[jsiburt]

What new product is Apple bringing to the table if anything? Maybe something entirely different. If we look at several facts you may see a vague picture of what the future holds. Currently there are rumblings of a mysterious 4th product being released this week.

1. Apple has a plastic enclosure in production that consists of a 5x7 LCD and a rear slot the size of an iPod.

2. Do you really think all of that hard drive space on the iPod is really for you to carry around your entire music collection?
Somebody was thinking long term.

3. Panther utilizes new movie compression technology called Pixelet which reduces files sizes considerably.

4. What in the word is Inkwell for? I mean I use it with my Wacom tablet to play but besides that...?

5. Bluetooth, Airport, Rendevouz, iChat/AV???

6. So if I could have a device that allowed me to collaborate on a design project or surf the web from my couch or control my other devices, or watch a movie thats loaded on my iPod or show a client a presentation or see my Keynote presentation as I presented it or . . .

7. Sell it separately with limited memory and then allow the iPod to be locked into the rear enclosure for added storage space. Now I can sell more iPods and sell this to existing iPod owners.

Just an analysis of all the current pieces of info floating around in cyberspace. But what do I know?

[OwlBoy]

Originally posted by jsiburt:


3. Panther utilizes new movie compression technology called Pixelet which reduces files sizes considerably.

Pixelet will not make the files small, if anything they will be bigger or as big as DV video is. ~200mb a min I believe is what DV takes up.

-Owl

[jsiburt]

Pixelet will not make the files small, if anything they will be bigger or as bit as DV video is. ~200mb a min I believe is what DV takes up.

Not according to Macaddict Sept. 03 pg:29

According to Apple, Pixlet compresses video at a ratio of 20:1 to 25:1 at HD/2 resolution.

[MaxPower2k3]

Originally posted by jsiburt:
Not according to Macaddict Sept. 03 pg:29

yeah, and do you have any idea how much file space uncompressed video (of any kind) takes up, much less HD? DV is far from uncompressed, but i think what they're aiming for in Pixlet is sort of a future-proof replacement to DV, since, as far as i know, DV is either NTSC or PAL and that's it, but Pixlet can support real HD resolutions/framerates.

[dfiler]

Pixlet is not aimed at minimizing file sizes. Its primary goal is to provide high quality without loosing the ability to scrub through a time line. This means no temporal compression... or at least no inter-frame dependencies.

Pixlet is great for production work and ill-suited for mass distribution/use.

[jsiburt]

Don't kill the messenger I was only reporting what was said in the article.

What's a movie studio to do when it's got to pass around a three-minute video clip that eats up 43GB? Use Pixlet, Apple's brand-new video codec, to shrink it down to 14GB, thats what.

Mac Addict September 2003 page 29

[MaxPower2k3]

Originally posted by jsiburt:
Don't kill the messenger I was only reporting what was said in the article.

well, you didn't post that part of the article before, and, if anything, that just agrees with what OwlBoy and myself said: Pixlet is not meant to make file sizes small enough for, say, web streaming. in fact, it would be quite pointless on the Apple Mystery Product you describe, since a 15GB iPod would hold under 3 minutes of video compressed with Pixlet

[jsiburt]

Just trying to dream. I don't know anything about DV video compress make small stuff blah blah blah.

I just thought new technology sounded interesting and a step in the right direction.

So the fact of the matter is that video would never be possible on an iPod? Just wondering.

[MaxPower2k3]

Originally posted by jsiburt:


Just trying to dream. I don't know anything about DV video compress make small stuff blah blah blah.

I just thought new technology sounded interesting and a step in the right direction.

So the fact of the matter is that video would never be possible on an iPod? Just wondering.

nothing wrong with dreaming

i think that the ideal codec for this right now would be MPEG-4 (or whatever variation of that iChat AV uses) which delivers a clear, smooth image that's small enough to stream on a cable connection at 20fps (in my experience). Even so, though, i'm not sure if the current iPod design is ideal for such an application. It's not designed to have constant hard drive use for long periods of time, and i would think that it might overheat after a couple hours of, say, watching a movie. perhaps if the device were made out of aluminum like the PowerBooks or had a small heatsink near the iPod compartment it would help to dissipate the heat. A small fan might even be required, but, obviously, that adds unwanted noise. Also, the machine would need to have its own battery that could power it and the iPod, since, i'd think, it'd be too much of a hassle to have to watch the levels of two different batteries in the machine. I must admit, though, the idea of having a TiVo-like app on the computer that automatically recorded shows and such, and automatically synced with the device you described, does sound good.