Aha, I got quite a different impression of the Apple launch from watching the full thing.
The Video Podcast term seemed to be mentioned more by Jobs than the media picked up on in the reports Ive seen so far. hat struck me most as it relates to videoblogging, is that it was the 'Front Row' stuff which actually seemed to give most prominence and ease of use to videoblogging. Yet I am unamused that they are trying to use this new software, which provides a user interface and control mechanism that will allow Macheads to do the sorts of 'videoblog on the TV' stuff theyve wanted to, to sell the new iMac. It should be made available for other Mac systems. I dunno what technology the remote uses, bluetooth? Anyway the videos on the apple site that demonstrate front row, and that part of jobs presentation, are the highest profile reference to 'video podcasting' taht I have seen yet, miles ahead of what the itunes music store actually does to promote videoblogs. Jobs seemed a little nervous to me at times, Im not sure if he is 100% convinced by all this video stuff. If I were him Id have been nervous due to the low resolution of video theyve gone for. Initially he makes the video feature on the ipod sound like a bonus, which makes me wonder if the rumours of a larger screen version next year are true. At one point he says that the screen on the new iPod is giant! lol, since when is 2.5 inches giant anything? The resolution issue seems quite sensibly handled by apple in terms of matching the new iPod, given that they didnt go for a larger screen. But people buying videos at this resolution to watch using Front Row on a new iMac 17 or 20 inch fullscreen? A big danger there is that the illegitimate content such as TV shows that people curently share illegally on the internet, is typically encoded at higher resolutions than that. And also the way theyve handled widescreen is that widescreen videos seem to be even lower resolution! Theyve just reduced the vertical resolution for widescreen footage. When I encoded a widescreen video using quicktime 7.0.3 and ipod movie export, it ends up at 320x180, and this is similar to the widescreen video I bought from itunes store and mentioned previously. Again this makes some sense in the context of the resolution of the screen on the new ipods, but not for fullscreen viewing on the computer or TV. The biggest opportunity I think this creates for videobloggers right now is that theres only 5 different TV shows available on US itunes store at launch. Music videos add quite a lot of other purchasable video, but theres still a significant shortage of content out there that could be siezed upon by videobloggers who are interested in going down the large-audience route. Steve of Elbows --- In [email protected], andrew michael baron <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Wo, Nelma! What a week. First Pete Townshend, and now Steve Jobbs. > Someone just pointed out to me that Steve Jobbs had Rocketboom loaded > on his video ipod presentation and also played Tikibar today. You can > see this .5 seconds of fame here. Wake me up when October ends! > http://stream.apple.akadns.net/ > > > http://stream.apple.akadns.net/ > > On Oct 12, 2005, at 5:11 PM, Steve Watkins wrote: > > > It may not quite be that simple. It may be that simple, but it may > > not. There are further specifications regarding what type of mpeg4 > > files the ipod can play eg the profiles (main, standard, base) and the > > maximum bitrates. It is therefore not impossible that many existing > > mpeg4 videoblogs will need converting to work properly. Hopefully they > > will all be fine, but I havent read up on the profile stuff yet so I > > cant be 100% sure. > > > > Also in related news: > > > > Quicktime 7.0.3 includes a new export option which makes ipod videos. > > > > Under The export option there is now a new item 'Movie to iPod > > (320x240)' > > > > If you select that option, it gives you no other configurable options > > that I can see, so no bitrate to set, no framerate, no res, etc. > > > > It appears to create 320x240 files in h264 at 768kbps, using the same > > framerate as the source movie. Under the surfac its likely using the > > same h264 compression as quicktime 7's always had, so its just as > > slow. > > > > The complication here is that Apple have decided to use another file > > extension, m4v. Oh what fun! I believe they have done this because > > they have set itunes up to be the default app that opens .m4v files. > > > > Im thinking that hopefullythese m4v files are just the same as .mp4, > > they are certainly a legitimate part of the mpeg4 spec I believe, we > > just havent seen people using that file extension much yet. > > > > Anyway hopefully this isnt going to turn into the same story of > > incompatibility when there neednt be any, as occurs with PSP mpeg4. > > > > Also I havent checked yet whether these .m4v files work well in a > > browser, eg faststart (progressive download). > > > > The 'buy videos through itunes' stuff appears to be even more > > geographically constrained than Id hoped, I dont think theres anything > > availble in the UK itunes store yet at all, and I bet most of the rest > > of the world is in a similar position. Dunno how long I have to wait > > till these new ipods are availbale in UK either. > > > > Cheers > > > > Steve of Elbows > > --- In [email protected], Kunga <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > >> > >> supports mpeg4 and H.264 so YES > >> -- > >> Taylor Barcroft http://www.blogger.com/profile/11159903 > >> New Media Publisher, Editor, Video Journalist, Webcaster, > >> Futurecaster > >> Santa Cruz CA, Beach of the Silicon Valley > >> URL http://FutureMedia.org > >> RSS http://feeds.feedburner.com/FutureMedia > >> iTunes http://tinyurl.com/8ql87 > >> > >> On Oct 12, 2005, at 12:08 PM, Steve Garfield wrote: > >> > >> > >>> Supports 3ivx? > >>> > >> > >> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -------------------- > > ~--> > > Most low income households are not online. Help bridge the digital > > divide today! > > http://us.click.yahoo.com/cd_AJB/QnQLAA/TtwFAA/lBLqlB/TM > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ~-> > > > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Fair play? Video games influencing politics. Click and talk back! http://us.click.yahoo.com/T8sf5C/tzNLAA/TtwFAA/lBLqlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/videoblogging/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
