Apple in Talks with Sony about Blu-ray Drives

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

Financial Times reported (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ca6017de-eba6-11dc-9493-0000779fd2ac.html) that in the wake of Sony's Blu-ray win over HD-DVD (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/02/16/toshiba-to-stop-hd-dvd-player-production/), that Sony is in talks with both Microsoft and Apple about inclusion of Blu-ray with future machines. Microsoft had previously been shipping an HD-DVD accessory for their Xbox 360, so their adoption of Blu-ray would represent a significant turnaround.

Apple, however, has not yet shipped any high definition drives with any of their computers. They've instead focused on distributing digital content through their iTunes Store.

With the demise of the HD-DVD format, it seems only a matter of time before Apple adopts Blu-ray drives in their machines.



Article Link (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/03/10/apple-in-talks-with-sony-about-blu-ray-drives/)

[deathshrub]

Not a surprise.

[luminosity]

Ultimately, I think blu-ray is an updated version of the last horse-drawn carriage. Optical drives aren't going to last forever, and I think they'll start getting phased out en masse within a few years (whereas DVDs have been around almost a decade now).

[Quu]

It's about time.

I have a 1st generation MacBook Pro and I'm looking forward to upgrading it. A Bluray drive might be the last piece of the puzzle for me.

[studiopix]

...would be the killer combination for the ultimate next-gen console.

It would be nice to have optional recordable BD drives for the Mac on the condition that the prices of the drives and media are within reason. 50GBs would be very convenient for backups.

[gibbz]

I think I read that Sony just wants to sell a BR reader, while Apple wants writer capability as well. Talked about here.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/03/07/sony_in_blu_ray_talks_with_apple_microsoft.html

[Grimace]

My portable data needs don't really justify burning a 25/50GB disc. I would back up to an internal/external hard drive for that purpose.

I suppose that large video and audio files would benefit, but I can't see a "need" as much as the times we considered whether or not to get a superdrive. 4.7GB/disc was a big deal, and a capacity that had universal appeal. I can't see as many people buying a BD burner just yet. Maybe BD-R/DVD-RW drives will become the standard with a $200 upgrade to the BD-R/W version.

[ilflyya]

Physical Data isn't likely to go away. Downloading movies isn't something that everyone is capable of doing. The net connection I have right now sucks, and SBC says it is the best they can do because I'm at the end of their line, and I live in the suburbs of Indianapolis. Downloading a youtube video, let alone a full length movie, isn't even worth it. Bring on BR, even if it is a upgraded horse and buggy, I'll love the quality of it as well on my 65 inch big screen!

[zombitronic]

I'd love to see Blu-Ray in the Mini upgrade. This would be a television's best friend.

[danielpi]

Ultimately, I think blu-ray is an updated version of the last horse-drawn carriage. Optical drives aren't going to last forever, and I think they'll start getting phased out en masse within a few years (whereas DVDs have been around almost a decade now).

Disagree. Are you suggesting that you would save a library of HD films on your hard drive? How about when 2k or 4k become the standard? Given the rate at which hard drive technology is improving, and the rate at which network connections improve -- these will be dwarfed by the increasing memory demands of films, and there will remain a need for some form of hard storage (not necessarily optical drives, but the wifi world you imagine is not in the forseeable future, methinks).

[Undecided]

It seems bad for the industry, and the users, if everyone has to pay homage to Sony and only Sony.

[richard.mac]

...would be the killer combination for the ultimate next-gen console.

It would be nice to have optional recordable BD drives for the Mac on the condition that the prices of the drives and media are within reason. 50GBs would be very convenient for backups.

i think the next gen XBox will have a Blu-Ray drive as Microsoft probably know by now that they made the wrong decision choosing HD DVD with most of the major film studios now going to Blu-Ray and Toshiba and NetFlix going Blu-Ray exclusive.

[Beric]

Ultimately, I think blu-ray is an updated version of the last horse-drawn carriage. Optical drives aren't going to last forever, and I think they'll start getting phased out en masse within a few years (whereas DVDs have been around almost a decade now).

This is my opinion as well.

[rezonat0r]

It seems bad for the industry, and the users, if everyone has to pay homage to Sony and only Sony.

You should probably read up on exactly who makes up the Blu-ray Disc Association. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc_Association)

[rezonat0r]

I'd love to see Blu-Ray in the Mini upgrade. This would be a television's best friend.

Hear hear!

Add a dash of XBMC on OS X (http://www.osxbmc.com/) and you'll never leave the house again!

[MacFly123]

So what exactly was this rumor reporting besides old news and the obvious??? :confused:

[notnek]

Would be sick if apple made a firewire BR drive that hooked up to current Intel machines. :D

[megfilmworks]

Ultimately, I think blu-ray is an updated version of the last horse-drawn carriage. Optical drives aren't going to last forever, and I think they'll start getting phased out en masse within a few years (whereas DVDs have been around almost a decade now).
I agree. In fact they are already phasing optical drives out; MBA.

[MacFly123]

I can't see as many people buying a BD burner just yet. Maybe BD-R/DVD-RW drives will become the standard with a $200 upgrade to the BD-R/W version.

So Apple could make a Super Drive that reads and burns CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Ray? That is what I would want! :D

[sharp65]

I agree. In fact they are already phasing optical drives out; MBA.

What??? The MBA was a joke, it's not the future of technology by any means.

[gwangung]

I agree. In fact they are already phasing optical drives out; MBA.

Fr mobile machines.

For stationary machines...probably not so much...

[randyharris]

I really couldn't care less about a Bluray drive in my iMac, but oh my - wouldn't an AppleTV with a Bluray player be hot hot hot!

[takeabyteoutta]

Physical Data isn't likely to go away. Downloading movies isn't something that everyone is capable of doing. The net connection I have right now sucks, and SBC says it is the best they can do because I'm at the end of their line, and I live in the suburbs of Indianapolis. Downloading a youtube video, let alone a full length movie, isn't even worth it. Bring on BR, even if it is a upgraded horse and buggy, I'll love the quality of it as well on my 65 inch big screen!

What you need is a blu-ray player, such as a PS3, not a blu-ray player in your mac.

This rumor has little to no substance anyway.

[MacFly123]

I really couldn't care less about a Bluray drive in my iMac, but oh my - wouldn't an AppleTV with a Bluray player be hot hot hot!

Yes it would, but I think it defeats their goal of the digital model. And I just want to say how nice it is to hear someone say the "couldN'T care less" expression correctly for once :)

[tizy]

I don't think Apple is that eager to adopt new blu-ray drives, due to the fact that they have two competing products (sort of)...
1)Movie titles in the form of downloadable content through iTunes.
2)Time Machine (sort of) for saving hard drive contents
... and the reason i say sort of is because I know there are other uses.

[takeabyteoutta]

What??? The MBA was a joke, it's not the future of technology by any means.

You're right, the MBA is the present, but its form is the future of keyboard based labtops.

[MikeT]

Optical drives aren't going to last forever, and I think they'll start getting phased out en masse within a few years (whereas DVDs have been around almost a decade now).
Well, of course, they're not going to last "forever." What technology has? Everything is replaced. However, I can see DVD & Blu Ray having a shelf life of at least another decade or so. Optical discs are a convenient, portable storage format for movie and software distribution. Downloading is often inconvenient and impractical. Moreover, selling their movies, games, software, etc., has been extremely profitable for many companies. As such, they're not all that eager to embrace a new model.

[minik]

I want to see Blu-ray drive on the Mac as well. 25 or 50 GB on one disc is nice.

[boyjah]

Is it conceivable that any perceived reluctance by Apple to commit to BR is simply part of a grander scheme to offload content to the network and do away with drives on all but perhaps a select few models? Isn't this the disappearance of the floppy disk drive played out all over again?

