Because the H.264 encoding takes more time than the MPEG4 but requires less space. All of my previous mp4 files have been deleted and are gonna be replaced by these 640×480 H.264 videos.

In any case, all of this means that it is extremely impressive that the iPod – small as it is – can play this kind of video – and at 30fps too. It is, though, expected that the battery life is (comparatively) poor, because it requires so much horsepower to decode the files.

This is, of course, one of the reasons that the videos available through the iTMS are only 320×240 – much more (especially the HD-quality video for which you yearn) would require, say, a VCR-sized box to decode. Whilst not heavy, VCR-sized boxes are not, I think, what people have in mind vis-à-vis portability. You could fit a really big screen in one though.

And as others have noted, the other issue is download size. If you want 1080i, fine, but be prepared to wait a day for that episode of Lost to download, and to suitably compensate Apple for the bandwidth used in supplying it to you. For, say, a 5Gb download, that’s quite a bit of money.

Finally, and perhaps most obviously, what did you expect for $1.99?

The high CPU usage has almost certainly nothing to do with DRM. H.264 is simply a very CPU-intensive codec; for example, have you tried watching any of Apple’s HD trailers on that 1gHz machine? I’d wager they won’t even run smoothly at all, certainly not at the highest resolutions.

That’s another reason for the low resolutions, by the way: there’s no way the iPod could handle much more than 320×240, and even as it is the battery life while doing so is pretty atrocious. I do agree that Apple should provide higher-resolution video downloads for those who want them, but I have to assume that’s coming soon.

1 – I’m not disputing that it looks good at it’s native res. My complaint is that I don’t intend to have a video iPod (at least not in the near future) but may wish to view these on my powerbook. Watching a 320×240 tv show on my 17″ powerbook isn’t great fun. That was my beef.
I think it’d be nice if the video section of the music store were aimed at everyone, not just video ipod owners. But I understand there are limitations, and whatnot. As Mort Blort said – Myabe offering a higher res for $1 more may be a viable option…

2 – you’re right. Again, I was thinking of all of us who may not want to watch purchased videos on an iPod, but on a computer.

3 – I guess that could be true – but if you’re buying it, and a chunk goes to Disney anyway, give the people what they want/pay for, right?

I’m sure many hurdles remain, and a lot of growing is still to happen. It’ll be interesting to watch this next step in media distrib ution evolve.

I guess I missed where I indicated that I felt I was being picked on. I was wrong. I accepted that, and am appreciative of those who offered USEFUL comments with information to correct my incorrect statements.

I suppose I should retitle and re-edit the story to reflect the true drive behind it – I was dissapointed in the result when I tried it out for myself. It did not live up to the expectations I had. I’ve had some excellent experiences with H.264 compressed video, and have witnessed some others. This was clearly not one of those.

Thanks to all for the educational comments where I was wrong. Anyone can point out a mistake. Those who actually have the knowledge to correct and teach are appreciated…

H.264 has nothing to do with HD. It’s just a compression algorithm, like any other. It’s good enough to make HD manageable for the first time, but there is nothing specifically HD about it.

So congratulations for writing an article that is all up in arms about not including something that you don’t understand.

Also, there is no such thing as a visual image that scales without quality loss. More detailed images experience less loss. That is all.

Video capacity is based on 4 minutes per H.264 750-Kbps video combined with 128-Kbps audio.

I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that it didn’t do h.264, since that codec requires a lot of horsepower to decode. I do think they should think about allowing a twin download, say for $2.99, of the 320×240 video as well as a 640×480 version for computer-screen playback.

Thanks for the education Neo. I suppose I lost my head a bit….and mixed up my terms (2 things that drive me nuts when others do). thanks for calling me out there.

1 thing that DOES seem ridiculous (I’m breathing evenly here) is that whether playing the downloaded video – in 320 x 240 format even – within iTunes (or just in QuickTime), my 1ghz G4 processor gets a hefty 50% draw off of it for the duration of the purchased video.
I suspect it’s something to do with the DRM, but MAN! taxing my system like that just to watch a simple movie? pretty lame. I wonder if it heats the new iPods up while watching a 45 minute show…?