320px Video Isn't Too Small

Well according to the Apple specs yo can play video on the iPod up to 480x480 in MPEG4 which is ok for a SDTV set. "H.264 video: up to 768 Kbps, 320 x 240, 30 frames per sec., Baseline Profile up to Level 1.3 with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats MPEG-4 video: up to 2.5 mbps, 480 x 480, 30 frames per sec., Simple Profile with AAC-LC up to 160 Kbps, 48 Khz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats"

I watched a couple of iTMS videos at full screen the other day. I thought they looked pretty okay.

The DVDs are a better buy. Where are they? You can't get the current seasons on DVD; they're only available legally from iTunes. Get this model? It's brilliant. No one's done it before; and the market, pundits and others will come to realize that selling TV (when it wasn't even sold before!) is ingenious. I just downloaded the Season Two premiere of Lost because I don't regularly watch TV. Brilliant.

one thing i've not seen anyone mention yet is aspect ratio. i, like many of you, work and play daily in front of many displays of different types. uniformly, however, they are wide aspect ratio, whether 16:9 or 16:10. it is a ratio which informs my experience with the media through which i relate to the electronic world. now, we have an iPod with a display meant for presenting prerecorded video. the display on this device has a 4:3 aspect ratio. okay, a bit disappointing, but that's okay, because it is the first generation of such device, and we should know by now that the early generations of the gadgets we love ALWAYS have built-in remedial flaws. it's part of the beauty of the tech world. if the first generation had everything we wanted, why get excited about the next generations? so i'm willing to accept that, much like the first flat panel Apple displays which were 4:3, the first iPods will sacrifice modern aspect ratio for more screen real estate. i will eventually relive the mindblowing elation of seeing the narrow screen to which we will have been accustomed EXPAND to its proper, gorgeous wideness and i will be magically transported to where i sit before my living room tv or my powerbook, or even the movie theater. and i fully expect that the pixels will be shaved off the top and bottom, not added to the sides to fulfill my widest desires. i will sacrifice the 30 pixels of resolution to view the extra 33% of imagery that i am used to in my tv programs and movies on dvd. this is imagery that helps tell the story better than the extra resolution can. and as for paying for the content: we who care enough at this point to help shift the paradigms of media content delivery which have dominated unfairly for so long should take every opportunity to do so. self-righteous as it may sound - use your imagination to foresee where this is going - extrapolate from the history and the patterns of where the iPod took music. now apply same patterns to cinema and television. it's pretty exciting. and it will only get better.

Front Row has a remote... which means step ( 5+ feet ) f*cking back... now watch that downloaded LOST episode from iTMS, Yeah... Doesn't look too bad now, does it !!!!

320 doesn't work for full screen viewing. If I want to watch from bed on my Mac, it's skippy - at best. The artifacting is terrible. If you want to watch in a corner window while working on something else, it's fine. And I'm not sure why Mac users (inlcuding Steve Jobs) would want to watch on an iPod after having complained, bitterly, about that minimal screen real estate being too small to enjoy. If it's too small to watch on a Creative or Archos player, then it's too small for watching on an Apple product. I like the price point though. $1.99 per episode for that quality is fairly reasonable. Now they just need to add to the offerings...

I've been doing some random buying from the video store too. For me (in the UK) it means I get great TV months before they show on UK TV. That's the first advantageous thing. (I have a US music store acct too) Second, teh quality is OK. It's nothing special - but I'm willing to make that sacrifice so that I can carry it around with my on my iPod. So I can be sitting down and think 'I want to watch a certain show' - all I have to do is pull out my iPod and connect it to my TV. That's a luxury that I'd like to have IMHO.. (Plus you can always watch an episode of friends again = archive heaven) Third, uhm..Well I'm sure I had a third point. Maybe I'll remember it later. Enjoy two for now though.. ;)

Initially I believe the resolution would be too low. It just sounded low... Now since I have downloaded some material and made the first vodcast (podcast # 6 at www.blognomics.nl) myself using Quicktime Pro 7.03 and iSight on a G4 Powerbook, distributed that via rss to iTunes and consumed it in iTunes 6, I believe the resolution is actually appropriate for now. The quality is good and the file size remains decent and therefore it can be handled in the workflow. Higher resolutions would take more time, diskspace/up-and download time on broadband, making it less convenient and practial to use. Unfortunately I did not receive my video iPod yet (another week or so according to the Apple store, but I think it might be very good for the purpose it has been made for.

Umm.. Kool Aid. I care nothing for video quality. I have a 10-year-old 27" TV with no sound system and a plain ol' Tivo. But since when has "good enough" been good enough for Apple? If it's got Apple's name on it, it had better be significantly better and easier than the competition. They've got the easier down, and I think the price is just fine. But 320x240 video is not "good enough" for me. It's certainly not significantly better than TivoToGo, newsgroups, or most torrents. I may buy a show if I somehow miss it on the Tivo, but it's not likely.

i agree with #19. why don't you demand better quality? i know the ipod probably can't handle it, but your computers can. and 320 isn't enough. what if songs from itms came at 64kbps?