[Eduardo1971]

Ultimately, I think blu-ray...they'll start getting phased out en masse within a few years (whereas DVDs have been around almost a decade now).

DVD's have been in the market for more than ten years-just several weeks shy of 11 years. Keep in mind that DVD's were rolled out to a few selected (U.S.) markets prior to their eventual nationwide release.

I was one of the VERY early adopters to DVD in Los Angeles. I remember my Panasonic DVD A300 and the 27 DVD titles available during test city launch...ah yes, my first ever DVD was "Blade Runner" which I bought a week after the format's
release (and I bought it at Tower Records {RIP}:().

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I dunno... I'm in the process of putting my entire 300+ CD library onto a sata hard drive right now on my PowerMac (have a 2nd internal sata drive for a backup of the first one). Once complete, why would I ever want to use a CD again except for some mix discs for the car changer and to load new lossless music onto the server? Heck, if car makers would get with it, you could put a single 32 GB SDRam (or whatever size/format memory storage) into a slot on the thing and have most or even all your music available. CDs are archaic. The only good use for them is getting a better original format (than the stuff they sell on places like iTunes which are lossy compressed), but really, how long would it take to download a full uncompressed album? Even on a common 5Mbit connection, you could expect a full album in under 20 minutes, half that with lossless compression pre-applied. That's not too terrible so I don't know why no one is selling them that way already or better yet, even higher resolution recordings (DVD-A and SACD were flops, but straight to a computer, you could have 24-bit/96k distributed quite easily).

As hard drive sizes keep on increasing, the idea of storing something like HDTV movies en masse won't be any different. And I seriously doubt you're going to see a replacement format for HDTV in the next 50-100 years, so I think it's a safe bet that blu-ray will be the last major pre-recorded format as such. I think everything will simply be easy storage methods in the future. You may eventually see download stations in stores for something like a credit card sized storage device (heck this 4GB sony micro USB drive I have in front of me is small enough to fit about 4 in one credit card sleeve in my wallet) that will hold the movie until you transfer it to your computer at which point you could clear it for more shopping (reusable so no waste). Or you could download off the net if you have a good connection and/or maybe even store ALL you movies on one small card/device some day (capacity will only get larger, maybe even holographic storage methods to store in 3-dimensions). The only real issue will be this DRM business. It makes life difficult for legitimate customers while true pirates get around it every time. Hopefully, the industry will wise up and get rid of it.

[kingkezz]

A little less coversation, a little more action please....

[bigwig]

CDs and DVDs are a secure backup. Immune to magnetism, they don't crash, and they can be compactly stored offsite.

[zeiter]

i just bought a macbook! :( bummer..this is sad LOL sorry guys

[RedTomato]

"A cheap HDV camera can be had for about £500. Round about half a hour of filming the baby or the family dog with that will go over 10GB when uncompressed for editing with iMovie."

These figures are probably wrong, but DVDs, especially single layer ones are becoming increasingly insufficient for data storage. I know I'm using dvd-r a lot less than I used to, as single layer is just not enough, and dual layer is far too expensive in the shops.

[zeiter]

I dunno... I'm in the process of putting my entire 300+ CD library onto a sata hard drive right now on my PowerMac (have a 2nd internal sata drive for a backup of the first one). Once complete, why would I ever want to use a CD again except for some mix discs for the car changer and to load new lossless music onto the server? Heck, if car makers would get with it, you could put a single 32 GB SDRam (or whatever size/format memory storage) into a slot on the thing and have most or even all your music available. CDs are archaic. The only good use for them is getting a better original format (than the stuff they sell on places like iTunes which are lossy compressed), but really, how long would it take to download a full uncompressed album? Even on a common 5Mbit connection, you could expect a full album in under 20 minutes, half that with lossless compression pre-applied. That's not too terrible so I don't know why no one is selling them that way already or better yet, even higher resolution recordings (DVD-A and SACD were flops, but straight to a computer, you could have 24-bit/96k distributed quite easily).

As hard drive sizes keep on increasing, the idea of storing something like HDTV movies en masse won't be any different. And I seriously doubt you're going to see a replacement format for HDTV in the next 50-100 years, so I think it's a safe bet that blu-ray will be the last major pre-recorded format as such. I think everything will simply be easy storage methods in the future. You may eventually see download stations in stores for something like a credit card sized storage device (heck this 4GB sony micro USB drive I have in front of me is small enough to fit about 4 in one credit card sleeve in my wallet) that will hold the movie until you transfer it to your computer at which point you could clear it for more shopping (reusable so no waste). Or you could download off the net if you have a good connection and/or maybe even store ALL you movies on one small card/device some day (capacity will only get larger, maybe even holographic storage methods to store in 3-dimensions). The only real issue will be this DRM business. It makes life difficult for legitimate customers while true pirates get around it every time. Hopefully, the industry will wise up and get rid of it.

there are already talks about 2160p, it still is Hdtv. Cable companies can't even stream in 1080p and most people who bought hdtvs in the last 2 years got a 720p model...so yeah, hdtv is going to last a couple years but I really doubt it will still be hdtv in 100 years lol...look at how the world world changed in 50 years....do you really believe it will be the same in 50 years....when there is technology and profits ahead, don't worry, they'll come up with something more amazing year after year...

[boer]

What??? The MBA was a joke, it's not the future of technology by any means.

Yes! The future is with floppies. The hell with Apple phasing those out let alone the optical drives!

[ryanw]

I don't know why everyone gets hung up on High Definition movie discussions when it comes to Blu-Ray in Apple Computers and laptops, etc.. The reason why I want blu-ray in my apple laptops is so I can backup my data easier for long-term storage. 50 GB is significantly larger than 8GB backups. I know right now a burnable 50GB disc is expensive, but eventually the prices will drop to be more affordable to backup projects to a blu-ray disc.

[ryanw]

I'd love to see Blu-Ray in the Mini upgrade. This would be a television's best friend.


as long as they included HDMI on the mini too...

[Aussie John]

50GB disk is already too small for data storage and backup

[ryanw]

there are already talks about 2160p, it still is Hdtv. Cable companies can't even stream in 1080p and most people who bought hdtvs in the last 2 years got a 720p model...so yeah, hdtv is going to last a couple years but I really doubt it will still be hdtv in 100 years lol...look at how the world world changed in 50 years....do you really believe it will be the same in 50 years....when there is technology and profits ahead, don't worry, they'll come up with something more amazing year after year...

I agree. The HDTV Broadcast standard was old the moment that the first HDTV was sold. The HDTV broadcast standard uses mpeg2 conventions. I like the clarity that Broadcast HDTV brings, but the artifacts in fast/action and dark scenes is ridiculous. The HDTV broadcast standard needs to incorporate the ability to use other codecs such as H.264. The broadcast companies should have the option to use any codec they want.

In the HDTV broadcast world sometimes a specific channel will have several "sub channels" so it's like channel 5-1, 5-2, 5-3. They could offer 5-1 as Mpeg2 conventional for old HDTV's and then 5-2 with the H.264 codec and then slowly phase out the 5-1 as HDTV receivers integrated the newer codecs.

Anyway.. it's just stupid to have such great resolution and such terrible compression.

[aygie]

50GB disk is already too small for data storage and backup

Hitachi have been developing 100GB discs http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/10/03/hitachis-100gb-blu-ray-disc-drive/

[fr33 loader]

I have no problem if Apple wants to add Blu-Ray as long as its optional and not forced on all of their computers. I will probably never use it but others may have a need for it but I don't want to pay extra. I'd rather use a portable hard drive/flash drives in lieu of Blu-ray disks. Those portable hard drives/flash drives would be perfect for smaller back-ups (as much as 320 GB and can also fit in safeboxes) or for data on the go. Plus I'm assured that that all computers will be able to access my portable hard drive/flash drives (as not all computers today have a Blu-ray drive does rendering my Blu-ray disk useless). As time goes by, Blu-ray might get cheaper but so will be those portable hard/flash drives.

