

I'm an Apple fan not an Apple fanboy. I know there are plenty of shortcomings in many of Apple's products. I didn't jump on anyone's throat. I was only pointing out reasons why I feel that certain features are not as important as the anti-fanboys are making them out to be. If you can't see that then you are what I like to term an anti-fanboy. I mean, I point out some shortcomings I feel are present in the new video iPods in this very thread. And to further point out why I'm not a fanboy, I have made criticism of plenty of Apple's products, even here on this forum. I have criticized aspects of how they run their business. Yet I still like a lot of the products they put out. Heck, If there was one sentence I'd use to describe Apple it'd be that they succeed and survive despite the best efforts of their management to kill the company. I'm pretty impartial in most things and even when I'm a fan of a product I can see past the fanboy crap and call it as I see it. Everyone's needs are different and just because you find a feature indispensible doesn't mean the rest of the planet does also.

As I said, one of the major things people harp about is gapless playback. Is gapless playback such a vital feature that you have to trash a DAP (any DAP, not just Apple's) because it doesn't have this feature?

Audio codecs. Again, I say it'd be great to be able to play WMA's and OGG on Apple's DAP. However, I hate WMA's and the overwhelming majority of people use MP3. Doesn't make a lot of sense for Apple to include support for OGG which is a very minor portion of the ripped audio that's on people's DAP's. That's not to say I think OGG is a bad audio format, just not that popular. And while Apple's DAP's do not support open source lossless formats like FLAC, it does support it's own proprietary lossless format. Not the best solution but they're partially handicapped by the need to implement DRM.

FM playback. Well, the anti-fanboys cry and whine and huff and puff about no FM playback. I've publicly stated that it would be a great feature to have. It's just not that important to me because I only listen to one station on a regular basis and that's a sports radio channel. I do understand that for a lot of people it is an important feature. However, judging from the overwhelming sales of iPods, it's not that important of a feature to the overwhelming majority of people buying DAPs.

I've already stated that I'd love for the new video iPods to be widescreen. I love my widescreen LCD monitor and any new LCD I buy will definitely need to be widescreen. Just makes sense to me that the video iPod should have been widescreen.

As for battery life, yes some of the early iPods had batteries that degraded with time to the point they were unusable. How about the fact that Apple is fairly accurate and at times underestimates the battery life from full charge of their DAP's? No anti-fanboy every mentions that. And the other thing, let's face it, all DAP's that use Li-Ion batteries similar to Apple's will suffer the same degradations in their batteries due to the memory effect. It's just that Apple is most visible because they sell 80% of the DAP's out there. This is more of a problem with the battery type that is used than an Apple fault per se. Yes, I've heard of products from others like Creative and iRiver suffering from the same symptoms. Granted Creative makes it relatively painless to replace the battery but others like iRiver are in the same boat as Apple where the batteries are not easily user replaceable.

The other thing about the battery life is the fact that at 14 hours for the 30GB model and 20 hours for the 60GB model, it's pretty much in line with what the other similar DAP's are doing. Especially when you consider that most DAP's out there have inflated run times. Heck, take Sony whose products never hit the rated times. As for the video playback being very short, I pointed out that it was probably because it's decoding H.264 video streams. H.264 video, is very processor intensive compared to mpg2 and divx/xvid and thus probably burns a ton of battery life decoding it.

Comparing the battery life to other DAP's that do video, the iPod does very well in playing only audio. It lags only in video where other DAP's can do about 4 to 4.5 hours the iPod only does 3 hours and only on the 60GB model.

For Quicktime, you don't have to buy it. You can just install it to play the video files. The new video iPods support H.264 and there is currently an open source H.264 encoder project underway. Yes, I even admitted I don't really like Quicktime's interface already so I guess more that's more fanboy Apple stuff from me. Anyways, QT7 Pro is $30. If you don't like it go pay for some other H.264 encoder which costs at least $100. Apple doesn't force you to buy QT7, only install it if you're using iTunes, though that's pretty annoying in and of itself. Again, there is a foss alternative as far as H.264 encoders go.

As someone else asked, I'd love to know if the video iPod supports Divx and Xvid. There's no reason why it can't if it has the power to decode H.264 streams.

 

[OREOSpeedwagon]

dammit, i just bought a 4.5 Gen iPod too This iPod looks awesome.

 

[fs5]

very interesting:
http://diveintomark.org/howto/ipod-dvd-ripping-guide/

guide to get your dvd's onto iTunes using free, but mac only software

 

[Imaginer]

If i didnt watch them on TV to begin with, I am definitely not interested if I have to pay for them.... Thats my stance.

 

[ironcrotch]

Originally posted by: fs5
very interesting:
http://diveintomark.org/howto/ipod-dvd-ripping-guide/

guide to get your dvd's onto iTunes using free, but mac only software

Thanks! That will definitely come in handy when I get my new ipod..

 

[fs5]

Originally posted by: ironcrotch

Originally posted by: fs5
very interesting:
http://diveintomark.org/howto/ipod-dvd-ripping-guide/

guide to get your dvd's onto iTunes using free, but mac only software

Thanks! That will definitely come in handy when I get my new ipod..

also http://diveintomark.org/howto/ipod-porn-conversion-guide/
(note, porn can be replaced w/ any other video.) To badd they didn't annouce new powerbooks today, I've been itching to get one.

 

[Ricemarine]

Heh... I've been waiting for a video player that's small...

W00t...
hello Ipod.

 

[manly]

Originally posted by: spanky
anyone else think it's weak that both new imacs come with 512mb ram? i would have thought they would have offered a "beefy" model. i guess that's down the road.

512MB standard is not weak. If you need more, that's what the CTO options or "Do-It-Yourself" aftermarket upgrades are for.

In fact, for the 17" iMac G5, the Apple edu store seems to have a bug where the 2nd 512MB DIMM was free. It should actually be $90 more. I'm pretty sure that is the most reasonable Apple has ever priced 512MB DIMMs. The bad news is the edu discount is only $100 (which basically covers sales tax).

 

[loic2003]

Originally posted by: sygyzy
"Half the time they are wrong anyways" - Wrong how?

How about the scratches on the Nano? Oh, just get a case say the fanboys. I don't think Apple can ever do wrong. My original criticisms, my personal problems with the new iPods, are still valid.

The nano is made from exactly the same perspex as the first, second, third, fourth gen etc iPods (ie every single other iPod). The only difference is because some are coloured black, the scratches show up more.

Originally posted by: sygyzy
I surely got "0wn3d"

Yep. Twice.