More on iPods and iMacs and Video, Oh My!

Soon Ticketmaster is going to want in on Apple media events. In between playing video clips of songs from Eminem, U2, and the Black Eyed Peas--not to mention a live performance by Wynton Marsalis--a playful Steve Jobs showed off new iMac G5s, iTunes 6, and the fabled video iPod, which plays TV shows too.

The new 17-inch and 20-inch iMacs come with built-in iSight video cameras and a bundled remote control. (The $1299 17-inch model and the $1699 20-inch model will ship next week.) Here's a photo:



Plus, these PCs come preinstalled with two Apple apps: Front Row and Photo Booth. Front Row lets you use the small included remote to control music, video, and DVDs on the iMac. At this morning's event in San Jose, Steve Jobs had way too much fun demo-ing Photo Booth, which lets you take pictures of yourself and apply funny (and serious) photo effects.

The new iMac isn't a Media PC killer just yet as it doesn't come with a built-in TV tuner. But as Van Baker, VP of Media at Gartner Industry Advisory Services, said about Apple: "If they're successful at getting the content, they're in a position to bring all kinds of new products to the market." So, I guess stay tuned.

In other news, yes, the video iPod is here, although Steve Jobs cleverly spun it as the new white iPod with "video as a bonus." Here's why: the iPod only supports H.264 or MPEG 4-encoded video, which you can either purchase from iTunes 6 (more on that later) or convert to using QuickTime Pro. Black is back (they also come in white):



That said, video looked crisp and bright on the 2.5-inch, 320-by-240-pixel screen. The $299 30GB and $399 60GB iPods also ship next week. Jobs says the 60GB iPod has two drive platters. The new video iPods replace all previous iterations, so buh-bye iPod Photo.

Oh, and if you're dreading the next barrage of silhouette iPod ads, the new one features Eminem and interesting orange-y special effects. It's pretty cool. There's a link to the ad here.

More interesting (to me) than the video iPod itself are the kinds of videos that the iPod can play. You can purchase not only $1.99 music videos through iTunes but also $1.99 TV show segments. Right now Apple has kissed and made up with Disney to bring you five ABC and Disney TV shows. The starring shows are "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" (my favorite) . The others are "Night Stalker", and Disney's "That's So Raven" and "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody."

Of course, there are some severe copyright restrictions on the FairPlay-protected video and TV files. (FairPlay is Apple's digital rights management system.)

First, you can't burn them to CD or DVD. You can watch them on the iPod or iTunes 6. That's it. Next, you only get a 320-by-240-pixel resolution video. It looks great on the iPod, but stretched to fill a 17-inch iMac, it looked fuzzy and pixilated. While that's not an official copyright scheme, Baker calls it "an extra safeguard."

But what about all your other videos? Right now, you'll have to figure out a way to encode them to H.264 or MPEG4 first before being able to view them on the iPod. How to do this isn't clear just yet. Using Apple's free QuickTime 7.0.3--which came out today--is one option.

Got an opinion on Apple's big day? Think I drank the Kool-Aid? Chime in here.