[fluidedge]

"in talks with sony"

I'd have thought those sort of talks would have happened long ago. Why have they waited until now to begin "talks"?

Why sony too? They don't have the absolute monopoly on blu-ray player distribution. Why don't they go to some small obscure chinese factory like they usually do to secure the distribution of SSD drives, 1.8" iPod drives, multi touch technology etc.

This is a nothing story, Apple have probably put this out as it's easier than them saying "Blu-Ray is coming to the mac" - why make such a public show of meeting sony? They usually keep their future component acquisitions under wraps. We didn't hear anything about Apple buying up huge supplies of SSD drives - why are we hearing about "talks with sony"

bit strange if you ask me

[BongoBanger]

Optical storage media does have a finite lifespan, however until we see reliable wi-fi worldwide, cheap, high volume SSD and a means of verifying digital distribution (i.e. Steam) then it'll be around for quite a while yet.

[danielpi]

I dunno... I'm in the process of putting my entire 300+ CD library onto a sata hard drive right now on my PowerMac (have a 2nd internal sata drive for a backup of the first one). Once complete, why would I ever want to use a CD again except for some mix discs for the car changer and to load new lossless music onto the server? Heck, if car makers would get with it, you could put a single 32 GB SDRam (or whatever size/format memory storage) into a slot on the thing and have most or even all your music available. CDs are archaic. The only good use for them is getting a better original format (than the stuff they sell on places like iTunes which are lossy compressed), but really, how long would it take to download a full uncompressed album? Even on a common 5Mbit connection, you could expect a full album in under 20 minutes, half that with lossless compression pre-applied. That's not too terrible so I don't know why no one is selling them that way already or better yet, even higher resolution recordings (DVD-A and SACD were flops, but straight to a computer, you could have 24-bit/96k distributed quite easily).

As hard drive sizes keep on increasing, the idea of storing something like HDTV movies en masse won't be any different. And I seriously doubt you're going to see a replacement format for HDTV in the next 50-100 years, so I think it's a safe bet that blu-ray will be the last major pre-recorded format as such. I think everything will simply be easy storage methods in the future. You may eventually see download stations in stores for something like a credit card sized storage device (heck this 4GB sony micro USB drive I have in front of me is small enough to fit about 4 in one credit card sleeve in my wallet) that will hold the movie until you transfer it to your computer at which point you could clear it for more shopping (reusable so no waste). Or you could download off the net if you have a good connection and/or maybe even store ALL you movies on one small card/device some day (capacity will only get larger, maybe even holographic storage methods to store in 3-dimensions). The only real issue will be this DRM business. It makes life difficult for legitimate customers while true pirates get around it every time. Hopefully, the industry will wise up and get rid of it.

I'm galled how many people here seem to think that hard media (whether optical disks or crystals or bio-goop whatever the heck they come up with next) is going to disappear because of internet downloading. :confused:

The number of reasons to preserve hard media are too numerous to cite, and proclamations of its demise strike me as being ill-informed and carelessly speculative. A clear and thorough understanding of all the uses of hard media warrants an extremely sceptical attitude toward these sorts of knee-jerk responses. How can you account for 2k and 4k resolution movies? There are prosumer cameras that are already able to shoot at these resolutions, and the resolution of real hard celluloid is so much greater than that, that for the consumer, there is quite a bit more detail and information in a frame of 35mm film for the end-user to enjoy -- never mind the usefulness and security of backing up to hard media.

I have over 2,000 CD's (which I own, incidentally) copied to my HDD. But, I know that bit errors occur, and I like to have my CD's just in case that happens. I'm not going to risk losing my one copy of Glenn Gould playing the Goldberg Variations because my Seagate farts out a few critical bits. And when I have a really important film job, or a recording gig -- I'm not ever going to hand someone an IP address and say, "Here, go download it." I will always be handing them a pristine, hard copy master -- be it a roll of film, an optical disk, crystal thingy, or bio-goop.

[fr33 loader]

I'm galled how many people here seem to think that hard media (whether optical disks or crystals or bio-goop whatever the heck they come up with next) is going to disappear because of internet downloading. :confused:

-snip-

And when I have a really important film job, or a recording gig -- I'm not ever going to hand someone an IP address and say, "Here, go download it." I will always be handing them a pristine, hard copy master -- be it a roll of film, an optical disk, crystal thingy, or bio-goop.

You are certainly correct. Right now at this time. But there will certainly be a time in the future where everything will be downloaded. When the time comes when internet is fast, secure and reliable, downloading would be more practical than physically handing out crystal thingies and/or bio-goops.:D. But until then....

[timmillwood]

I would love to see a USB blue-ray player for my xbox, it will save me buying a ps3.

As for mac I think it is long over due on the mac pros for the pro video work. Would be nice on the notebooks too to watch movies on the go.

[tosehee]

You are certainly correct. Right now at this time. But there will certainly be a time in the future where everything will be downloaded. When the time comes when internet is fast, secure and reliable, downloading would be more practical than physically handing out crystal thingies and/or bio-goops.:D. But until then....

Totally agree..

The world evolves around the demand. If there is less and less demand for the physical storage, then it'll fade away, or the business won't make enough profit to pursue any further.

The internet download already reached 15mbps/15mbps in many areas, and some areas up to 50mbps download speed. This is happening today, and if you could imagine what it'll be like in 3-5 years, I don't see a whole lot of bright future for the physical storage like BD.

I have all of my CDs in lossless format in HDD also, and finding the song that I wanted to hear is as easy as scrolling through or searching several keywords. If I were to find them in my original CDs, I would have to dig around, trying to figure out where those things are, which gets only more difficult as I add more CDs to the collection. I had spent many hours to rip all these songs to HDD, but it was the worth the time and effort.

BTW, do we all know that some of these Asian countries can reach 100mbps or close to that already?

[SvenSvenson]

...would be the killer combination for the ultimate next-gen console.

What an awesome thought! A next-gen games console with a Blu-Ray drive! More data for games with the ability to watch high-definition films!

It's a wonder no-one's thought of it before.

Steve

[eastcoastsurfer]

Disagree. Are you suggesting that you would save a library of HD films on your hard drive? How about when 2k or 4k become the standard? Given the rate at which hard drive technology is improving, and the rate at which network connections improve -- these will be dwarfed by the increasing memory demands of films, and there will remain a need for some form of hard storage (not necessarily optical drives, but the wifi world you imagine is not in the forseeable future, methinks).

It wasn't long ago when storing my entire music collection in my pocket was thought of as impossible.

[Bakey]

i think the next gen XBox will have a Blu-Ray drive as Microsoft probably know by now that they made the wrong decision choosing HD DVD with most of the major film studios now going to Blu-Ray and Toshiba and NetFlix going Blu-Ray exclusive.

I'm sure this has already been said, but what with so much anti-Microsoft sentiment being prevalent now-a-days do you not think that Microsoft backing HD-DVD may have been a contributing factor in it [HD-DVD] not taking off in the first place?

Just a thought!!

[zorinlynx]

I'd rather do without Blu-ray on the Mac than have all the horrendously unstable, system-slowing DRM that it requires implemented on Mac OS X.

Look at the huge mess Vista is; this is mostly because of all the DRM required to satisfy the movie studios.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR, people. We can watch Blu-ray on our televisions. Keep this DRM crap off our computers. There's already some but we're nowhere as bad as Vista.

[Bakey]

I would love to see a USB blue-ray player for my xbox, it will save me buying a ps3.

As for mac I think it is long over due on the mac pros for the pro video work. Would be nice on the notebooks too to watch movies on the go.

