iTunes 8 and Is HD Really All That?

I downloaded and installed iTunes 8 yesterday and some of the new free HD programming available at the time of writing this entry.

It has been a long time since I've really looked at the preferences on iTunes.  For example, I wasn't aware of the parental controls within preferences.  It easily restricts tv, movies, and podcasts for ratings or  explicit tags.  However, not much is new, as far as I can tell.

A major addition is a new way to view your collection.  Using the "grid" view, you can see a grid of images representing individual albums or groups of albums.  It's a nice view, but I'm not sure if I'd actually use it.  I tend to stick with the list view.  

Another  addition is "Genius", one of these fancy music discovery systems that takes what you like and find similar or complimentary music.  In its main mode, you pick a song from the library, hit the Genius button, and boom, you have a playlist from your library of similar music.  This seems surprisingly good at what it does.  I've tried the process a number of times and found that I like the assembled playlists.   I have a playlist that I developed using some online instructions to develop a playlist that acts more like a radio station, basing the playlist on my highest rated music and a sampling of more poorly and rarely listened-to songs.  I don't think  Genius will replace that function.  But, on the other hand, I quickly discovered music I liked in my library I don't remember!

The second part of  Genius is finding similar music in the iTunes music store.  I noticed it produced a reasonably good selection of music, but I don't know if I'll be using that feature.

The big news, besides the return of NBC to iTunes, is that many shows will be available in High Definition (HD).  Here, the content is 720p HD.  HD to mean generally means a lot of money.  In fact, I'm on the 2-year plan on upgrading.  That means, whenever I think about HD, I'll upgrade in about 2 years (i.e. I really don't know when or if I ever upgrade my tv).  Actually, seeing the HD content on iTunes made it easier for me to wait to upgrade.  Sure, HD is nice, but I don't need it.  Furthermore, HD TV shows on  iTunes are huge: around 1.4 GB for 43 minutes of content.  If I buy HD content at $3, I'm going to want to hold onto it and it will cost me to store that single file (probably 20-50 cents depending on the media).  So, as of today, I have no plans on buying any HD content.  Sure, I'll take the free stuff, so I wont feel so guilty about dumping it later.  If BBC America allows Doctor Who content in HD, I might have a hole suddenly burning in my pocket, however!

So, I guess I'll continue playing with Genius, and watch the occasional free HD content.  Other than that, for me, iTunes is largely unchanged, which isn't such a bad thing...