iTunes « Long Story Short

Is iTunes the iPad’s Achilles Heel?

Yes, I confess I didn’t want one and have been playing the role of hypocrite ever since my wife got one. Like my iPhone the iPad interface just invites being caressed by my lustful fingers. Touch here and I’m watching a movie. Touch there and I’m reading a book. Ooh, look. Now I’m sifting through pictures [...]

Make Your Own Web TV Show

Making a video web log is fairly simple in WordPress.

1 – Produce a Video
The preferred format is an mp4 container with the AVC/H.264 video codec (mpg with the mpeg2 codec is second choice) and MP3 or AAC (needed for surround sound) audio codec. This minimizes losses in the video conversions that will be done by either your video host or yourself. The preferred resolution is 1920×1080 (1080p) or 1280×720, but not greater than the resolution of the raw footage used to produce the video. Apple TV can display H.264 video, up to 5mbps, 1280×720, 24 fps, Progressive Main Profile. Apple TV supports AAC-LC audio up to 320 Kbps. The gating factors for video are bit rate and frame rate.

We’ll go into frame rates below, but minimize changes from the frame rate of your source video. There is no point (in fact there are losses) in increasing the fps from 15 to 30 if the original footage was at 15 fps. While the bitrate for audio can go as high as 48 kHz, YouTube prefers 44.1 kHz.

iTunes only accepts .m4a, .mp3, .mov, .mp4, .m4v, and .pdf so the fewer steps to mp4 the better. The iPod/iPhone/iTouch support 640×480 while the Apple TV supports 1280×720.
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iTunes for My Tunes

There was a time in the not too far distant past in which one made a token of affection for another person by putting one’s favorite songs onto a cassette tape. This mix was considered to be either (a) romantic or (b) dorky and a big turn-off. From those days until now, I have tried to ride the dorky mix wave. I have accounts with last.fm and pandora both of which are also on my iPhone. I have internet radio (Radio? Sure!, radiotime.com, etc.) on my computer and WunderRadio on my iPhone.

I use pandora and last.fm to (a) keep me open to new artists I might enjoy and (b) provide variety in the music I hear on a longer trip. last.fm seems to produce a better mix, but has buffering issues on my iPhone which cause it cut out more frequently than pandora.

Continue reading iTunes for My Tunes

LSS is a nuts and bolts blog. Written by a geek who loves God, this journal reports my quest for technical perfection, environmental and social justice, and venting whatever else is going through my little pea-pickin' brain at the moment.

If you poke around a little, I'm sure you can find something to tick you off, but you might just find something that helps you, too. The former I consider collateral damage and the latter is my hope.

I'm not afraid of or offended by contrary opionions so I hope you'll use the comments to encourage, challenge, and inform myself and my readers. Thanks for visiting and don't forget to subscribe before you leave.

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Is iTunes the iPad’s Achilles Heel?

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