Daddy, what does “twenty-eight percent of see colon formatted” mean?
How to Make iPod Video WorkQuite simply the reason the iPod Video didn’t come out is that the only video that’s copyright-free is the stuff you make in iMovie (well, you own the copyright, so it’s more of a non-issue than copyright-free). Frankly, I know few people wanting to copy their movies of weddings, kids, and cats onto a device to view them elsewhere. What we want are our TV programs and DVD movies. So Apple, to make the iPod Video work, would need a PVR app (and hardware). Then Apple can let you create content that is free of issues (personal recording is allowed, regardless of the 1984 world the MPAA wants us to live in) and encode it in H.264/AVC so that it can scale down to the iPod level well (it’s also used in 3G phones, so the iPod is a no-brainer). Set it up to record whatever you want, select “iPod” as the recording destination and then you get a file that is as small as it can be to give good quality on the iPod. Or choose “TV” and then use the supplied A/V cables to view on a random TV somewhere (use those front inputs on that TV in the break room at work!). Do this, and the world will follow quite quickly. Make it simple, Apple simple, and the portable media market is Apple’s. Get a foothold in music and video and the iPod will clobber all the other devices. It’s not so crazy, and it just might work. Hell, it might kill TiVo if done right, and I love mine as much as the next guy. 
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Quotes
“St. Francis was so great and original a man that he had something in him of what makes the founder of a religion . . . That was the point the Pope had to settle; whether Christendom should absorb Francis or Francis Christendom. And he decided rightly, . . . for the Church could include all that was good in the Franciscans and the Franciscans could not include all that was good in the Church.” — St. Francis of Assisi, Garden City, NY: Doubleday Image, 1924, 150-151 – G. K. Chesterton
I still think the “people just don’t want to watch video” argument holds water.
Handheld TVs have been available for over 10 years. How many people do you see watching them on the bus or walking around the street?
None, that’s how many. While concentrating on that screen you make yourself vulnerable to theft or worse. People are already advised to only pull their mobile phones out to make a call when they can stand next to a wall in order to cut off 180º of access. Until video devices are wearable (the only obvious form for it to take would be glasses) and the screen becomes watchable merely by changing depth of view then there won’t be much demand for one. 3G mobile phone companies are already in trouble in the UK because no-one is using the video features and they’ve already paid billions out for the network licences. Steve is absolutely right, they are digging in the wrong place.
Or Apple could just purchase Tivo and put it out of it’s corporate misery. I love Tivo and its products, but I’ve been questioning the decision of its management quite a bit lately. It doesn’t seem to have the corporate clout or balls to do what it needs to do, so an Apple takeover would be a relief for all of us Tivo nerds.
Since other people manufacture TiVo’s hardware (i.e. my first-series TiVo is a Phillips TiVo, and now some other hardware makers have DVD-burners built-in to their TiVos), the problem of video/TV on iPod is easy as pie. 1) Record onto TiVo— hopefully we can encourage TiVo to use the industry standard compression technologies mentioned previously. TiVo already has OpenTalk (née Rendezvous) built-in for iTunes/iPhoto sharing, and an ethernet plug. 2) User plugs iPod into Mac. In a manner similar to funneling iPhoto images through iTunes to iPod, iTunes transfers TiVo shows over the network to the iPod. iPod connects to TV as with iPod Photo. Done. Content protection? Apple uses TiVo’s, similar to Apple distributing Audible.com’s content through iTunes— iPod can deal with other DRM schemes. And, just like the iPod sync preferences in iTunes—only sync this playlist, only sync checked songs, etc.—there can be a place for deciding what on TiVo gets transfered to iPod. Now, preferably, there would be a FireWire port on the TiVo. That way, shows can be transfered to the iPod just like burning a DVD in TiVos with a DVD burner, and would be a whole lot faster than transfering shows over the network…
Tom
I forgot to add that, no, no normal person would want to watch TV on their iPod. I don’t think, honestly, they would look at photos too much on their iPod either, except to preview them. My suggestion would turn the iPod into a portable TiVo — you would hook the iPod up to the TV to watch shows. (I use the word “normal” excusably, becuase I used to watch Star Trek: Deep Space Nine on my portable iPod-screen-sized TV in my dorm room in high school, and I was definitely not “normal.”)