Along with CDBaby, TuneCore was and is one of the best ways for independent artists to get their music onto iTunes without going through the hassle of trying to score a full-on record deal with the thieves big record labels.
Now they’ve just announced that they’re doing the same for video. The setup works thusly: you send them your video and they encode / submit to iTunes for a fee based on the length of the video. After that, your video goes through the standard iTunes terms and conditions (Sorry, Paris H, you’ll be rejected, we think) before getting added. After that, the copyrights and the revenues from iTunes go straight to you.
Indie music, HD content, incredible distribution, now all we need is that whole DRM situation rectified, kay?
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We greeted the arrival of HD TV shows for iTunes with as much joy as we greeted the return of the previously nixed NBC content: with great joy.
Part of our joy was a secret hope that since the iPhone can (technically) handle HD content natively, it meant we might someday be able to play HD video direct from the iPhone — albeit through a dreamy-future-video-out capability since playing HD on the iPhone’s screen seems a little pointless. Sure, HD takes up radically more space, but hey, we like options.
Well Gizmodo [via] threw some cold water on all that by pointing out that the HD iTunes streams up might not be all that HD. The issue is roughly that not all HD is created equal — you need to check the resolution (720p or 1080i or whatnot), but you also need to give some thought to the bitrate. It’s basically a function of compression and, well, the more you compress the worse it’s going to look. So while iTunes is offering up HD content, that content is compressed into a size that’s reasonable for most people to download.
AppleInsider points out that Apple’s h.264 encoding is better than most at getting quality video into a compact package. Still, don’t expect your iTunes HD to look like BluRay.
One nice tidbit: When you download HD content from iTunes, it includes a Standard-Def version, which is what gets transferred to your iPhone. Apple probably took a look at the ‘options’ we mentioned we liked and figured we were better off with the SD on our portables. We tend to agree.
In the wake of new Apple stuff and the 2.1 update, it’s time to return our focus to what’s REALLY important — Apps at the App Store! If you’re at work, put the “back in 10 minutes” sticky note on your door (if you’re at home, you have no excuse) and have a look at this week’s App Avalanche 9!
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Last week Rene reported on the upcoming iTunes 8 release and how HD content may be included. According to a source over at Gizmodo, the iPhone handles full 1080p screen resolution “just fine”.
My guess is that if this does indeed turn out to be true, we will more than likely start seeing video clips in 720p right on the iPhone. I say 720p simply because that happens to be Apple TV’s native HD resolution. In my opinion, 1080p is a little too much. Actually it is complete overkill for such a small screen.
While this may sound great, there is a flip side to this coin. Processing power would be huge, which may have a negative effect on battery life. Also, if you think syncing apps takes a while now, just wait until you have to sync HD content.
We can only hope, if this is the route Apple is going to take, they have it perfected before we become their beta testers again.
Anyone remember the 2.0 firmware?
[Via Gizmodo]
It will be a big day tomorrow with Apple’s “Let’s Rock” event, and TiPb should be rockin’ as well. But for today, in the calm before the storm, it’s time to shake it up with App Avalanche 8!
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Trouble finding a certain app in the app store? Well, there is a new website out there called iPhonexe (mobile version can be found here) that gives everyone with a iPhone a alternative to using Apple’s official app store. While I personally have not checked for every single app currently in the app store, iPhonexe claims to include them all, broken down into categories ready for nice and easy browsing. Keep in mind that this does not bypass Apple’s app store completely. If you click “Buy Now” you are taken directly to the app in the app store to purchase it via iTunes.
But wait! I’ve saved the best feature (by far) for last: the ability to search Jailbroken apps! I know there are other sites out there that you can use to see what is available on that side of the iPhone world but none do it this nicely. It is worth a look for sure.
Hopefully it’s a long holiday weekend for at least a few of us, so what better to do for your Labor Day than kick it in the iTunes App Store? There are more apps piling up with each passing week. It’s time for iPhone App Avalanche 7!
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It’s time for App Avalanche 6! What’s new in the App Store? What’s Hot? Which apps are people paying their hard-earned dough for? What about all those Free apps? Which ones are at or near the top of the charts? For answers to these questions, keep reading for iPhone App Avalanche 6!
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Apple’s newly appointed vice president of Internet Services (iTunes, and now App Store and MobileMe), Eddy Cue wastes little time getting his name in the press (at least compared to how long it took Big Media and Apple to get the service in place!). Says Cue, via Apple PR:
“Movie fans in Australia and New Zealand can choose from a great selection of over 700 films for purchase and rent on the iTunes Store. iTunes provides an incredibly easy and fun way for people to discover and enjoy movies, and has quickly become the world’s most popular online movie store with customers renting and purchasing over 50,000 movies everyday.”
No word yet on whether these are 24 hour rentals like in the US, or 48 hours like in Canada and the UK, but presumably HD will remain Apple TV exclusive just like the existing regions. (And it’s not like Apple blessed us with a 720p display — or even 480p — in the iPhone 3G anyway… I’m just saying…)
Any Australians or New Zealanders out there eager to get their movie on? Let us know what you’re buying/renting first!
Om Malik says Apple is clueless about scaling MobileMe:
There is no-unified IT plan vis-a-vis applications; each has their own set of servers, IT practices and release scenarios. Developers do testing, load testing and infrastructure planning, all of which is implemented by someone else. There’s no unified monitoring system. They use Oracle on Sun servers for the databases and everything has its own SAN storage. They do not use active Oracle RAC; it is all single-instance, on one box, with a secondary failover. Apparently they are putting web servers and app servers on the same machines, which causes performance problems.
John Gruber retorts, with the US’ #1 online music retailer firmly in his corner:
But the iTunes Store does gangbuster traffic and has a terrific track record for uptime. The message I read from yesterday’s reorg that put MobileMe under Eddy Cue (Apple’s VP for iTunes) is that MobileMe could and should be as responsive and reliable as the iTunes Store.
The crazy thing is, MobileMe should have been an iTunes-learned breeze for Apple in terms of meeting service levels, given their pedigree. But then iTunes uses WebObjects (which I believe is old school Java-based) and MobileMe uses SproutCore (which is all dressed up in Ajax-y 2.0 objectivity), and the pretty much disastrous July 11th launch, which took down both iTunes iPhone activation, and slammed the MobileMe servers into weeks of problems, show something clearly is different with the new kit on the block.
Hopefully Cue will bring some of the iTunes luster to MobileMe, but only time will tell. What do you think? Which blog wins this round?
