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It's funny. Laugh. Media Media (Apple)

Video iPod Available... Sort of 297

Posted by CmdrTaco from the because-you-can dept.
Pirogoeth writes "The fine folks over at Engadget have figured out how to get your new iPod Photo to play movies. According to the article, you use Quicktime Pro to export the movie as thousands of individual frames which you export to the iPod, send the soundtrack to the iPod as well, then, if you haven't guessed by now, while playing the soundtrack, put the iPod into slideshow mode and use the scroll wheel to manually keep the frames in synch with the sound. Sound impossible? Here's a video (in mov or wmv) of the Episode III trailer in action..."
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Video iPod Available... Sort of More

Video iPod Available... Sort of

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  • Their Other Idea (Score:2, Interesting)

    by FuzzzyLogik ( 592766 ) *
    In the Engadget Podcast the other day they discussed the idea of having Picture Podcasts. Where at certain points during a podcast they could have a way to display a picture on "picture" supported audio players (ipod, iriver, etc). I thought it was an very very cool idea, I don't have a photo ipod or any of the others, but it would be a neat feature if i had one.

  • Or... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kenja ( 541830 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:25PM (#10791452)
    Or you could just buy somthing that can play both video and audio. Like a PDA or one of the many portable media centers on the market. This is like saying that your printer can play movies if you print out each frame and then flip through them.
    • If my Dell Axim had 40GB storage, that's be a great solution... as it is, I can stream video down to my PDA from my wireless connection. Not a bad solution if you've got the infrastructure. If you're trying to watch a video on the subway, you're kind of SOL.

      • Re:Or... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        If you're trying to watch a video on the subway, you're kind of SOL.

        You go around flashing expensive toys on the subway you might find yourself SOL anyway.
      • "If you're trying to watch a video on the subway, you're kind of SOL."

        Other then the problem of telling everyone on the subway that you have too much free money, I dont find this to be a problem. You can fit a LOT of video in 512MB-4GB of storage (which can be gotten for cheap these days).

        • Re:Or... (Score:3, Informative)

          by lukewarmfusion ( 726141 )
          My Axim has a CF slot (which I'm using for wireless right now) and a SD.

          1 GB of either of these formats will run you about $100. Compared to a 40GB drive at the iPod price, that's terrible.

          Of course, 1 GB of video is probably plenty when the screen is 320 x 240. The one I got came with something like 32 MB.

          • Re:Or... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Kenja ( 541830 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:52PM (#10791734)
            "1 GB of either of these formats will run you about $100."

            No it will run you about 60$.

            "Compared to a 40GB drive at the iPod price, that's terrible."

            Yea, but see your Axim can play video while your iPod cant (despite what this FA claims). An iPod is also cheaper then a new car, but it works better for some things.

            • I got my number from the first thing I could find in Pricewatch (which has a terrible new design).

              I'll have to look around for a nice cheap storage card (at $60, that's not bad).
          • I bought a 5GB Kingston Datapak (PCMCIA hard drive) off of ebay for $100...
      • you don't need 40G of storage though. Re-encode the movie to a bit-rate that's more acceptable for the PDA format and you can get a 700M divx down to ~ 150 / 160M. 1G of SD or CF is cheap as chips these days.
      • Seagate 5GB CF hard disk, about $250.
        That should be enough for a couple of commutes on the subway before you'll want to load something new on it.

    • Printer hack (Score:5, Funny)

      by TWX ( 665546 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @05:11PM (#10791942)
      "This is like saying that your printer can play movies if you print out each frame and then flip through them.

      Get a Hewlett Packard Color LaserJet 4650DN (duplex for double-sided printing) and plug it into three-phase power and it'll print fast enough to do this...

      Of course, you won't be able to hear the soundtrack over the whine of rollers and gears burning themselves up...

  • Ugh... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chagatai ( 524580 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:25PM (#10791453) Homepage
    That is one ugly, ugly brute force hack, if I have ever seen one. It's so ugly it hurt my feelings.

    • Re:Ugh... (Score:5, Funny)

      by identity0 ( 77976 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:42PM (#10791637) Journal
      Look at the bright side. Now instead of looking fashonable with their white earphones, we'll get to see ipod-people looking ridiculous as they scroll furiously to keep their video in sync with the sound while walking down the street.