Maybe Apple have been playing it uber safe this time around - hence no "real" updates to the likes of DVD Studio Pro nevermind the Mac Pros et al.

I'm guessing we may now see DVDSP5 with full Blu-Ray authoring capabilities now that HD-DVD is out of the way - here's hoping as it's been quite some time!!!

[t56]

I have to get a computer within this week for work. I'm going to get both imac and MBP, but not at the same time. Which one should i buy and which one should i wait for. the imac will be at my office but the MBP will be for both home and office. I usually buy computer every 3-4years, so i wouldn't mind waiting for the blu-ray.

Thank you

[krye]

Let the speculation and rumor mongering begin......

[Schmoe0013]

Sony does not own Blu-Ray.

[garty]

People who think internet downloading of movies is going to replace DVD or Blu-Ray movies are idiots. You can't even get the equivalent of the same DVD you buy at the store now on iTunes! The quality it worse, there is no bonus material, and there is a good possibility you will lose that movie on that computer at some point. And somehow we think HD movies which are at least twice as large will be downloaded as well instead of getting Blu-ray? What a joke!

I guess I am one of those idiots who hasn't touched his dvd player since online move rentals became a reality and thinks the quality is 'good enough for me'™ and never watches the so called bonus material any more (which is usually a joke anyway) and never buys movies just rents them.

Blu-ray has arrived at the party too late for me.

[ckurowic]

It's about time.

I have a 1st generation MacBook Pro and I'm looking forward to upgrading it. A Bluray drive might be the last piece of the puzzle for me.

Yeah except that blank media is $50 per disk, the player is $500+, and you can get the same amount of storage at a cheaper price by buying a few DVD's. I'm not sure why everyone seems to think Blu Ray is some Godsend.

And also what the heck is with this "war" that was "raging" between HD and blu ray? Sounds like a bunch of geeks with nothing better to do but to argue over a disc format (but thats mostly the kind of people you run into on here). Insults being thrown back and fourth on message boards about it, amazing.

[bytethese]

Yes please! I might be ready to buy a new MBP by christmas, give me Bluray! :)

[koobcamuk]

DVD's have been in the market for more than ten years-just several weeks shy of 11 years. Keep in mind that DVD's were rolled out to a few selected (U.S.) markets prior to their eventual nation worldwide release.

Removed the typical Americanism from your post. :rolleyes:

I think that optical media still has a bit of a market... being as a total digital download market is still on the horizon and Blu-ray is just about here.

[Bubba Satori]

What you need is a blu-ray player, such as a PS3, not a blu-ray player in your mac.

This rumor has little to no substance anyway.

No, with all due respect, users know what they need. At the rate they're going, Apple Computer, uh Apple Incorporated, will be the last computer maker to have Blu-ray devices in their computers. Think Different. Give people choices. If you don't want Blu-ray, don't tick it off on the order page. :apple:

[koobcamuk]

BTW, do we all know that some of these Asian countries can reach 100mbps or close to that already?

My friend in Japan has a 30Mbps optical line and he's 'only' in Nagoya (as opposed to being in Tokyo.

[Fenir]

Looking to get a macbook pro in June/July with the new processors or what not, even the possibility of an add-on Blu-Ray drive for a modest price ($200-300) would be awesome.

[Digital Skunk]

My portable data needs don't really justify burning a 25/50GB disc. I would back up to an internal/external hard drive for that purpose.

I suppose that large video and audio files would benefit, but I can't see a "need" as much as the times we considered whether or not to get a superdrive. 4.7GB/disc was a big deal, and a capacity that had universal appeal. I can't see as many people buying a BD burner just yet. Maybe BD-R/DVD-RW drives will become the standard with a $200 upgrade to the BD-R/W version.

The same thing over here, I don't see BRDs as the archiving format of the future, as DVDs were, and BRD are still quite expensive since you can only get a reader for $250 or so. To get that writer and reader you're still going to pay close to $450 or more.

Not that BRDs aren't going to be welcomed by the tech community, I am just curious to see how long it will take for BR to become a universal standard that everyone uses all the time like DVD and CD media. If it's just going to be movies being sent back and forth, it may be a lot slower than most people think, especially since not everyone has a good enough TV to watch HD movies on in the first place.

[timmillwood]

Sony does not own Blu-Ray.

well done!

[Bubba Satori]

Sony does not own Blu-Ray.


+1 Why is it so difficult for people to understand this ? No "homage" will be owed to Sony. They will not rule the universe. You won't have become a Sony fanboi...

[KevinX]

as long as they included HDMI on the mini too...

Now that would be a great addition to the Mini. But wouldn't that somewhat cause it to compete with the Apple TV?

[bytethese]

My friend in Japan has a 30Mbps optical line and he's 'only' in Nagoya (as opposed to being in Tokyo.

I guess my 20Mbps optical line at home isn't too shabby then. :)

[bytethese]

Now that would be a great addition to the Mini. But wouldn't that somewhat cause it to compete with the Apple TV?

AppleTV with a Bluray drive. Now that's one HELL of a great idea. :)

[MarsUltor]

I think all of you Bluray naysayers should realize, at the moment, that the majority of the computer using public either has a dial-up connection, or a slow connection, making downloading huge movie file impractical. Sure this can and will change in the (near) future, but it is not there yet for the masses. I don't want to have to buy new hard drives every time I fill one up with movies; it seems like a ridiculous proposition. And if i am storing everything only, where is the security? There is no network on this planet that is hacker proof/safe, while the CD/DVD/BD in it's case is relatively safe, be it from computer intruders, as well as, magnetism and other destructive forces. Why would I want to waste 50 gigs of hard drive space, when i can put it all on a disc and throw it into my desk, especially when hard drive space is more expensive than plastic media?

Some of you folks are not wrong that optical media will eventually become extinct to another form of portable media, but we are in the here and now... in the next ten years (give or take) this will most likely become the standard for movies (like DVDs have been for the last ten years), and physical longterm (potentially incorruptible) data storage. Maybe the next portable storage media watershed will yield something else, but that is no reason to not use the current technology to the fullest; it is here, and it will become relatively cheap in the coming years. I mean the cost of a blank CD-R when it was first released was more than $10 a disc, now you can get a spindle of 100 DVDs for $0.10 a disc. Apple should embrace the technology, especially since every other computer manufacture will, and this technology could be a deciding point for many people that are buying new computers.

Sorry for the wall of text (I could probably go on for hours here), but I feel that some of the ignorance (no offense), and short-sightedness of some of these folks is a little ridiculous; it's like saying I need a heart transplant now or I'll die, but I might as well wait until the technology is better (not that extreme, but I hope you get the point). Also, I would like to pose a question to the naysayers: How could the integration of new technology be a bad thing for Apple?

[RichardI]

Sony?
Sony??
Sony???

All you Blu-Ray supporters are about to find out why HD-DVD was, in fact the best format.
Get out yer wallets everybody.....

Rich :cool:

[andy721]

Its about EFing time jesus christ on a stick, by the time this happens LCD is obsolete in a year or 5, before the Laser TVs come out.
We are so far behind this is BS

Now that would be a great addition to the Mini. But wouldn't that somewhat cause it to compete with the Apple TV?

No it wouldn't it would suck and something new is coming out in a few months, it will be pointless. Stop asking for stuff for old machines, get a job or buy a new one seriously its worth the MONEY!

[Bakey]

Let the speculation and rumor mongering begin......

The site is called "MacRumors" - it's a rumour site; it's gonna happen... :rolleyes:

[Digital Skunk]

People who think internet downloading of movies is going to replace DVD or Blu-Ray movies are idiots. You can't even get the equivalent of the same DVD you buy at the store now on iTunes! The quality it worse, there is no bonus material, and there is a good possibility you will lose that movie on that computer at some point. And somehow we think HD movies which are at least twice as large will be downloaded as well instead of getting Blu-ray? What a joke!

