iTunes Store Australia Brings on the Free Stuff

12 March 2009
iTunes Store Australia Free Content

iTunes Store Australia Free Content

US iTunes Store customers have enjoyed a wide range of free items every week, including songs, music videos, TV episodes and short films. In Australia, since its inception, we have only had one free item a week–a song–until recently. Last week there was a free “making-of” clip for the series Invincible (iTunes Store link). This week, look at the bounty laid before us: first episode of Chandon Pictures, Season 2 (iTunes Store link) (this is available as a season pass), a song and the premiere of another TV show, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (iTunes Store link). I’m pleased with the increased selection and the free episode of Chandon Pictures I consider especially generous as this is being posted shortly after it has been aired on its cable station. I bought the first season when it came out and this gesture by Apple has guaranteed that I will buy this season pass.

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Posted by tunegardener

Overlooked New Feature in Apple TV 2.3.1

4 March 2009

The Americans would not have noticed this. There is a new feature of Apple TV 2.3.1 that is of interest to iTunes users outside the US: ratings badges.

Ratings have always worked on the Apple TV for parental controls, allowing parents to prevent youngsters from watching certain content, but until now there were never proper badges to reflect the ratings of another country. Early on, the Apple TV would look at the rating, e.g. MA15+, and write it out in the system font. Later, this disappeared for ratings that didn’t match US ones, namely G and PG.

Now there are proper ratings for all Australian movie and TV ratings. The US G and PG are still substituted, and the Australian ratings are nothing more than the text of the code in a box, but they are now represented on screen. I would have preferred the proper symbols though.

Leave a Comment » | Apple TV, Movie Rentals, Movies, TV Shows, iTunes Store | Permalink
Posted by tunegardener

I’m Speechless–I Am Without Speech!

25 June 2008

Oh. My. God. People, I’m shaking. TV shows just came to the Australian iTunes Store! I feel a vast relief wash over me as I’ve been waiting for this for some time. There’s not a big selection, but that doesn’t matter. What is important is that we’ve arrived. The catalogue will burgeon. Movies will follow, then rentals. Apple TV is now in the game.

I’m pleased to see local content like Summer Heights High (which I will buy), Sleek Geeks and We Can Be Heroes, but possibly this had to happen because it was easier to license than foreign shows. Still, it’s appropriate that we get a largish ratio of local to foreign content.

I’m pleased with the pricing too. $2.99AUS for a single episode seems all right to me, and the collected seasons are priced a little below that of the DVD equivalent. Higher quality and extra content aside, buying these shows on iTunes for a little less than DVD and not having to rip and prepare the content looks inviting. I can’t wait to watch my new iTunes TV show!

It’s not the end of DVD-ripping for me, but iTunes will now be a part of my TV-show-purchasing regimen.

What a great day!

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Posted by tunegardener

My Take on Apple TV, Take Two

17 February 2008

What a huge upgrade this is! A completely free, brand-new piece of hardware! This is a round-up of little things I’ve noticed that aren’t particularly highlighted elsewhere.

Show Everything or Only Synced Content

Remember how you could connect to another iTunes library and see all that content instead of just what was synced to the Apple TV? You can still do that, but if you uncheck this option, you will see the entire contents of the syncing iTunes library:

iTunes Apple TV Sync All Checkbox

It’s like you’ve suddenly expanded the storage of your Apple TV way beyond the confines of the built-in hard drive. You see everything, but some of it is synced and some is not. This is seamless to the user. If you specify automatic syncing, iTunes will sync as much of the content as it can, then stream the rest.

This is a fantastic feature for 40Gb users and it is really cool to see everything, but personally, I still like the concept of Apple TV only storing a subset, specifically, the next few episodes of TV shows in sequence or unplayed podcasts.

TV Show Display Tweaks

Seasons of a particular show are now separated by a small line of text and episode names are prefixed by their number in sequence:

Apple TV TV Shows Menu with Season Dividers

AirTunes

I think this is a killer feature despite its low-key appearance. It instantly solves the problem of not being able to sync Audible audiobooks to the Apple TV. What’s cooler than Airport Express is the ability to start and stop the content. It’s like getting an Airport Express for free, with more functionality. This feature is so cool it alone warrants a stampede to upgrade.