      It'll be beautiful, I tell you, especially if they walk into a lamp post while doing it.
    • Wow, that's news to me.

      When did you start having feelings?

      : D

    • In related news: (Score:5, Funny)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @05:45PM (#10792339) Journal
      It is possible to play movies using a book. Simple use Quicktime Pro to export the movie as thousands of individual frames, print each one, bind them together and flick through them really fast. Audio can be obtained by copying the soundtrack onto a cassette tape and listening to it with your walkman.

  • oops (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:26PM (#10791479)
    Did we just slashdot his iPod?

  • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dominatus ( 796241 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:26PM (#10791485)
    Scientists built a car today that doesn't require any fuel at all!!

    All you do is put the car in neutral, grab a buddy and stand behind the car. Then, placing your hands on the rear bumper...push. Scientists believe it's such a simple process we may all be getting around in these miracle cars any day now!

    • Re:In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

      by rrkap ( 634128 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @05:18PM (#10792043) Homepage

      Scientists built a car today that doesn't require any fuel at all!!

      All you do is put the car in neutral, grab a buddy and stand behind the car. Then, placing your hands on the rear bumper...push. Scientists believe it's such a simple process we may all be getting around in these miracle cars any day now!/

      There is, however, considerable debate among scientists weather this cooperative mode of operation is superior to the single operator mode in which the user places his feet through a hole in the floor and runs really fast that has been proposed by F. Flintstone and B. Rubble

      No, I can't spell

    • Additional benefits of this revolutionary approach to personal transportation include:

      Cleaner air, due to the vast reduction in fossil fuel use presented by these new vehicles.

      Unlike conventional automobiles, these actually increase the fitness level of the operator.

      Also unlike conventional autos, these cars foster the growth of community, as achieving reasonable velocities involves having several helpers to power the vehicle.

      There's no downside, really. Except for the hills...

  • Great Idea! (Score:5, Funny)

    by maeka ( 518272 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:27PM (#10791488) Journal
    Not having enough cash for an Ipod - I'm going to use this idea with my 35mm slide projector.

  • Time to upgrade? (Score:4, Funny)

    by fembots ( 753724 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:27PM (#10791493) Homepage
    Are all these "innovations" a sign that iPod is in need of a breakthrough? There are more portable players out there with more functions, and I wonder how long will Apple fans stick to it?

    For example, the new Creative's Zen Micro [creative.com] has FM, is someone going to pre-record some radio talk shows and put it into iPod pretending that it's doing radio too?
    • No, they'll use the microphone attachment and act like *they're* the radio station.

    • Re:Time to upgrade? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by baudilus ( 665036 )
      You can't be serious. I have an iPod, and yes, while FM is a great option - I use the iPod in my car. That's neither here nor there, since there are people that walk around outside with their music players as well... but that thing is even uglier than this iPod "video" hack. It's obviously an iPod look-alike - the blue backlight, the shape, the "touch" pad, the wired remote. Even in the description!

      There's no need to go round in circles with the ZEN MICRO's intuitive Vertical Touch Pad.

      An obvious s

  • Well.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by $0 31337 ( 225572 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:27PM (#10791494) Homepage
    Sound impossible?

    No, Just stupid.

    • Re:Well.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:30PM (#10791527)
      It highly depends. Can you hold the Ipod with one hand and scroll the wheel well? For, uhh.. never mind.
    • I, for one, am glad that we do not let what's useful determine what we actually try to accomplish. Perhaps if we could harness all the wasted energy that goes into stuff like this we could solve that power production problem recently discussed here.
    • Is this even real? I've just watched the video and the movie playback speed looks very constant. The person's finger movement ... doesn't. The iPod is also held very still and so it would have been very easy for them to have added the video clip on afterwards.

  • That's pretty retarded right there (Score:5, Informative)

    by poot_rootbeer ( 188613 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:28PM (#10791502)

    Geesh. Why not just print all the frames out onto paper and make a flipbook?

    If you want a video player in an iPod's form factor, either sit tight for 2 years until a honest-to-goodness Video iPod to come out, or buy a Gmini 200 [archos.com] (Flash page).

