I have been intending to post an iPod update for the last couple of weeks, but never got around to it. The other day, I had an email from a guy at the Boston Globe asking me what I thought of the new device, and what I used it for. So, in a two birds vs one stone style, here's my iPod update.
Scott from the Globe asked me the following questions:
- Why'd you buy the video iPod?
- What are you watching on it? Mostly new content bought from iTunes, or stuff you had before?
- Do you think the iPod Video will have as much impact on the world of TV/movies as it did on music?
- What do you think about watching full-length movies on your iPod? How much would you pay?
All interesting questions. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I bought the video iPod (or iPod With Video, as Apple would have you call it) because an opportunity presented itself; I could sell my existing fourth generation, black and white iPod and upgrade to the shiny new iPod With Video for very little money. I wanted the extra space, and I wanted the nicer, colour screen, so it made a lot of sense. Would I have bought one if I couldn't sell my existing player? Probably not. Would I have bought one if I didn't have an existing player? Yes, absolutely.
I can't honestly say I'm exploiting its video capabilities to the fullest; I converted a couple of DVDs from my collection to try it out, and have copied a couple of television episodes across, but I've not actually bought anything from the iTunes store. DVDs don't work terribly well as they're mostly presented in a widescreen ratio, which the iPod doesn't handle – you either get a letterboxed display (which reduces the visible screen size) or you have to crop the edges of the picture – neither of which is ideal. The battery life doesn't really support the watching of full length movies either – approximately three hours if you watch a film without jumping backwards and forwards (seeking through to different scenes is a great way to eat your battery very quickly). In fairness to Apple, they aren't selling the iPod for movie use, but rather television and music videos. The few television episodes I've copied over, and the few music videos work very nicely, and I can honestly see me using the device to watch a few episodes of something on my next trip abroad.
Do I think this iPod will have the same effect on video as it did on music? No, not yet, for a few reasons:
1) Storage space: Video = large file sizes, music = small file sizes. Unless codecs become massively more efficient (which I can't really envisage) or huge disk drives become far more affordable (which is only a matter of time, judging from the past 4-5 years) it's not going to be realistic to store the same amount of video as music.
2) Reuse: I have a reasonably large list of favourite albums that I listen to regularly. I also have some more obscure albums that I'll listen to every now and then, or new albums that I try out and won't go back to if I don't like them. With movies, typically you'll watch it once and forget about it for a while, perhaps you'll revisit it after a few months or maybe years. For television, you'll almost certainly only watch it once and then await next weeks episode. As a result, it's unlikely that many people are going to want devote large amounts of drive space to films.
3) Availability: I'm a "computer geek" (so I'm told) so acquiring and using the software necessary to convert a DVD from my collection into a format that's usable by my iPod is trivial. For the mass market (and the iPod is truly a mass market device these days) this is harder to do. Simple software to enable the conversion is commercially available but most people don't have the time or inclination to do it (you're looking at a matter of hours to convert your DVD to your iPod, rather than the few minutes it takes to convert a CD). Apple have made some video content available on the iTunes Music Store, and from what I've heard this has been popular in the US. Typically, Apple is offering music videos or television shows which offer a smaller file size and a reduction in quality (required to keep file sizes small) is more forgivable. I don't see Apple offering an feature length content on iTunes until the next generation of iPod. Incidentally, in Europe Apple's content is far less compelling (no Lost, no Desperate Housewives etc), and as a result I'm not likely to buy anything from iTunes.
4) Hardware limitations: As I've mentioned above, the battery life doesn't really support a great deal of viewing time on the iPod, and the screen isn't the correct ratio for displaying widescreen content.
Would I watch full length movies on my iPod? No, almost certainly not – at least on this device. In the future (possibly the next generation, possibly the one after that) I can see Apple putting together a far more convincing device for video content. I suspect that the current iPod with Video is simply a little market research tool (the hardware was already more than capable, it just needed a few screen size tweaks) and that the real Video iPod (ViPod?) will be released in the future sporting a true widescreen display, better battery consumption, and surrounded by a suitable amount of portable video fanfare from Apple. Considering the rumours around Apple's Media Centre-esque FrontRow application, the two would work quite nicely together.
I'm very pleased with my new iPod though – I think the sound quality is better than my last, the battery life is better, it has a larger capacity, a far superior screen, and has less "niggles" than my fourth generation device. I'm also quite pleased that I can play video on it if I have a desire to, but for me (and I would imagine for the vast majority of users) the video functionality is an very pleasant extra, not a must-have.