Select the Apple TV as a speaker output in iTunes, begin playing and after a few seconds, the audio file appears in the Now Playing screen with accompanying artwork, just like local content.

iPhoto Event Support

Apple TV joins the iPod and iPhone in adding support for iPhoto events. You can select a number of events to sync, in addition to all the older options:

iTunes Apple TV Photos iPhoto Events Menu

Here is how it looks on screen:

Apple TV My Photos Menu

Parental Controls

This now matches iTunes. I like seeing international support for country-specific ratings:

Apple TV Parental Controls

Bugs

My Apple TV remembered my Australian iTunes Store setting, but when I go into the TV Shows submenu, the first option is Favorites, which only applies to the iTunes Store and we don’t have TV shows in our store. Bug or unwitting reveal of upcoming launch of TV shows on the Australian store? Also, in Parental Controls, I can’t select a TV rating. The only option is “No”, even though Australia does use TV ratings.

The interface hung a number of times but this could be due to iTunes constantly trying to sync while I was exploring. Now that this process is complete I’m hoping it works better. I’m also starting to suspect that my modem is not providing the speed it should be, so if Apple TV is choking on a slow connection, it could also be a reason why it locks up.

I was unable to buy any music item from the store since I installed on Wednesday, 13 Feb. I’ll be ringing Apple on this one.

Enhancement Requests

The continued lack of support for movies in albums makes the movies menu unwieldy, as you get all of them in alphabetical sequence. Apple still seems to maintain the idea that movies are discrete files that would never appear with related material such as trailers, out-takes, etc. Here I’ve got two movies both named Accident. One is a US Get a Mac ad, the other is the UK version:

Apple TV Movies Menu

I have compiled each region’s ads into albums. These should appear in the Movies menu as albums do in Music.

Summary

Go and get your update. It’s not often that you get a brand-new piece of hardware for free via a software update.

Leave a Comment » | Apple TV, Movies, Music, Music Video, Podcasts, TV Shows, Video, YouTube, iTunes, iTunes Store | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by tunegardener

iTunes 7.6 Subtleties

7 February 2008

Focussed on movie rentals as it may be, 7.6 introduces some subtle bug fixes and welcome behavioural changes, some of which we’ve been asking for for some time.

Bug Fixes

As long as I can remember, iTunes by default used the constant bitrate (CBR) method of encoding, resulting in neat bitrate values such as 128 and 256. The last version of QuickTime was updated to include further bitrate encoding methods. iTunes then dropped the ball and users noticed that their rips now all had varying bitrates, plus or minus the value specified. Apparently iTunes wasn’t told to continue using CBR and started using one of the newer methods. This has now been fixed. Rerip your CDs and your bitrates will be neat again.

Enhancements

Podcasts Option Menu

Something that hasn’t made sense for a long time has now been addressed. Until now you could not sync a number of “least recent new” added podcasts, only “most recent”. This has now been added and it makes things a lot easier. For example, if I download a lot of podcast episodes at once (as is common when I discover a podcast), they would rapidly fill my 4Gb Nano, which is my main podcast iPod. The solution was to uncheck a number of episodes. With “Only sync checked songs” and “Sync unplayed episodes” set, this made it manageable. It adds work, however, as you have remember to check newer episodes as older played episodes come off the iPod. Now I can leave them all checked and by syncing only the 3 episodes least recently added, I avoid filling my iPod prematurely and don’t have to think about it. This is a very welcome change.

You have both the option for “unplayed” and “new”, which seems a little redundant. “Unplayed” means that whether or not a podcast has been started, it does not have a play count higher than 0. “New” means that a podcast has never been started. I guess if you only wanted podcasts that you’ve never played, not including unfinished ones, this would be a usable distinction.

TV Shows Option Menu

Similarly, TV shows now have a new “least recent unwatched” option which finally resolves the stupidity of buying a whole season of a TV show but only being able to sync a certain number of “most recent unwatched” episodes. The focus here is still very much on the basis of only watching an episode once. If you are happy with that, then this solves it right here for you, but if you like to cycle through your episodes, you should resort to my TV Rotation Technique.

Blackadder Series

TV Shows in Album view are now subdivided into seasons, each marked by the album art for the first episode in a season. If you scan the box art for individual DVD sets like myself, this feature vindicates this approach. Looks nicer.

You can now manually manage iPhones and iPod Touches, if you wish. Still not available as drives on the desktop, however.

