Itunes Video
 

So, the wife and I just finished watching the Lost Season 1 DVDs (we watched all 24 episodes in about eight days). We're thinking about buying the second season through Itunes. However, I noticed on the Itunes site that you can make back-up DVDs of the episodes, but they can't be used on your home dvd player. Is this because of the way the file is stored on the dvd--i.e., is it physically incompatible with the dvd player, or is it a legal issue?

it's because it's encrypted with DRM.

A video from iTunes would look like shit on your TV anyway.

So, that means it isn't physically capable of being watched on a dvd player? Sorry, I don't know what DRM is.

Digital Rights Management. (Ie.. we can't trust you you scurvy pirates)

Basically, the only thing that ITunes Video can play on, is Itunes and video Ipods.

Gotcha. Thanks, that's what I guessed, but didn't know for sure. Looks like we're going to have to watch on the computer or wait until October.

If you do decide to watch on your computer, ABC has several episodes available to stream for free.

Just get a apple a/v cable and you can connect the video ipod to the tv and watch it on tv.

Are you sure this works for video?

yes

Apple has there own audio/video cable for 19.99 that works for the 5th generation video ipod.


It works great

Have you tried it?

considering that it's supposedly encoded at 320x240, if true, then I wouldn't doubt it looks bad.

*shurg* I watched most of the second season of Lost off my video iPod on a ~90" screen and it looked pretty good. Obviously not up to DVD quality, but at least equivalent to what you'd get DVR'ing off standard def cable.

DOLA, my projector has a really good scaling chip though... I could see it looking pretty poor on a plasma or LCD display.

Thanks. I don't actually have a video ipod, and I don't think I'm going to buy one for this. I was hoping to be able to pull them from Itunes, but it looks like that isn't an option.

I've watched The Daily Show downloaded from iTunes on my TV via an s-video cable from my laptop and it also looked pretty respectable. It might have been a little less sharp than standard cable TV, but barely...