    I chose the latter and haven't looked back.

  • Video in Action (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:28PM (#10791506)
    Here's a video (in mov or wmv) of the Episode III trailer in action...

    ...which can be played on an iPod, which someone can make a movie of... which can be played on another iPod, which...

  • I used to have a paperback book that could... (Score:5, Funny)

    by SkyMunky ( 249995 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:28PM (#10791507)
    play movies too.
    I had to flip the pages and hum the soundtrack, but the hand-drawn stick figure animations were outstanding.

  • In other news... (Score:5, Funny)

    by dr00g911 ( 531736 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:30PM (#10791531)
    I've determined a hack to make my original 20 gig iPod play holographic content in surround sound with no additional hardware needed!

    Four hits of acid and stare really hard. Much more elegant (by orders of magnitude) and less of a brute force approach than TFA.

  • Why no videa on the new iPod? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 3770 ( 560838 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:31PM (#10791537) Homepage

    What is more likely?

    1) The new color iPod does not have video because the hardware can't support it.
    2) Apple does not have a way to sell movies and videos on iTunes.
    • I expect a itunes movie store to come out the same day the rom update with the video player ocmes out. The fact that it has av out makes this one killer app. Consider carryign around your movie collection or TV show collection like we carry around mp3s now. Either watch it on a tiny screen or plug it into somethign with AV in. Oh and expect to be able to get your favorite tV shows off a store. :)
    • Close to the second - not only is there no store, but there's no way to legally get content (for the most part), period. I suspect that an iMac with a TV tuner, the iTunes (or quicktime) movie store, the video iPod, and Airport Express for video will all hit at around the same time. What a glorious day/month/year that will be...

    • Steve Jobs has critized portable video players. (Score:4, Informative)

      by joelhayhurst ( 655022 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @05:41PM (#10792292)

      Watch the Apple Special Event [apple.com] video from Oct 2004. Skip ahead to about 12:35 in the video. Jobs says, in a humorous fashion, that he believes the competition is making a mistake with video on portable players, and lists reasons he believes they are impractical.

      The arguments he makes are:

      • Competing video players are too heavy and cumbersome.
      • Users don't have video content.
      • The screens are too small.

      I think it's safe to say there won't be a video iPod.

      • Steve Jobs has also said that he doesn't feel that video can be distributed online in the same way as music currently, because it would lack the instant gratification that you get with music. I'm not convinced. I would like to be able to buy movies through iTMS, download them and either watch them on the computer or burn them to DVD. I'm not sure being able to put them on an iPod would be useful. I certainly wouldn't want to watch them on something that small (unless it came with a miniature projector t

      • Hey, it's not Steve's fault that he's living five years in the past.

        But he's pretty much right about the screen size... at least on his OWN product. Everyone else's video player screens are a good size.

      • Re:Steve Jobs has critized portable video players. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by poot_rootbeer ( 188613 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @07:06PM (#10793237)
        Competing video players are too heavy and cumbersome.

        My Archos Gmini 400 is no larger or heavier than an iPod. And it was released 2 months prior to Jobs' statements.

        Users don't have video content.

        Sure I do! The challenge, and I will admit there's really no user-friendly way of doing this yet, is figuring out which files will play on it as is--that is, MPEG4-SP video AVI files (eg, DivX or XviD w/o bidi filtering), no more than 640x400 resolution, no more than 30fps, with IMA-ADPCM or MP3 CBR soundtrack--and figuring out how to convert other content to meet those specs (if possible).

        The screens are too small.

        Irrelevant. This is a PERSONAL video player.

        I can hold the 2.2" screen a foot away from my eyes, and it takes up the same amount of my viewing area as a 30" television across the room. Uses a whole lot electricity that way, too.

        Jobs would be smart not to put a Video iPod on the market NOW, but he would be foolish to NEVER put one out.
      • I think it's safe to say there won't be a video iPod.

        I disagree... to support my position, you need only look at the prevalence of handheld TVs.

        Oh, wait...

