If you own one of those snazzy new iPods with video capability and you're looking for some new content to put on it, this one's for you. I spent the past few days working on a new encoding of Forcery that's optimized for play on the iPod. My goal was to have a version that's not only tailor-made for the iPod but also have the same average specs as the new episodes of Lost and other shows that are being sold through iTunes. I don't own an iPod with which to test this but at 320x180 resolution with a 16:9 aspect ratio, compressed with MPEG-4 encoding, this should work just fine. Wish I did have an iPod to put this on though: it'd be pretty cool to carry my own movie around to show to people. But I'm holding out for a few years at least, hoping that Apple will eventually make a version with owner-replaceable batteries 'cuz having it built-in and irreplaceable sucks. 'Sides, right now I'm perfectly happy with my Dell Pocket DJ: a VERY nice MP3 player (with better battery life than the iPod according to many sources). This was really an experiment for my own sake for the most part: just me playing around with MP4 encoding and such. But anyway, if you want some free watchin' on your iPod without having to make it yourself and you don't mind that being almost an hour long this'll probably deplete half of your player's full battery charge, and you still haven't watched our little parody of Stephen King's Misery about George Lucas and an obsessed Star Wars fan, here you go:Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Forcery on iPod
If you own one of those snazzy new iPods with video capability and you're looking for some new content to put on it, this one's for you. I spent the past few days working on a new encoding of Forcery that's optimized for play on the iPod. My goal was to have a version that's not only tailor-made for the iPod but also have the same average specs as the new episodes of Lost and other shows that are being sold through iTunes. I don't own an iPod with which to test this but at 320x180 resolution with a 16:9 aspect ratio, compressed with MPEG-4 encoding, this should work just fine. Wish I did have an iPod to put this on though: it'd be pretty cool to carry my own movie around to show to people. But I'm holding out for a few years at least, hoping that Apple will eventually make a version with owner-replaceable batteries 'cuz having it built-in and irreplaceable sucks. 'Sides, right now I'm perfectly happy with my Dell Pocket DJ: a VERY nice MP3 player (with better battery life than the iPod according to many sources). This was really an experiment for my own sake for the most part: just me playing around with MP4 encoding and such. But anyway, if you want some free watchin' on your iPod without having to make it yourself and you don't mind that being almost an hour long this'll probably deplete half of your player's full battery charge, and you still haven't watched our little parody of Stephen King's Misery about George Lucas and an obsessed Star Wars fan, here you go:
2 comments:
Irreplaceable batteries ?
Just a manufacturer’s ruse to impel you to buy another battery operated
article at expense no doubt when the present one has ‘died’.
If the warranty has expired there’s no reason why you can’t don your recyclers cap
(if you’re against belonging to a trash piling society) and tinker, unscrew, saw, carefully cut into the item, delicate as it may be, locate the battery nest and replace them in your ‘irreplaceable battery item’.
OK, the finished article may require taping up because there were no screw fixtures –
But, it’ll work!
Wont it?
Oh, I see the way it looks afterwards –
And, yes, what other people might think seeing you operate your taped-up
now ‘replaceable battery thingy’.
Ermmm - Got me there!
Erratum:
I was amazed awhile back watching a tv docu about tires puncturing on vehicles with no spares available on route through ‘inhospitable eastern terrains’. Yet locals so adept at ‘make-do- and- mend’ came to the rescue with a red hot poker and with a deft push and poke into the tire sealed it in a jiffy sufficiently enabling the intrepid western sojourners journey time to make to a garage more sufficient for their vehicle and the westerners presumptive wellbeing.
There are some do-it-yourself kits you can buy that lets you replace the battery. They usually include special tools that let you open up what is otherwise the seamless cover on the iPod, remove the original battery and put a new one in its place. Some outfits will even replace the battery for you. BUT this definitely voids the warranty and a lot of the batteries have a somewhat less lifetime than the battery that Apple initially installed.
I don't see why they can't keep the small, thin profile of the iPod and still give it a replaceable battery, like those for cell phones. It *doesn't* (and wouldn't work anyway) have to be something bulky like AA batteries.
If Apple did make iPod with a replaceable battery feature, they would stand to make even more money with that than how the iPod is set up now. I mean, it would be VERY convenient to a lot of people to have an extra battery to slap in when one runs out, and they'd likely pay a reasonable amount for a spare or two to keep handy.
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