The big issue is cost, and maintenance for me and a few others. Why pay full price for a DVD that I am probably only going to watch once? Then, why go to a Red Box and pay $1 for movie, that may not play because some jerk scratched the disk, or it gets half way through then starts ********* up, then drive all the way back to the Red Box to drop it off? And why buy an actual DVD, watch it once, then have it fermenting on the shelve for years before some friends or my fiancee want to watch it again real quick?

If it's a movie that just looks interesting I will download it or rip it from a friend. If it's a niche type of movie or TV show with an entire season and bonus material then I may pay full price, but for the most part, buying and maintaining DVDs is a bit of a nuisance to me.

As for others... I think they will hop on the download bandwagon because they don't want to buy a BR play, they are more enticed by Apple TV and movie downloads (and it's easier), and they don't want to fall into the "Buy this player and disc format NOW because it's cool and high quality" only to have it change on them in a decade and their entire collection of media is now OBSOLETE.... aka... Betamax, VHS, Vinyl, 8-Track, Cassettes, and now for the most part CDs and DVDs.

[bytethese]

Sony?
Sony??
Sony???

All you Blu-Ray supporters are about to find out why HD-DVD was, in fact the best format.
Get out yer wallets everybody.....

Rich :cool:

Huh? Maybe you should check again, Sony is only part of the equation:
http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_developers

Check out that first name listed...

[Adokimus]

AppleTV with a Bluray drive. Now that's one HELL of a great idea. :)

Yeah.. I, um, thought that for a second too. Then I realized that the :apple:tv would likely melt any blu-ray disc that was unfortunate enough to come near it. Best to put it in the mac mini with an HDMI out, and offer HD movies on iTunes not limited to the :apple:tv.

-Ado

[diamond.g]

Yeah except that blank media is $50 per disk, the player is $500+, and you can get the same amount of storage at a cheaper price by buying a few DVD's. I'm not sure why everyone seems to think Blu Ray is some Godsend.

And also what the heck is with this "war" that was "raging" between HD and blu ray? Sounds like a bunch of geeks with nothing better to do but to argue over a disc format (but thats mostly the kind of people you run into on here). Insults being thrown back and fourth on message boards about it, amazing.

My position is I don't want the movie studios to get the DIVX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX_%28Digital_Video_Express%29) idea up and running. The thing that is scary is the digital downloads of movies will basically allow the studio's to reach the DIVX idea and it is looking like a lot of people here are happy with that.

[eastcoastsurfer]

I think all of you Bluray naysayers should realize, at the moment, that the majority of the computer using public either has a dial-up connection, or a slow connection, making downloading huge movie file impractical. Sure this can and will change in the (near) future, but it is not there yet for the masses. I don't want to have to buy new hard drives every time I fill one up with movies; it seems like a ridiculous proposition. And if i am storing everything only, where is the security? There is no network on this planet that is hacker proof/safe, while the CD/DVD/BD in it's case is relatively safe, be it from computer intruders, as well as, magnetism and other destructive forces. Why would I want to waste 50 gigs of hard drive space, when i can put it all on a disc and throw it into my desk, especially when hard drive space is more expensive than plastic media?

Some of you folks are not wrong that optical media will eventually become extinct to another form of portable media, but we are in the here and now... in the next ten years (give or take) this will most likely become the standard for movies (like DVDs have been for the last ten years), and physical longterm (potentially incorruptible) data storage. Maybe the next portable storage media watershed will yield something else, but that is no reason to not use the current technology to the fullest; it is here, and it will become relatively cheap in the coming years. I mean the cost of a blank CD-R when it was first released was more than $10 a disc, now you can get a spindle of 100 DVDs for $0.10 a disc. Apple should embrace the technology, especially since every other computer manufacture will, and this technology could be a deciding point for many people that are buying new computers.

Sorry for the wall of text (I could probably go on for hours here), but I feel that some of the ignorance (no offense), and short-sightedness of some of these folks is a little ridiculous; it's like saying I need a heart transplant now or I'll die, but I might as well wait until the technology is better (not that extreme, but I hope you get the point). Also, I would like to pose a question to the naysayers: How could the integration of new technology be a bad thing for Apple?

First, anyone who BR is aimed at more often than not already has cable. If they have cable, then they most likely already have VOD. For my non-techie friends the quality they get from VOD or downloading to their xbox/AppleTV/whatever device is 'good enough'.

BR is a fine technology, but people have already started the switch to not using disks of any type. I think that for most people the quality of BR will not sway them back to having to either wait to watch a movie or go somewhere to get it.

[Schmoe0013]

My position is I don't want the movie studios to get the DIVX (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX_%28Digital_Video_Express%29) idea up and running. The thing that is scary is the digital downloads of movies will basically allow the studio's to reach the DIVX idea and it is looking like a lot of people here are happy with that.

What is scary? There is no conclusion to your point of "scary" in your sentence.
What are people happy with?


edit: or rather, it is unclear, please clarify.

[cervaro]

I've got Bluray and HD-DVD in two parts of our home, but would really like a Bluray drive to externally attach to my MacBook Pro, preferably with a BD burner onboard. If that same drive could attach to my Media PC, then all the better.

Downloading titles just isn't a option for me as my broadband speed is less than 1Mb most of the time, so even an SD movie would take days, if not longer to come down the wire. Goodness only know how long an HD movie would take.

Still prefer to have the physical disc as backup. Don't have enough faith to lose them just yet.

[diamond.g]

What is scary? There is no conclusion to your point of "scary" in your sentence.
What are people happy with?

The idea that physical media is going away. It will become a digital version of DIVX (the original one that I linked to). It is, more or less, same idea that lost due to the Internet the first time around, more or less sounds like it will win in the end. That was suppoed to be my conclusion. Sorry if that was unclear.


See this Penny Arcade comic (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/01/18)for a funny comment on the situation.

[Kilamite]

Sony does not own Blu-Ray.

Yes, but they manufacture Blu-Ray drives and played a huge role in the production of the technology. Hence why Apple would contact them about getting a slot-loading Blu-Ray drive developed, yes?

[jragosta]

What you need is a blu-ray player, such as a PS3, not a blu-ray player in your mac.

Actually, BR in the Mac is quickly becoming a necessity.

Until HD came out, one could buy a DVD and play it on your TV and also on your Mac. Today, when you buy an HD disk of any type, you can no longer play it on your Mac (other than with a third party accessory). As the industry shifts from DVD to BR (which won't happen overnight, but is already moving), the need to be able to play BR on your computer grows.

I already ran into a problem. My daughter wanted me to rip a movie onto her iPod - but the movie she wanted was BR, so I couldn't do it. And I'm not going to buy two versions of the movie.

And that doesn't even get into the vast number of people who would never download a movie because they just don't have the skills. I know a number of people who still can't even forward an email.

[rockosmodurnlif]

I think I read that Sony just wants to sell a BR reader, while Apple wants writer capability as well. Talked about here.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/03/07/sony_in_blu_ray_talks_with_apple_microsoft.html
Personally, I don't think HD will make a big difference on my MacBook Pro's 15" screen so to me its inclusion is no big deal. So if it's only a reader, I must ask what's the point?

And would it be a SuperDuperDrive?

[chr1s60]

50GB disk is already too small for data storage and backup

For a lot of people it is too small, but it is also suitable for quite a few.

I would probably purchase a Blu-ray drive to go with my MBP if it was made available at a decent price.

[Digital Skunk]

Still prefer to have the physical disc as backup. Don't have enough faith to lose them just yet.

You can always back it up to a HDD...

