Video iPods?

Apple's iPods have set the standard for personalizing sound and still-image collections. Now, Apple may be adding video to the iPod's repertoire.

Apple is reportedly in talks with several commercial music video distributors for licensing deals for iTunes and a possible video version of the iPod. Details are sketchy, by analysts believed that Apple is preparing a release of a video iPod sometime around September.

If successful, such deals would allow both Apple and video distributors to offer custom content for video iPods, and lessen (though not eliminate) the impact of P2P video file swapping. The device could also potentially create entirely new markets for video shorts and video-based podcasts, as well as for longer content.

RELATED: Not to be outdone, Microsoft has been in talks with AOL Time Warner (with whom it recently settled a lawsuit related to the Netscape browser) and Disney to negotiate digital rights to video content. Microsoft is banking that Windows-based PCs will become the nerve centers of home entertainment systems in the coming years.

Source: AP (Yahoo!)