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can anyone please clarify? are they trying to sell the actual music videos or some other "special" videos? (the thievery warning shots vid seems to be the same that you can get from the music videos section, only encoded sorenson 3 instead of mp4)

will we no longer be able to save the videos that load from the "music videos" section via tools such as iGetMovies? (some say spotlight doesn't find invisible files...)

i've got iTunes 4.7.1 and everything still seems to be working like before - only, though i see the videos for sale, i don't get a preview (can't try buying since i'm not in the u.s.)

here's an imix that lists the ones found so far phobos.apple.com

If you download iTunes 4.8 and buy the video you can watch it in a little window or full screen in iTunes.

What I find interesting (and nice) is the video file isn't drm'd (yet) since (as far as I know) there isn't (yet) a way to drm video files. So you could buy, download and share the videos bought from iTunes.

It is an mp4 file.

I don't know the answers to all your questions... nor do most people since Apple keeps pretty quiet on future plans. But this seems like a hint of a video iPod in the near future. I imagine that if the videos for purchase takes off that they will disable free viewing of videos... or only offer previews.

It's interesting... but not very pratical. Now if they do come out with a video iPod that hooks to the TV.. and perhaps offer other types of videos to download... it could take off.

my main question: is it the same video that you find in the music video section (just with higher quality encoding)? in which case, it's the higher quality they want me to pay 1$ for or is it a different, otherwise unavailable video? in which case it's special content that's costing a buck

As far as DRM video goes, there is already the 3GPP format which uses the MP4 codec (or the H.263 codec, and I guess now H.264) which allows a restricted number of viewings, or copy prevention. This is manly for use on today's 3G mobile phones, and so far the restrictions are only active on the handset. Such as it is, you can encode a video to the .3gp format and the set restriction won't take effect until you transfer it to a phone. Once there, the hardware kicks in and prevents further copying, either back to your computer or sending it to someone else's phone.

We'll see how long before such restrictions make it into videos on a PC, but in such an open environment, such things are normally trivial to bypass, unlike a on such a proprietary place like a mobile phone.

check this out.. about dl'ing videos for free with tiger: www.apple-x.net....

the videos are just the regular promo videos.. nothing different (as far as i can tell). it seems like the encoding is higher quality. but i haven't really played with it enough to tell.

my guess is that apple is actually loosing money on this.. for example.. the gorillaz download is actually 4 videos for 99cents plus the single. they only make a 10-15 cent profit on each song to begin with... if they're throwing in large video files i don't see how they could possibly be breaking even. but then i guess apple has money to burn these day.

it seems more like they're getting ready to push a video ipod.

cool - sorta knew someone would figure out a solution real quick. thanx!

in terms of what they´re steering towards check out this www.lifewithalacrity.com and this www.macobserver.com

so: instead of vidpod, think vidpad. this also explains why these first videos (consider them test videos) are being run through itunes (not iphoto) - it's well integrated with airport...