    • The chip which the iPod photo (and the 4G iPod) uses, the PP5020 (aka personal media player: photo edition) can play MJPEG video. MJPEG is basically a series of JPEG images though, so it's not far off what these clever folks have done. MJPEG playback could certainly be added in a firmware upgrade. Apple is probably waiting for new versions of the PortalPlayer chip that have real compressed video support before it sells an iPod billed as a video player. http://www.portalplayer.com/products/platforms_me d

  • Or... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DaveCBio ( 659840 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:32PM (#10791542)
    You could just buy a portable video player that does everything the iPod does and more for about the same price.

  • Apple losing direction (Score:4, Insightful)

    by xThinkx ( 680615 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:34PM (#10791566) Homepage

    Mod me as a troll of you wish, but I'm not trolling.

    I think the fact that so soon after the new ipod comes out people are brute forcing it to play movies is a demonstration that Apple may be losing its direction in innovation

    I'm an avid digital photographer, and in almost all of the photo boards I hang out on, the opinion of the photo ipod was generally disappointing. How hard would it have been to put a freakin CF card reader in it? How hard would it have been to enable movie playback in at least ONE format?

    The ipod was helped in its jump to the top by the fact that it was innovative, so much so that people were willing to ignore its high price tag. Apple missed two big opportunities on this one; movie playback AND easy storage transfer from camera media.

    I'm not buying a photo ipod now, but I would've in a second if it had those two features. Apple, I hope this is an isolated incident.
    • The ipod was helped in its jump to the top by the fact that it was innovative, so much so that people were willing to ignore its high price tag. Apple missed two big opportunities on this one; movie playback AND easy storage transfer from camera media.

      No, the iPod was helped to jump to the top by marketing. There were other products that were similiar, first. Kind of how Tivo dwarfed ReplayTV, who had a better product (from what I've read). Replay is way more innovative, but Tivo won. The iPod case and
      • Umm I don't think replay was much more innovative. Replay had better quality recordings, but Tivo had the interface that could not be beat. In the end ease of use won in the ends.

        It works the same way here, other mp3 players have more features better quality sound and what ever, but Apple has the interface.

    • Re:Apple losing direction (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Thursday November 11, 2004 @05:05PM (#10791879) Homepage
      The ipod was helped in its jump to the top by the fact that it was innovative

      Nope. The iPod made its way to the top by being *simple*. No useless features. No features that *sort-of* work. No features that make the thing a pain-in-the-butt to deal with. It did 1 thing and did that 1 thing well, simply, and trouble-free. Now it does a couple things well, simply, and trouble-free.

      This isn't because Apple can't figure out how to do these things-- you just won't see it in a commercially available product until Apple feels it has it all worked out into a simple interface. And when I say simple, I mean like the scroll-wheel design for the interface, or the fact that there's only 1 in/out port (the dock connector). Apple likes their designs to be fool-proof.

      PS- You can transfer images from a digital camera, but you need an accessory.

    • it would be a correct mod, you are trolling.

      look, you want a card reader? fine [apple.com], there it is. but to make it built in would be ludicrous. if they did put one in, it would probably not be the card of your preference, so adding even more slots would increase the bulk (and price) on the ipod. secondly, it's a (repeat after me) MUSIC PLAYER. yes, it can be used as a portable hard drive, but that's a niche market compared to its overall first use, bringing music to your ears.

      as for movies, nobody wants to wal

    • Re:Apple losing direction (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EricHsu ( 578881 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @05:16PM (#10792014)
      You're not a troll, but I do disagree with you. 1. The iPod didn't sell because of innovative features. It sold because of innovative interface and style (and herd-like fashion momentum). When it came out /. was crapping itself to talk about how stupid the device was because of... low features! Some things never change. 2. Jobs has said many people play music hundreds of times, and only few people play movies repeatedly. The fact that one guy did a 'cause it was there' kind of movie hack on the iPod does not make a market. Maybe as digital video gets easier (got to love those flash-card mini-camcorders, too bad about the shooting quality), the market will grow. 3. It costs money to squeeze features on. It's already expensive as it is. 4. If Apple 'missed' the opportunities, then who is taking advantage of it? Is anyone making money off of a portable mini movie player? I'm not convinced a market exists. My own consumer opinion is I'm not going to get a photo iPod, but I can see the market, especially for the output-to-TV features.
    • I agree with you, but for a totally different reason. Yes, I hate when spiels start that way, too.

