| Home > News and Views > What next for the 5G iPod? Is it the real replacement for the VHS, leapfrogging the DVD? |
| What next for the 5G iPod? Is it the real replacement for the VHS, leapfrogging the DVD? | | Date Created: 17 Dec, 2005, 01:03 AM |
 Have you notice how many accessories are now bubbling to the surface for the 5G iPod/Nano?
At the time I received my new iPod 5G there was nary a cover for it to prevent scratches; now each time I fire up my RSS reader which features feeds devoted to iPod sites, there seems to be an ever-growing range of accessories.
The iPod/iTunes ecosystem seems not to be losing any pace, and indeed, seems to be growing in all sorts of unusual directions.
The ecosystem includes specific outerware and hardware accessories for the 5G iPod, as well as software based solutions, including new content sources. Steve Jobs might have featured the innovative Rocketboom (didn't it originate as a PC-sourced videocast?), but there seems to be a growing range of content providers preparing iPod-ready material, from Real Estate agencies, dating services, porn merchants, vanity press equivalents, story tellers, universities, and of course, commercial media sources who must have thought they had the video medium all to themselves to control.
I expect to see more NBC/ABC TV shows becoming available ready to download direct to the iPod via iTMS.
Talk this morning was that HBO sees a good match between it and Apple, and its CEO would dearly love to make a deal with Apple for The Sopranos to be deliverable to the iPod. In addition to the rich array of quality material from HBO.
Many Australian fans of quality, but mediocre rating shows would dearly love to see Apple Australian iTMS take on local media, who seems to take perverse pleasure in playing series out of sequence, edited, at different times each week, or not continuing with the series. Aussies are taking up the challenge by either purchasing DVD boxed sets from Amazon, or those who are more tech-savvy utilise Bit Torrent and anonymous US "friends" generosity to get the latest series of popular shows, which do feature on iTMS. Except it's the next series, which we have to wait six months to see.
With regard to online video content, it seems the US television industry is being a little smarter about its content than the music recording industry if only because they had time to stand back and watch the RIAA and local equivalents mishandle the whole shebang.
Slow dialup still allowed the P2P exchange of 3Mb music files, making video exchanges too laborious to bother with, acting as its saviour. But now with the relatively recent availability of Bit Torrent to make large files more exchangeable and broadband penetration now increasing and approaching 50%, the limitations of video file exchange by dint of their sheer size are now under threat, and the TV industry has to get its act together.
Enter Apple with a workable solution, as it did for music. With the power of hindsight, and the iconic power of the iPod in 5G form, it's no surprise sections of the TV industry would wish to co-opt the iPod for onselling its wares.
While we thought that DVD recorders would replace the humble VHS, we might have to think about the iPod (and especially a forthcoming 6G one with increased resolution capacity) as the pre-eminent portable video playback device. Your Powerbook equipped with an Elgato TV device is your time-shift recorder, converting to the iPod .mp4 format on the fly, and you then take the iPod with you to watch at your leisure wherever. Take your cables and you can watch your collection at a friend's home on their huge screen. My tests (as reported in this blog) showed it turns in reasonable quality as long as the story itself is immersive.
Or your burn a DVD from the Powerbook - or better still, a MacMini with iPod outrigger device for immediate synching - and when the DVD option is opened up for iTMS video content, you're away!
Or you download the video at your friend's home with you Apple ID and iTunes, load it onto you iPod and away you go. If said friend has high speed internet, an hour show takes 20 minutes to download. And a few dollars. No different than heading out to Blockbuster and renting videos. But you own the video.
In another six months, when the next iteration of the iPod is released with more impressive video features, and wireless etc. another paradigm shift will occur. 2006, Apple's 30 year anniversary, looks to be one of its best and most important, defining years. A good year to be a Mac user!
Bring on the Switchers! |
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