To Be Addressed

Apple TV does not support these new sync options but it is reasonable to expect that the imminent update will address this.

Unfortunately, you still can’t make a smart playlist select items by Show, as covered in this post. Hopefully this will come. The inclusion of the elusive “least recent new” feature above, at least for podcasts, is very heartening.

I wasn’t expecting anything more than rental support (by the way, this Australian is gnashing his teeth at this being US-only, although it’s not a surprise), so I’m happy that Apple squeezed in some further refinements.

3 Comments | Album Art, Podcasts, Ripping, TV Shows, Touch, iPhone, iTunes | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by tunegardener

TV Shows: Air Date or Production Sequence?

6 November 2007

The downside to TV shows is having to make the decision between tagging in air-date sequence or production sequence. I’ve found it common that episodes produced in a particular sequence are not aired in that sequence. There are probably many reasons why the show creators did this, but you must make a decision so that you can enjoy the episodes in a way that makes sense, if any continuity is to be maintained. Here are some examples:

The Venture Bros, Season 1. The DVDs presented the episodes in production sequence. Bad move. Three episodes from the end of the sequence, an event profoundly changes the show so that the final two episodes no longer make sense. I won’t spoil this for those who haven’t seen it, but I suggest you look up the air-date sequence on Wikipedia and watch it that way. I was pissed when this happened to me, but I didn’t know ahead of time. In this case, definitely tag them so that they appear in air-date sequence.

SpongeBob SquarePants, Season 2: The episodes appear on the DVDs in production sequence, but they were aired in a different sequence. There seems to be no good reason for this, particularly since the first season’s episodes’ production sequence is the same as they one in which they aired. In this case, I chose air-date sequence, but you could go either way. As each episode is an isolated story, you won’t ruin any continuity.

Blackadder, Series 2: Air-date sequence has episodes 1 & 2 reversed. It also violates continuity as a result, so I tagged them in production sequence.

The Weird Al Show: Production sequence was thrown out the window. When I listened to the commentary, it was clear that the air-date sequence was out of his control, and that’s the way viewers saw the episodes, so I chose the air-date sequence.

Family Guy: This is the worst organised set of TV seasons I’ve seen on DVD. In Australia, we’ve just had “Season 6″ released, but in the US, it was season 5. Also, three episodes are missing from the end of the season. This pattern started early on with these DVDs with the result that each DVD since season 3 actually represents the season earlier than it’s labelled. It’s a mess. The only clear choice was to put them in US air-date sequence and ignore the labelling.

My primary source of both air dates and production numbers is Wikipedia. I have found this to be relatively trustworthy. I also confirm when possible on the TV shows’ official sites.

Leave a Comment » | DVD, Lostify, TV Shows, Tagging, Video, iTunes | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by tunegardener

Video for the New iPods: Compatibility or Quality?

5 October 2007

The type of content I’ve most enjoyed on the Touch so far is music video. I’ve filled mine about 75% with music video which I watch at work. As I have 414 separate videos, I’ve been rotating them through and one thing has become clear: compatibility is more important than quality, especially if the prime target for viewing this content is an iPod. I’ve just had a batch of MPEG4-encoded videos, all of which played on my 5th-Gen, fail to display video on playback on both the Touch and Classic. Audio is fine, just no video. I think this is because I used to push the envelope, encoding at 1500kbps MPEG4, which is the highest MPEG4 video bitrate the iPod can support, and also because I made 16:9 videos 720 x 400 pixels instead of the iPod standard of 640 x 360. Result is incompatibility or, at best, borderline compatibility.

So I’ve made the decision to make every music video iPod-compatible. It will result in lower-resolution 16:9 videos but honestly, I can’t be bothered trying to push the envelope any more. I’ve got too much on and I’ve been enjoying the iPod quality. QuickTime Player or iTunes will convert a non-DVD video between 320 and 640 pixels wide into a H.264 video with the same resolution. Handbrake 0.9’s new GUI access to the command-line parameters gives much better results. The new chaptering feature adds another reason to redo your long-form video.

So that’s my advice to you. This of course applies to any content targeted at an iPod. I still rip DVD movies and TV Shows at a much higher quality because they are aimed at Apple TV.