      When Apple made the iPod, it was genius. This is especially true with what's it done with the later generations. The iPod is this incredibly simple and useful tool, and nothing has really changed. This is great. Apple made the iPod not about the iPod, but about the music. My roommates have a 2G and a 3G ipod, and I have a 4G. There's no jealousy over whose is better, because they are exactly the same th
    • just because someone kluged some function doesn't mean such function is in demand... in the same vain, would you recommend that microsoft start selling xbox with linux on it?

    • Re:Apple losing direction (Score:4, Insightful)

      by switcha ( 551514 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @05:34PM (#10792223)
      How hard would it have been to put a freakin CF card reader in it? How hard would it have been to enable movie playback in at least ONE format?

      I've got a pretty decent camera. It doesn't use CF. How many readers you gonna pack in and keep the form factor desirable?

      As for video, if you've got a battery fashioned out of pixie dust and dreams that can power video for a reasonable amount of time (and keep the form factor down), I'm sure Apple would love to hear from you.

      Everybody wants, wants, wants. "Won't but one until it has _____!". There are other options or devices out there (including waiting for technology to catch up). Criticizing people or companies who owe you nothing is such a habit of this board, that I don't think a lot of people step back to look at how absurd it is when they get bent out of shape because _____ isn't catering to their specific checklist of desires.

      And to your point, if the fact people are doing it means that 'demand' demands it, then Apple must be way behind on adding LEDs and neon ground effects shit to their cases. Or adding wheels to the bottom. Or adding rubber cases to the iPod. Or...

    • I bought the 60GB version, but the photo thing was sorta a "nice-to-have" for this boy. The really cool things about it were: (A) Upgraded color screen, better fonts for the interface. (B) 60 gigs'o'music. (C) 15 hrs battery life. (D) 60 gigs'o'music.

      I'm not sure about the battery life, but it just died as I was typing this, and my last recharge was Monday evening. S'good enough for me.

      As for the photo functionality, it's cool, but let's face it, these pics are about the size of the one on my driver's lic

  • ack (Score:5, Funny)

    by krunchyfrog ( 786414 ) <krunchyfrog@@@videotron...ca> on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:36PM (#10791592)
    How the hell can you scroll a porn movie, hold a kleenex and rub the lamp at the same time?

  • What's the point of being able to play video? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by arhar ( 773548 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:41PM (#10791625)
    Am I the only one who does not need this feature? I listen to my iPod when I'm on the train, when I'm walking somewhere, or when I'm working out.. all of these activities require using your eyes, so watching video is out of the question. Am in the minority here?

  • joke of the day (Score:3, Insightful)

    by l3v1 ( 787564 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:42PM (#10791633)
    This sounded so really ridiculous, I had to read it again. Then, it seemed even more so :) I laughed so loud I hope the neighbors didn't think I went nuts :D

    So really, this is something a regular sane fellas would do with their iPods :D Oh, come on :)

    You even can grab a dead cat and pull it with a piece of rope, but it won't run, even if you mew in the process :D

  • GBA (Score:3, Informative)

    by KillaKen187 ( 794540 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:48PM (#10791687) Homepage
    The Gameboy Advance SP can play movies too. [movieadvance.com] No need to convert the files either. Just put on CF and go. :) My brother has one and it was pretty cool until he updated the firmware and broke it... bummer.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Surely it would be possible to use a few bytes of the image to save the offset within the sound file that should be played?

  • Alt links (Score:5, Informative)

    by BostonRob ( 779771 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:54PM (#10791754) Journal
    Google Cache w/o photos: Google Link [64.233.167.104]

    Mirrordot.org also has a copy available:Mirrordot.org [mirrordot.org]
  • The video links show a compressed video of an iPod playing a manually iterated frame-sequence of a compressed video?

    Now there's some resolution the industry can really get behind. Kwality with a K, baby!

  • The next hack... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JediTrainer ( 314273 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:57PM (#10791798)
    Now I'm waiting for someone to visit Radio Shack, buy one of those little motors and hook that up to the scroll. Play with resistors to get it to the right speed.

