blue-ray or hd-dvd drive in iMacs?

[itsmeok]

The AL iMacs are solid machines an'oll but I was wondering when they would carry the blue-ray or HD-dvd read/write capabilities. These disc formats are becoming pretty common pretty fast, both as data storage option and as preferred digital movie formats.

I remember vaguely hearing about something to this tune a few weeks back, but nothing materialized as a macrumor. Would this possibly be a feature they could bring out at Macworld 08?

Any thoughts?

[Eraserhead]

I don't think Apple supply them, you may be able to get a drive fitted by a third party however.

[RickT67]

How about a 30" iMac with that HD or Blu Ray... maybe a built in tv tuner? HDMI input, all for less than $2500?:D
Maybe someday?

[Blue Velvet]

When Apple work out how to sort out the HDCP path in all their machines, that's when you'll start seeing these drives appear built-in. It might take some line-up revisions across the board, and I suspect that this might lie behind MacPro and ACD delays.

[itsmeok]

When Apple work out how to sort out the HDCP path in all their machines, that's when you'll start seeing these drives appear built-in. It might take some line-up revisions across the board, and I suspect that this might lie behind MacPro and ACD delays.

I agree. These might come to iMacs after they appear in MacPros. That said, I think Apple is better off with updating their optical drives soon, partly because it has had the 8x super drive for the longest time, but mainly because other computer manufacturers are jumping on the BRD/HD-DVD band wagon.

[rallycars]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136133

Someone should slap one of these in an external 5.25" enclosure and tell me if it works with their 24" aluminum iMac. Would DVD Player in Leopard play the new formats?

[wackymacky]

How about a 30" iMac with that HD or Blu Ray... maybe a built in tv tuner? HDMI input, all for less than $2500?:D
Maybe someday?

HDMI ports on Macs would make Apple TV obsolete instantly, I would bet Steve would want people to buy both their Mac and :apple:TV and Airport between.

As for Blu-ray vs HD DVD I guess that will depend on pillow talk beteen Apple/Sony vs Apple/Toshiba etc.

[Big-TDI-Guy]

I cannot imagine that as-is many macs would fare too well decoding Blu-Ray or HD-DVD content. I mean my standard resolution DVD decoding isn't the greatest I've seen - and the bandwidth required for HD might choke up the processing power available.

I think the problem with an external drive, even with a built-in decoder, bringing the HD video and audio into the mac via FW800 or USB would still take a significant loss in transport. Though I do not know the hard #s for HD bandwidth. I've seen cameras with no audio, choke up a FW800 port and start dropping frames.

As a data drive, I would LOVE to have an Dual-Layer Blu-Ray RW. It would make CDRs look like floppy discs. :)

And I'm positive that down the road there will be GPUs that will comfortably decode HD content - and that would be very nice to see on a 24" LCD. Nicer than standard def content on a 24" LCD - that's for sure.

[gorby]

I was hoping to be able to use my 360 HD DVD add-on on the iMac at some point...

DVD's look like trash on a high rez display... my baby deserves better!