1 Comment | Classic, DVD, Handbrake, Movies, Music Video, Nano, QuickTime Player, Ripping, TV Shows, Touch, Video, iPod, iTunes | Permalink
Posted by tunegardener

Lostify 0.7 Saga Finally Gets Cast: Lowell Stewart Directs

21 September 2007

Lostify Banner

Lostify, that amazing Mac app that provides a GUI interface that tames the howling maelstrom of power that is AtomicParsley, has gained the ability to add cast listings. This applies to movies or TV shows, but I guess it could also be applied to AAC audio for applications that would make sense, like radio shows (Lostify works with AAC–I’ve been using it for ages to tag copyright and full release date, among other things). The following types of cast are supported:

  • Actor
  • Director
  • Codirector
  • Producer
  • Screenwriter.

You don’t have to specify all of these. Typically you will tag actors and director. Results look great. Here is what it looks like in iTunes:

iTunes Long Description

And here it is on Apple TV:

Cast Tags on Apple TV

Isn’t that a thing of beauty?

As far as I know, currently only iTunes and Apple TV are capable of displaying this information. I’m sure that Apple will think of more ways to use this in the future (iPod Touch?).

Go get this update and pay the man some money to show your amazement that it’s possible for mere mortals to wield this mighty power!

Leave a Comment » | Apple TV, Lostify, Movies, Music Video, TV Shows, Tagging, Video | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by tunegardener

UK TV on Apple TV

30 August 2007

Okay, so you know that the UK got TV shows on iTunes, right? I’m envious. I noticed with interest that they still don’t have movies. This is the same path that video took on the US iTunes. Ah well, at least they have something.

So what can an iTunes enthusiast check out under the hood? Well, the only thing I could think of was TV ratings. I changed my store to United Kingdom in iTunes Store, then switched to my TV Shows library, where I’ve tagged everything with the Australian ratings using Lostify. I clicked a rating symbol and got this rather sparse page:

iTunes UK Movie Ratings

When set to the US store or my Australian store, I get a long page detailing all the US ratings. Of all the countries mentioned in the Parental tab in iTunes, UK doesn’t have TV ratings, so I guess they only need a blank or an Explicit to get by.

Second thing I did was check for an Apple TV update. I thought that with UK video now out, they might update the ratings labels. Currently only the US ratings graphics are installed. This means that when one of my tagged TV shows is a PG, I get the US graphic, and when a match can’t be made, e.g. Australia’s unique M rating, Apple TV writes the value out literally in plain text. I tested using a UK movie rating and it does the same thing: plain text.

I set my Apple TV iTunes Store setting to United Kingdom and jumped back to the TV Shows menu. Sure enough, as you would expect, an iTunes Top TV Episodes menu is now at the top of the list. Here’s what’s on offer:

UK iTunes Top TV Episodes Menu

Not a lot happening yet. I expect this will get very busy.

Enjoy your new TV shows, UK!

2 Comments | Apple TV, Lostify, TV Shows, Tagging, Video, iTunes, iTunes Store | Permalink
Posted by tunegardener

TV Rotation Technique, Update 2

26 July 2007

Just a further thought about my TV Rotation Technique. This only applies if you want to use my hiatus feature.

If you’ve got a lot of TV shows, you might take a while to get through a complete series. That means when you hit the end and increase the Play Count value in the smart playlist for a particular show, you will immediately get a batch of episodes from the start of the show. Once I’ve gotten through a complete show, I want to concentrate on other shows and don’t want this. My hiatus feature, while a good idea, only works on the basis of the Last Played Date of the last episode. You really want to base it on the first episode. You need to add the hiatus period (I suggest 2 months) to the amount of time that has elapsed between the Last Played Date of the first and last episodes.

Here’s the logic: I just watched seasons 1-8 of Seinfeld. I want to take a break from Seinfeld for 2 months, then I want to start again from season 1, episode 1. I watched the first episode in August 2006, therefore it took 11 months to watch all of them. Add 11 months to the hiatus period of 2 months and I get 13 months. Put this figure in the field for Last Played Date is not in the last x months, increase the Play Count by 1 and I won’t see Seinfeld for 2 months from now.

This is another factor I can’t see automating, the other being the incrementing of the Play Count. Wouldn’t it be great if Apple added an interface where you could configure each TV show separately and automate all of this technique? I think I’ll suggest it.

Leave a Comment » | Apple TV, TV Shows, Video, iPod, iTunes | Permalink
Posted by tunegardener

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