    Bonus points if you can pull juice right from the iPod's battery...

  • OUCH! (Score:4, Funny)

    by bennomatic ( 691188 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @04:58PM (#10791805) Homepage
    Can someone say "Carpal Tunnel Syndrom"? That's begging for a repetetive stress injury, if you ask me!

  • Flick through static pictures, why of all the... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Trogre ( 513942 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @05:03PM (#10791864) Homepage
    I think I'll stick with my zaurus, thanks.

  • THIS is something I can get into. I like my movies with a side of RMS.
  • you can use the original iPod to have conversation by putting thousands of mp3's of voice recorded words and scrolling quickly one from another to piece a coherent sentence?

  • This just in! (Score:2, Funny)

    by 1019 ( 262204 )
    Fantastic new invention found!
    Still images placed on a reel and handcranked through light and synched with a nearby phonograph result in what is being called a "motion picture".

    For this breaking story and more, stay tuned to our radio broadcast!
  • Keep cranking, guys! You can keep up with the load! Go, go, go!!!

    I saw this video a couple days ago. It is funny. THe guy speeds up and slows down a little, and doesn't keep it 'perfectly' in sync, but it's pretty good. (If the click sound were off, and they had it zoomed so you could only see the screen, not the guy frantically scrolling; I would have thought they had actually figured out how to play video on it.)

    So, how long until some company makes a 'scroller' device that automatically scrolls at

  • Wow (Score:2, Funny)

    by Powercntrl ( 458442 )
    Jerky low-res video, out of sync audio, why, it's a perfect pocket-size recreation of XingMPEG on my 486 laptop!

    Course, there's probably some old geezer who thinks us youngins have it real good cause in his day he had to crank the projecter by hand. Oh, wait...

  • " According to the article, you use Quicktime Pro to export the movie as thousands of individual frames which you export to the iPod, send the soundtrack to the iPod as well, then, if you haven't guessed by now, while playing the soundtrack, put the iPod into slideshow mode and use the scroll wheel to manually keep the frames in synch with the sound. "

    Man... imagine porn becoming a workout.

  • iRiver H3xx (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The US iRiver H320 and H340 models can playback XVID if you flash them with the recently release v1.20 Korean FW (iRiver is a Korean company). Don't worry, all the menus will still be in English. The video does need to be down-converted to the proper resolution and framerate before playback, but it is a trivial process that can be automated using VirtualDub or any other number of programs. At $300, the H320 is by far the most versatile DAP on the market, imo.

  • Remember Police Academy? [imdb.com] Now you can dub martial arts movies yourself, in the privacy of your own home...

  • pr0n? (Score:2)

    by attam ( 806532 )
    am i the only one who sees how FUCKING HARD it would be to watch porn AND _uhhh_ *enjoy* said porn, in this manner? ;)

    *ducks*
  • A $500 flipbook!

  • even for a computer!

    no its not... I used to manually synch slide shows with music on my TI-85 back home... and its not much bigger than an iPod.

  • Another chance for Apple to make me want an iPod.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Silverlancer ( 786390 ) on Thursday November 11, 2004 @06:49PM (#10793024)
    To start with, for you apple-crazed mods, this isn't a troll.

    iPods are nice. Now when I bought my mp3 player a year ago, I got a 20GB Lyra for $180. Since the cheapest iPod was $400, it was definitely worth it. Plus the Lyra didn't have the battery problems the first-gen iPods did, and it had considerably longer battery life.

    Well now iPods are lots cheaper. And they have somewhat better battery life, no dying batteries, and hold more. But if I wanted a new mp3 player today, I still wouldn't get an iPod. Because for the price of an iPod, I can get:

    1. A Creative Zen Touch 20GB, has a touch scroll similar to the iPod's and has 60-80% more battery life. Plus I save $90. And it looks cool like the iPod.

    2. A video player--larger than the Zen or the iPod, but plays both music, video, and all that.

    Now if the iPod, at $300, had number two in there... lets just say it might find its way into my budget :). Basically, Apple needs to solve this "there are better mp3 players for less" problem. They're not going to cut prices (see the fact that their computers cost twice that of an equivalent PC--I simply can't afford a decent G5), so they might as well make what they're already selling better.

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