[Schmoe0013]

Yes, but they manufacture Blu-Ray drives and played a huge role in the production of the technology. Hence why Apple would contact them about getting a slot-loading Blu-Ray drive developed, yes?

It was a general statement about Sony and Blu-ray. There are confusing posts, or rather posts that imply Sony is the end-all-be-all when it comes to Blu-ray decisions on format and advancements. As you can see, I did not reference the communication with Apple and Sony in my one sentence.

Simple fact is Sony licenses Blu-ray from the Blu-ray Association and (to address the topic of the post) Apple in in talks with them because, I would imagine, Sony would be most willing(perhaps?) to manufacture custom hardware that Apple demands in their products.

[Konstanty]

So Apple could make a Super Drive that reads and burns CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Ray? That is what I would want! :D

Same here. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that any BR superdrives could be retrofitted to existing MBPs.

[Digital Skunk]

Same here. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that any BR superdrives could be retrofitted to existing MBPs.

There is a way, but it would be expensive. As of now, even the reader is $250 and the reader writer for BR is $500+ Getting a drive that can read and write all forms of optical media is pushing around $800 or more. But that was a few months ago the last time I checked.... so I could be wrong.

Personally, I don't think HD will make a big difference on my MacBook Pro's 15" screen so to me its inclusion is no big deal. So if it's only a reader, I must ask what's the point?

And would it be a SuperDuperDrive?

Same here. There really isn't much of a need for myself unless there is an HDMI port on my next MBP and every hotel I go to has an HDTV in it.... if they don't it's really a rather useless expense to outfit my portable with BR and other HD equipment.

[hvfsl]

I just want HD disk burning in iDVD, ideally by this summer when I plan to get a HD camcorder. I don't need bluray burning, just the ability to burn HD movies to DL DVD (my holiday movies are generally around 30mins long, so a DL DVD should be fine).

[Hooka]

how long does it take to burn one of these disc?

[asdavis10]

Ultimately, I think blu-ray is an updated version of the last horse-drawn carriage. Optical drives aren't going to last forever, and I think they'll start getting phased out en masse within a few years (whereas DVDs have been around almost a decade now).

Exactly. Its already begun with the MBA. Even if Blu-ray makes it into Macs, it probably won't be seen as even an option in MB's, iMacs, and mini's. It will be at least an option at first in Mac Pro's with it eventually becoming standard. I can't see Apple excluding their professional consumer segment that has been asking for this for a while now. The MBP is the only gray area for me. I think we may see a Blu-ray reader, but not a writer in it. The hardware constraints of a laptop would make it rather difficult to burn a Blu-ray disk.

[diamond.g]

I just want HD disk burning in iDVD, ideally by this summer when I plan to get a HD camcorder. I don't need bluray burning, just the ability to burn HD movies to DL DVD (my holiday movies are generally around 30mins long, so a DL DVD should be fine).

You lost that ability when HD DVD died. From my understanding BR doesn't support burning HD movies to DVD-9 only BD-9.


EDIT: Nevermind. You can use DVD9 and DVD5 with red laser to burn BD movies.

[Manic Mouse]

We're at least ten years away from a physical media free world. At least. The MBA is a crippled computer because of it's lack of one: Want to watch/rip a DVD? CD? Install software? Burn a disc for a friend?

For all Jobs talk about iTunes being able to cover music and movies, for the average person this is rubbish. iTunes is expensive, it's DRMed and it's lower quality. Forget about extras, subtitles or commentaries. Plus, you better have a big enough HDD for all the stuff.

In ten years, when the internet is lightning fast and storage is dirt cheap, I can see optical media being redundant. But not any time soon.

[TheSpaz]

Some facts about Blueray:

It's easier to say
It's easier to type
A bigger selection to choose from
Sounds better
Looks cooler
Holds more data
Doesn't say DVD in the name

HD-DVD sucks... I'm for Blueray

[TonnyTech]

A lot of people are missing a point. Apple is going to include blu-ray burners in their computers because the competition is doing it already. Dell, HP, Acer and of course Sony are all offering this as an option. It is the missing link in the HD chain. People are buying HD TVs, HD camcorders and many are capable of editing in HD. What do you do if you want to distribute your home made video to relatives and friends?. What about those Event and Wedding Videographers whose clients are willing to pay a premium in order to be able to enjoy their video memories in full HD quality?. My guess is that Apple is going to offer BR as a built to order option in the Mac Pro and Macbook Pro at least, and they are going to do it once DVD Studio Pro and iDVD become blu-ray compatible. That way people who need it now can have it and those who don't care or think is to expensive wont be forced.

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

I was wondering when Apple was going to get the ball rolling on getting Blu-ray into computers since HD DVD has surrendered. Maybe we will see drives in desktops come WWDC. Here's to hoping.

[Digital Skunk]

how long does it take to burn one of these disc?

Forever..... it's at about 1x or 2x. It's going to get faster, but for right now it's agonizingly slow.

We're at least ten years away from a physical media free world. At least. The MBA is a crippled computer because of it's lack of one: Want to watch/rip a DVD? CD? Install software? Burn a disc for a friend?

For all Jobs talk about iTunes being able to cover music and movies, for the average person this is rubbish. iTunes is expensive, it's DRMed and it's lower quality. Forget about extras, subtitles or commentaries. Plus, you better have a big enough HDD for all the stuff.

In ten years, when the internet is lightning fast and storage is dirt cheap, I can see optical media being redundant. But not any time soon.

I agree, but I would say more like 5 years or less. The with "N" and WiMax/EVDO/4G (things AT&T aren't doing) the internet is becoming much faster. Not fast enough to download an HD movie in a mater of minutes, but fast enough to know that we will be doing that in 5 years or so.

I see optical media staying around for much longer, just because it will like all tech has done, but I don't see a major adoption of it in the mainstream crowd. Let's face it, we're nerds that hang around on a site talking about this stuff.... we want it because it's cool and it's new and we can make up reasons for needing BRD.

I would love to have a BR burner but for the most part it's not necessary unless my clients start asking for HD content. I am sure most people haven't been burning DL-DVDs or Lightscribe discs yet, let alone another format that offers MORE storage.

The only thing BR is good for is movies and HD content, and most people won't even use BR for that.

[ZiggyPastorius]

Agh, are you kidding me...

Could anyone please tell me how many Sony components are in the Macbook, if any, because I hate Sony with a passion...

[Digital Skunk]

A lot of people are missing a point. Apple is going to include blu-ray burners in their computers because the competition is doing it already. Dell, HP, Acer and of course Sony are all offering this as an option. It is the missing link in the HD chain. People are buying HD TVs, HD camcorders and many are capable of editing in HD. What do you do if you want to distribute your home made video to relatives and friends?. What about those Event and Wedding Videographers whose clients are willing to pay a premium in order to be able to enjoy their video memories in HD?. My guess is that Apple is going to offer BR as a built to order option in the Mac Pro and Macbook Pro at least, and they are going to do it once DVD Studio Pro and iDVD become blu-ray compatible. That way people who need it now can have it and those who don't care or think is to expensive wont be forced.

The sad part is that iDVD and DVD Studio Pro weren't updated the last time around because Apple thinks that most content is going to go online. I hope Apple updates both apps this coming cycle though.... it would be nice to be able to author a BR disc if the need ever rises.

I was wondering when Apple was going to get the ball rolling on getting Blu-ray into computers since HD DVD has surrendered. Maybe we will see drives in desktops come WWDC. Here's to hoping.

HD-DVD didn't really surrender, there really wasn't much of a war. The companies that used BR were the major movers and shakers of the tech industry. It was bound to be BR over HD-DVD. And if there is a war, it won't be over until BR is widely adopted by consumers, and it's used over all other forms of distribution.

Agh, are you kidding me...

