iPod video is NOT the news

What's news is THIS:

We now have access to TV shows (like Lost, in my household) the day or day after they are broadcast. For $2 US, I can have the entire 44 min of Lost without commercials for my viewing pleasure.

THIS is how Apple has changed the face of television.

Now, granted, you could have been downloading TV shows off of BitTorrent, using RSS, etc. before now. But it wasn't legal, was not always quality recordings, and usually had a watermark on it, showing what stations showed it.

We watched the first 3 episodes of lost last night, on my 20" iMac's screen. The quality was almost as good as a DVD, thanks to Apple's new HD264 compression. And, only weighs in at 200 - 300 Mb per episode. I downloaded episode 4 as we watched episodes 1 and 2.

I will continue to Tivo, of course. I can't see paying $2 a pop for EVERY show we watch (only 2 or 3 good ones, really). BUT, for shows like this, or episodes my Tivo doesn't catch (like Lost, again), this is the way to go.

Even further, this represents a couple of paradigmn shifts:

One, TV can be as good as movies. Period. See Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Carnivale, and Lost, for examples. People will pay for easily accessible quality (see iTunes music, for example)

Two, We don't always want to wait for the DVD for the entire season to come out. With shows using story arcs ad nauseum, missing an episode is losing critical information that is needed to fully appreciate the next show. This way of distribution alleviates that.

Anyway, just some thoughts about the new video stuff. it's not the device that excites me (my PSP has a MUCH better screen than the iPod does), but the service.