News for Tuesday, 25 October 2005

Looks like Apple has supply problems with video iPods, at least in Europe (déja-vu!)
No single retailer has received any video iPod in Europe... and none will announce an availability date
Apple semble avoir des soucis à fournir des iPods vidéo pour le moment, en tous cas en Europe.
On the AppleStore, the delivery is given within 7 days, while it is only 3-5 days for the Nano.
If you have ordered -or better, received- your video iPod from one of the EU stores, please let us know.
In the US, everything seems fine right now (double déjà-vu!).
Add to this the glaring absence of 14" iBooks, and let's hope it will all have been solved before the xmas season.

As you probably have seen somewhere else, FrontRow has escaped from the new G5 iMac and is now frolicking shamelessly with PowerBooks and Mac Minis. You just need some geek magic and it will work fine... it still requires to bypass the IR sensor check, which makes it sort of illegal, or at least dodgy.
[moose: Actually, what makes it dodgy is using FrontRow on another machine than the one it shipped with....]
And since FrontRow accepts keyboard commands, you can configure Romeo or Salling Clicker to use your cellphone as a bluetooth remote (no need to aim at the iMac as with the IR remote).
Playing DVDs is not working perfectly, since you have to quit FrontRow for that, which leads us to think that the DVD Player shipping with the new iMac must be different than the Tiger one.
Does Apple plan to sell/give FrontRow as a standalone app? Not so sure, since the new PowerMacs and PowerBooks do not include it.

Stay tuned for Apple's backlash.

After the release of the iPod video, comes the problem of encoding video files for this new device.
The simplest and official way is to use QT Pro : starting with version 7.0.3 it will be possible to export your video file to iPod video format. It will also work with iMovie. But it is not free, you need to purchase a Pro license for QT.
So if you do not want to purchase QT Pro license, you have several solution to perform the same task :
Thanks to an AppleScript
A reader from MacOSXHints has simply written an AppleScript allowing you to encode into iPod video format any opened video in QT even though you do not own the QT Pro license. When it is done, the file will even be added to iTunes playlist, ready to be transferred to the iPod video during the next synchronization.
An Automator (10.4 required) is also available to perform the encoding via a right-click on the QuickTime file.
In both case, you need QuickTime 7.0.3 minimum.
Handbrake
Handbrake will allow you to perform that same job from a DVD source. Handbrake developers are working on a more integrated solution but it is already possible to make it running nicely if you follow the instructions : video MPEG-4/ audio AAC, 230 400 pixels with a maximal resolution of 640 in width.
The h.264 format generated by Handbrake does not work on the iPod video due to a profile (BASELINE for the iPod instead of MAIN for Handbrake).
If you want to recompile yourself Handbrake to remove this limitation and add a direct export function to the iPod, go to their forum.
You can also read their tutorial
ffmpegX
As with Handbrake, it will be possible to avoid QT and its slow encoding process, with another solution : ffmpegX. Even though it is a shareware, its power and usefulness are worth the price. You can use different video source types such as a .VOB (DVD) or a DivX. To encode into iPod video format, simply choose the settings assigned to the PSP.
There is also a subject of their forum.
This application will probably be updated in the coming weeks to allow a true iPod video export option.
There is of course many other ways to perform this encoding. In summary, every application able to generate a mpeg-4 or a h.264 BASELINE could produce an iPod video compatible file. One should simply respect resolution and bitrate (320kbps for audio, 768 Kbps for h.264 and 2.5 Mbps for MPEG-4), and the audio format must be AAC.
You can for example try with D-Vision, a software similar to ffmpegX, but with 2 advantages : it is free and developed by a French-speaking user.

Finally, Australian can enjoy their localized iTMS, more than 2 years after it was launched in the USA.


Albums are priced 16.99 $ (around 10.63 Euros) and a single track 1.69 $ (around 1.06 Euros).

As part of a Nokia developer evaluation program, I have been selected among 500 other people to test a future internet tablet named Nokia 770.
This device is not a mobile phone, but a new mobile device running on Linux. the first photo shows the welcome screen with the RSS feed Reader, the stream player and the favorite homepage of this device ;)

By pressing a single button on the device, you move to full screen mode :

The final version of this software will include a VoIP Spyke-like application. The hardware part of this new device is finalized, but the software part is still in beta test, and developers should track bugs down.

you will find here a video demonstrating the use of this new device(Mpeg4, 1.6 Mo, 49 sec). additional photos are available from Nokiawebsite.
Thanks to Laurent for this preview.