Could anyone please tell me how many Sony components are in the Macbook, if any, because I hate Sony with a passion...

Just the battery from what I know.

[bytethese]

Some facts about Blueray:

It's easier to say
It's easier to type
A bigger selection to choose from
Sounds better
Looks cooler
Holds more data
Doesn't say DVD in the name

HD-DVD sucks... I'm for Blueray

Ok, I'll bite...

You mean Blu-ray right? :)

[Small White Car]

Disagree. Are you suggesting that you would save a library of HD films on your hard drive? How about when 2k or 4k become the standard? Given the rate at which hard drive technology is improving, and the rate at which network connections improve -- these will be dwarfed by the increasing memory demands of films, and there will remain a need for some form of hard storage (not necessarily optical drives, but the wifi world you imagine is not in the forseeable future, methinks).

I don't think you read his post very clearly. He says optical drives are on their way out. He didn't say anything about a "wifi world."

I agree, by the way. Both flash and traditional hard drives are becoming more and more affordable. At the moment 100 GB of space costs about $45 in Blu-Ray disks and about $80 in an external USB hard drive. Are the disks cheaper? Yes, but the hard drive is more convineint and faster to use. (And compatible with nearly every computer instantly.) For many that's enough reason to justify the price difference.

And as flash media becomes cheaper it will become more and more popular.

Optical drives will still be popular for long-term storage, but eventually you'll have one stand-alone optical drive in your house for exactly that use and little else. The days of having an optical drive in EVERY computer you own won't last forever.

EDIT: What WILL keep them around is DVD collections. If Hollywood would ever wise up and let iTunes rip DVDs just like it does CDs you would see optical drives die MUCH quicker. As it is now I'm guessing 10-15 more years of "optical drives are standard in everything." If you could rip DVDs easily (with iTunes, not 3rd party software) I'd shorten that number to 5-7 years.

[pkoch1]

Personally, I don't think HD will make a big difference on my MacBook Pro's 15" screen so to me its inclusion is no big deal. So if it's only a reader, I must ask what's the point?

And would it be a SuperDuperDrive?

Its not about that. Its about compatibility between the disk that you can play on your tv and disk you pop into your computer. I dont want 2 copies of every movie I buy depending on where in my house I want to watch it.

[HaGG]

It will happen, but it will be an optional upgrade and the price will be ridiculous.

[Digital Skunk]

I don't think you read his post very clearly. He says optical drives are on their way out. He didn't say anything about a "wifi world."

I agree, by the way. Both flash and traditional hard drives are becoming more and more affordable. At the moment 100 GB of space costs about $45 in Blu-Ray disks and about $80 in an external USB hard drive. Are the disks cheaper? Yes, but the hard drive is more convineint and faster to use. (And compatible with nearly every computer instantly.) For many that's enough reason to justify the price difference.

And as flash media becomes cheaper it will become more and more popular.

Optical drives will still be popular for long-term storage, but eventually you'll have one stand-alone optical drive in your house for exactly that use and little else. The days of having an optical drive in EVERY computer you own won't last forever.

**DING!**

We have a winner....

Not that BR isn't necessary, I just don't think it will be a pervasive. As as SWC has said, it's still a form of optical media that won't last forever. The floppy was discarded not too long ago and many kids that I work with have never seen one, let along the 5.25" version.

BR will catch on, improve, and become standard in most computers, but by that time I think people would have gotten used to just getting their meat and potatoes off of the internet, and only using optical media for a few larger files, and heavier content.

[Yvan256]

Disagree. Are you suggesting that you would save a library of HD films on your hard drive? How about when 2k or 4k become the standard? Given the rate at which hard drive technology is improving, and the rate at which network connections improve -- these will be dwarfed by the increasing memory demands of films, and there will remain a need for some form of hard storage (not necessarily optical drives, but the wifi world you imagine is not in the forseeable future, methinks).

Funny, this reminds me of a conversation I was having with a friend about 20 years ago, about music CDs, when the MP3 format came out... May I remind you that the hard drive in my computer was around 40 or 80MB at the time.

HDTV is having a hard time becoming a standard in homes (if we compare it to DVD, when it was introduced), so forget your 2k or 4k "standard" for at least a decade or so. People are just starting to buy 1080p TVs (or 1080i, seeing as 1080p is not even the norm for what I see on display at most stores), Blu-Ray just won the "war" and is too expensive, so forget about people replacing all that new equipment for something else anytime soon. You have to give it about 5 years for early adopters and about a decade for regular people before they even think about replacing something they just bought. These aren't computers.

Besides, we already have 1TB 3.5" drives in 2008, so I think we can safely assume that by the time that real "HD media centers" are needed (i.e. :apple:TV with an Apple-branded home server), we should have adequate storage capacities.

I also think that Apple's Time Capsule is a step in the direction of home servers, BTW. It's only missing the ability to run an iTunes server.

[jonahfish7]

Apple may have a screwed up policy (it's a screwball policy because not everyone is going download movies and they aren't really in competition with each other) in not putting blu-ray on macs because of itunes, but Apple users need blu-ray on macs to burn blu-ray video.

DVD Studio Pro and iDVD need to be updated to allow for the burning of blu-ray content. Furthermore, blu-ray drives need to be on macs so users can burn that content.

[TheSpaz]

Ok, I'll bite...

You mean Blu-ray right? :)

Of course I meant Blu-ray... duh. ;)

[megfilmworks]

What??? The MBA was a joke, it's not the future of technology by any means.

It's not for me, but it is sure selling well. The times they are a changin'

[jonahfish7]

My own theory is that once Star Wars and LOTR comes out on blu-ray, then blu-ray sales will go through the roof and prices will come down, and every computer, including Macs, will have blu-ray on them.

[Kan-O-Z]

Personally I think that optical drives will go away eventually....except for maybe renting movies. The reason for this is that optical technology isn't improving as rapidly as the harddrive and flashdrive technologies. I mean they already have 16GB flash out now and they seem to be doubling the capacity every year. It's just a matter of time when you can have blu-ray capacity in the size of a postage stamp(like SD flash) and it costs $10. It took a long time to go from DVD to Blu-Ray. If the next step in optical takes this long, optical will be obsolete. Also think about how external harddrives drives are also about 1/2 TB for around $100!!! Imagine next year you'll be getting Terabyte drives for $100! Who needs Blu-Ray for data storage :)

I do think Flash and other technologies will take over blu-ray. All you need with flash is a card reader and you are set...no fancy expensive drives. Very cheap, simple, and very durable(shock proof, no skipping, less errors), very very small, always rewriteable. With the increase in network bandwidths, the movie rental market will go more and more towards online rentals like Apple TVs. The physical media needs will be covered by flash or other technologies. Blu-Ray will eventually be obsolete.

Kan-O-Z

[TheSpaz]

Apple may have a screwed up policy (it's a screwball policy because not everyone is going download movies and they aren't really in competition with each other) in not putting blu-ray on macs because of itunes, but Apple users need blu-ray on macs to burn blu-ray video.

DVD Studio Pro and iDVD need to be updated to allow for the burning of blu-ray content. Furthermore, blu-ray drives need to be on macs so users can burn that content.

I think Apple is trying to do with movies what they did with music. I don't use CD players anymore at all and the other day I bought a new CD (the actual disc) and I wanted to listen to it in my car and I forgot how much is sucked to fumble around with a disc while I pull it out of the case, open the CD player, eject a CD that is already in it, push the new CD in, and close the CD player... I am so glad I have an iPod... it has completely changed the way I listen to music. By the way, the minute I got home, that CD went in my drive and got ripped as 192kbps AAC and tossed onto my iPod so that I no longer have to fumble with discs. I think that's what the whole point of buying and renting movies online is... to try and eliminate the need for discs.

