[geeks] iPad - NOT a 'Miss' for me I'm afraid

[Michael Parson]

On Jan 31, 2010, at Jan 31, 2010 11:12 AM, gsm at mendelson.com wrote:

> On Sun, Jan 31, 2010 at 10:24:36AM -0600, Michael Parson wrote:
>
>> Their claim is that it can play full HD video.  The screen on it can
>> 'only' display up to 720p, but there is a VGA out cable available for
>> it.  Given that it uses the same connector as every other iPod out
>> there, it might even be able to make use of the component video-out
>> cable that you can get.  It would be ridiculous for them to sell a
>> device that can't even play the videos they sell/rent off the ITMS.
>
> Why? They would just downgrade the ones on the ITMS or have special  
> for iPad videos. After all the full HD videos won't play on a iPod  
> touch or an iPhone.

Won't play at all? or you just won't be seeing all the pixels?  I've  
never rented HD video from ITMS, the one and only time I rented  
anything from there was a SD video, and my iPod Classic played it  
fine.  All of the other video on it is either ripped DVDs or stuff I  
pulled off my TiVo and converted to mp4 myself.  Apple does sell  
component video cables for the Classic and iPod Touch/iPhone, which  
makes me think that they are probably capable of decoding at least  
something approaching HD, though I would accept that they probably  
don't do 1080p, which is not, as I understand it, part of the HD  
'standard' as defined by whomever defines that sort of thing.

> There is also a question of what is HD video. 1080i is not the same as
> 1080p. There also is a question of bitrate/frame rate. What amounts to
> 15 or even 12 FPS is quite watchable for normal videos, especialy on  
> a tablet held at arm's length, but it won't do for fast motion video.

 From their website:

TV and video
	.  Support for 1024 by 768 pixels with Dock Connector to VGA Adapter;  
576p and 480p with Apple Component AV Cable; 576i and 480i with Apple  
Composite Cable
	.  H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level  
3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio  
in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps,  
640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC  
audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file  
formats

720p is technically 'HD'

> We still don't know what's on the chip anyway. It could have a  
> direct to
> video memory h.264 decoder which will make up for what the CPU lacks.
> That may also be the reason why there is no flash decoder, if you  
> have to decode video via the CPU, it can't even get up to 320p.
> Bear in mind that flash is a container and can contain video streams
> encoded with many different video codecs. Apple can only do a few.  
> There does not seem to be many codecs out there that one really  
> needs to
> support, MPEG-1 is obosolete, MPEG-2 is standard for DVD's, and  
> older digital TV. MPEG-4 (and its H.264 variant) is the new Digitial  
> TV standard
> and is used for a lot of web videos.
> From what I understand the MPEG-4 encoders are different, but they  
> all can be
> decoded with the same decoding software. The results may not be 100%  
> perfect,
> but no one will notice.
>
>> Like I mentioned above, it will have a VGA out adopter available at
>> launch, they did specifically mention that you would be able to  
>> plug it
>> into projectors for running presentations.  It doesn't run  
>> PowerPoint,
>> but it will run Apple's presentation software, Keynote.
>
> Keynote will do fine if you display it on your iPad, but if you are  
> asked
> to leave the PowerPoint or show it on their equipment, you are out  
> of luck.
> PowerPoint is the defacto standard for a "pitch".

Sure, it's the 'standard', but personally, if I was leaving a copy  
behind, I would either leave a printed copy, or a PDF, something a  
little less editable.  Using their equipment, I would either plug into  
their projector, or be prepared, bringing the file in a format that I  
know they can deal with, either save out of Keynote in PowerPoint  
format, or PDF, which should be viewable on anything the customer  
would have.

>> I don't see myself getting on any time soon.  The biggest use I'd  
>> have
>> for one is to use as a portable movie player for my kiddo for long  
>> trips
>> in the car, but I can get a similar sized LCD screen with a built-in
>> DVD player and A/V inputs for much cheaper, which, when paired with  
>> the
>> iPod I've already got, gives me that functionality already.  Yes, I'm
>> skipping over all of the other features of the device, but none of  
>> those
>> features solve any problems that *I* have.
>>
>
> Last week Home Center (Israel) was selling a 7 inch widescreen DVD  
> player for 100. It had 3 USB ports, and could play MP4/H.264 video  
> files AND had a TV tuner. I assume that if they sell here for that,  
> Sam's club has them for $50.

And that is closer to what I would probably get for my needs.

>> I might take another look when it gets jailbroken and/or someone  
>> manages
>> to get another OS loaded on it.
>
> I'm sure there will be a Linux port for it, but it will not perform  
> well.
> Not only is the operating system tailored for the device, but the  
> feature
> set is limited to things it does well.

At that point, I would get it if I wanted the geek toy rather than  
something I would have a 'business' need for.  My MacBook Pro fills  
all my business needs much better than I see the iPad doing.

There are plenty of reasons to not like this device, I would rather  
just discuss the points we know about rather than bits we won't know  
until it actually hits the street and gets dissected.  There are bits  
we do know, at least as much as we can trust the marketing literature  
that Steve has made available to us.

-- 
Michael Parson
mparson at bl.org