The DigitalRV Blog

After my doctor visit yesterday (which went fine, and nobody pushed on my gut) I got back to the trailer.  Being slightly bored, I trolled around the ITunes music store looking at their latest TV episodes.  I’ve been checking out the show Eureka.  If you like Sci-Fi, check it out.  Definitely a fun show.While trying to access the video area things looked wrong.  I clicked on one item, and got a message window telling me that I needed to upgrade ITunes to look at the item.  Hmmmm.  Upgrade again?

I hit software update, and found several updates waiting for me, where yesterday there were none.  Took a few moments to upgrade, and I took a look at my ITunes.  It looked and felt different.  Not in a bad way though.

Started working through the “newer” interface, and returned to the ITunes Music store.  It got an overhaul too.  On top of that, ITunes has now started offering movie downloads!  About time guys!  Oh, and good work too.

So far, the selection is super limited.  Obviously they’ll be adding titles.  And at $9.99 per movie, not a bad deal.  Let’s see what they charge for new releases.

For a full-time RVer this is great news.  Skip the DVD altogether and just download your movie.  It’s pretty exciting to me!

Now on to the bad news on the movie downloads.  I decided to purchase one (Toombstone).  Got a nasty surprise though.  The movie is 1.45 GB!!!  My first reaction.  Ewwww!  My second reaction, too bad they didn’t use Handbrake to move the video, or better yet run it through ISquint afterward.  Both programs can compress the video a ton more.  This download should be closer to 400 - 600 MB, not 1.45 GB.

In total though I’m happy to see more online movie & tv availability.  I like being able to pick programs.

On the ITunes side, the interface has been improved.  Those of you who have been Tivo’ing, or recording shows with a PVR…well, now you can list them properly in ITunes with season and episode number.  They’ll show up as TV shows now on your IPod, and if you have Front Row, they’ll show up there correct too.  Before this upgrade you’d need to use a program like Lostify.

Bottom line, ITunes just got a ton of new features, the ITunes Music store is more like a media store, and more portable entertainment options just got a whole lot easier!

If you’d like to see a Video Podcast Review of ITunes 7 you’re in luck.  I’m in the middle of uploading one right now to the Digital RV Podcast Site.  Take a look at the episode at your leisure.  This video podcast runs only about 10 minutes, and is under 25MB.  Always trying to compress the video as much as possible to minimize download times for you.