So the predictions were right, and it was a video iPod that Apple came out with today (along with some new iMacs, which was less predicted). And there’s a lot of hoopla about the video, in that you can download not only movie previews and music videos, but TV shows as well–in particular, Lost and Desperate Housewives. (It seems pretty clear that Jobs used his Pixar influence on Disney to open up their video vault to Apple for this.) The price: $2 an episode, or $35 per season. Not bad pricing, similar to a DVD set. And like with music on iTunes, you can download them to your iPod (if you have the new video iPod, of course) for portable viewing; you can share them between five computers; and you can burn them onto a CD for safekeeping.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? However, most people who have checked the details aren’t too impressed, and I’m one of them. First of all, how impressive is video on a 2.5-inch screen? Not very. If you don’t mind a tiny picture in exchange for watching TV on the train, then OK. But I don’t think many will really be wowed by that, at least not consistently. And with the iPods already bearing color screens, who didn’t fully expect them to go video at some point? The bigger draw for videophiles would be the ability to watch video on one’s computer, and perhaps hook it up to the TV for viewing.

The key advance here is the TV and movie downloads (the music videos are a step, but a small one). It would mean that video is going the way of music: instead of downloading TV shows and movies via BitTorrent or other piracy networks, people could download them via iTunes and pay a nominal fee for it. It would be a great alternative for people like me living overseas where some media takes forever to get here. The pricing scheme is just about right (on the high side of “right,” however). Buying a DVD set would have advantages, like the special features (commentary, subtitles, special videos, outtakes, etc.), but the iTunes version would allow for immediate downloads of the episodes a day after they air–on-demand availability that will be key for a true video downloading paradigm.

There is one big caveat, however, and it will be a deal-breaker for most, including myself: video quality. If you go to Apple’s web page for the new video feature, they studiously avoid mentioning anything about the video quality on a computer screen, aside from the highly misleading claim that the video are in “high-quality, H.264 QuickTime format.” That’s misleading, because people will think that “high quality” refers to the size of the video. It doesn’t. HDTV quality is 720 pixels tall on a computer screen. 480 pixels tall is commensurate with non-HDTV size, and would look great on a normal TV screen. But that’s not what you get with the new videos–instead, it will be 240 pixels tall, and 320 wide (see image at top of this entry as an example). That’s 1/2 of regular video, and 1/3 of HDTV. You pay for the DVD, for example, the 1st season of Lost, and not only is the quality much higher, but you get a truckload of special features to boot, and the price is only $4 more.

Apple and Disney would have to make the quality a lot better and the special features present before a lot of people will buy into this. Right now it has more curiosity appeal than anything else, but that will soon pass. One can only assume that the small video size is mostly to guard against piracy. OK, fair enough. But you’re probably going to drive more people to the pirated videos, which can be downloaded in 720-pixel HDTV format, and the DVD special features are often available for download as well. People who already pirate won’t be tempted to go legit, and some people who were not aware of video downloads on demand actually might be attracted to the idea but will want more quality and could be led to download the content from BitTorrent instead.

That’s why the iTunes music sales model has worked so well: the quality is as high as or higher than the pirated stuff, and it’s easier to get. If the iTunes Music Store provided music with low-quality audio, no one would buy it. If Apple and Disney really want to fight video piracy, they have to offer something at least as good or even better than BitTorrent. Not worse.