Apple is hosting a special press event in San Francisco tomorrow with the tagline “It’s Showtime”. Press has been segmented into those invited and those not invited. For some reason I have not been able to bribe, demand or beg my way in, but the CrunchGear guys will be there blogging live.

We already know that Apple is almost certainly going to announce a new movie download service tomorrow. But there is evidence that there may be a few other big surprises as well. And one of them may very well be a new, larger screen video iPod to go with the movie download service.

First, Apple announced new 24″ iMacs and upgrades to the Mac Mini line last week, clearing the deck for bigger and better news at the event this week.

Second, people have noticed that Apple did not advertise iPods in this weekend’s newspaper circulars, something they regularly do.

Third, a highly suspect picture of what might or might not be the new iPod is circulating on blogs. The picture was supposedly taken at the venue for the press event. It may or may not be real. And even if it is real it may be something other than a new iPod.

I choose to be optimistic and assume that a new iPod is coming along with a first class movie download site that will give Mac users a legal way to download movies to their computers. Movielink, Amazon unbox, Vongo and CinemaNow all require a Windows based machine and absolutely prohibit burning DVDs (actually, Cinemanow is testing a burn to DVD feature). I’ll use the new movie download service either way, but I will be first in line at the Apple store if they do release a new iPod.

More rumors: iPhone is finally coming and discussion of a Mini with a tv tuner.

Keep an eye on CrunchGear tomorrow starting at 10:00 AM PST.