[Plutonius]

Bleh...

I can spend $15.99 for a new release DVD or $29.99 + for a new release Blu-ray disk.

I will not be getting a Blu-ray player until I'm forced to.

[Digital Skunk]

My own theory is that once Star Wars and LOTR comes out on blu-ray, then blu-ray sales will go through the roof and prices will come down, and every computer, including Macs, will have blu-ray on them.

Prices go up when sales increase.... if demand increases then so does the price.

If BR is expensive now, and if everyone were jumping on the BR ship then the prices would stay the same. Since no one is buying it (mainly because it's too expensive for the entire HD setup) the manufacturers are trying to find away to lower the prices.

[jonahfish7]

Prices go down as more companies compete in the blu-ray market, which will happen once demand increases.

[Small White Car]

Prices go up when sales increase.... if demand increases then so does the price.

There are 2 forces fighting each other here. One is supply/demand that you've listed.

The other is that technology gets cheaper to produce in larger numbers. So with computers those 2 forces are the opposite of each other and basically "fight" each other. Often the second factor is big enough to outweigh the first.

[asdavis10]

Bleh...

I can spend $15.99 for a new release DVD or $29.99 + for a new release Blu-ray disk.

I will not be getting a Blu-ray player until I'm forced to.

And this is the point. Arguing about the specs of Blu-ray is irrelevant. Anyone can go on Wikipedia and copy the specs and put them in a post but Blu-ray will not replace DVD until it can reach DVD's current price point. And I understand that price will decrease with demand, but there are millions of consumers that feel this way.

(I understand that talking about price is a little off topic since this forum in about Apple's inclusion of Blu-ray but it is still relevant)

[EagerDragon]

I am not pro the idea of paying for a Blue-Ray drive in every single Laptop and desktop. I rather have a portable Burning Blue-Ray drive (Firewire, NAS) that I can move / mount on a system as needed.

I do not know about you, but I do not spend every waking hour burning DVD(s) and Blue Ray Disks. It is rare when I can use something like that and see no point in having one in every machine.

[Plutonius]

And this is the point. Arguing about the specs of Blu-ray is irrelevant. Anyone can go on Wikipedia and copy the specs and put them in a post but Blu-ray will not replace DVD until it can reach DVD's current price point. And I understand that price will decrease with demand, but there are millions of consumers that feel this way.

(I understand that talking about price is a little off topic since this forum in about Apple's inclusion of Blu-ray but it is still relevant)

Actually it is on topic since many of us do not want the extra expense of a Blu-ray player in our Macs.

[Eidorian]

Blu-Ray alongside Montevina at best. Apple needs to support their GPU hardware's decoding features though in OS X.

[Digital Skunk]

Prices go down as more companies compete in the blu-ray market, which will happen once demand increases.

Yes... but now you've added another factor into play :D That would be competition.

And yes SWC there is a dichotomy with the tech market. Very little change except easier production methods. That also adds to the lowering cost of devices and such.

I think Apple is trying to do with movies what they did with music. I don't use CD players anymore at all and the other day I bought a new CD (the actual disc) and I wanted to listen to it in my car and I forgot how much is sucked to fumble around with a disc while I pull it out of the case, open the CD player, eject a CD that is already in it, push the new CD in, and close the CD player... I am so glad I have an iPod... it has completely changed the way I listen to music. By the way, the minute I got home, that CD went in my drive and got ripped as 192kbps AAC and tossed onto my iPod so that I no longer have to fumble with discs. I think that's what the whole point of buying and renting movies online is... to try and eliminate the need for discs.

Another user gets it! :D

I agree totally on the CD aspect. I would buy the CD of a band that I really like but once I get home it's going on the computer and to the iPod as well. The sound quality from CDs is unmatched also, but I am learning how to get the most out of my compressed digital audio too.

Now that I can get 160GB iPods and 32GB iPod Touch players I am not going to compress my music as much. Now that I have an N router and N cards in my machines and I can rent HD movies BR doesn't seem as ideal.

[megfilmworks]

Personally I think that optical drives will go away eventually....except for maybe renting movies. The reason for this is that optical technology isn't improving as rapidly as the harddrive and flashdrive technologies. I mean they already have 16GB flash out now and they seem to be doubling the capacity every year. It's just a matter of time when you can have blu-ray capacity in the size of a postage stamp(like SD flash) and it costs $10. It took a long time to go from DVD to Blu-Ray. If the next step in optical takes this long, optical will be obsolete. Also think about how external harddrives drives are also about 1/2 TB for around $100!!! Imagine next year you'll be getting Terabyte drives for $100! Who needs Blu-Ray for data storage :)
... With the increase in network bandwidths, the movie rental market will go more and more towards online rentals like Apple TVs. The physical media needs will be covered by flash or other technologies. Blu-Ray will eventually be obsolete.

Kan-O-Z
I couldn't agree more!

[gkarris]

Some facts about Blueray:

It's easier to say
It's easier to type
A bigger selection to choose from
Sounds better
Looks cooler
Holds more data
Doesn't say DVD in the name

HD-DVD sucks... I'm for Blueray

Ok, I'll bite...

You mean Blu-ray right? :)

And I think he means "HD DVD"... :p

[GooMan]

Agh, are you kidding me... I hate Sony with a passion...

Me too. I am automatically against anything Sony has a hand in. Their business practices are to a$$ rape the consumer as quickly and as often as possible. Maybe one day I will come around to BluRay but I was kinda hoping HD-DVD would win out. I don't have a dog in the fight because I am 100% happy with plain 'ol cheap DVDs.

As far as the storage goes, I would rather use HDDs and my Amazon S3 account than have a huge stack of discs. Just my $0.02.

[jpine]

My friend in Japan has a 30Mbps optical line and he's 'only' in Nagoya (as opposed to being in Tokyo.

I keep saying it. A good chunk of the US is stuck with dial-up.

[hayesk]

I don't know why everyone gets hung up on High Definition movie discussions when it comes to Blu-Ray in Apple Computers and laptops, etc.. The reason why I want blu-ray in my apple laptops is so I can backup my data easier for long-term storage. 50 GB is significantly larger than 8GB backups. I know right now a burnable 50GB disc is expensive, but eventually the prices will drop to be more affordable to backup projects to a blu-ray disc.

You can go buy an external Blu-ray drive for data today. It just can't be used to play video. Go buy one.

[mtbdudex]

I'd love to see Blu-Ray in the Mini upgrade. This would be a television's best friend.

2nd that, when Blu-Ray is added to the Mini that's my HTPC for the basement home cinema.
Mike R(mtbdudex) DIY Home Theatre/Basement Thread (4 year project done in 2008!) (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=989861)

[TheChemist]

Hear hear!

Add a dash of XBMC on OS X (http://www.osxbmc.com/) and you'll never leave the house again!

is this like Connect 360 ?

[twoodcc]

well hopefully we'll at least see these in a mac pro soon. surely this year

[jragosta]

Personally, I don't think HD will make a big difference on my MacBook Pro's 15" screen so to me its inclusion is no big deal. So if it's only a reader, I must ask what's the point?

And would it be a SuperDuperDrive?

It's not about the quality on your screen (although some people would argue that you CAN see the difference on a 15" screen because you're so close). It's about compatibility with your home BR collection.

We're at least ten years away from a physical media free world. At least. The MBA is a crippled computer because of it's lack of one: Want to watch/rip a DVD? CD? Install software? Burn a disc for a friend?

I get so tired of hearing this. MBA is not a crippled computer any more than a convertible is a crippled SUV. It's for people who want the ultimate in portability and don't need to carry optical with them.

Bleh...

I can spend $15.99 for a new release DVD or $29.99 + for a new release Blu-ray disk.

I will not be getting a Blu-ray player until I'm forced to.

Then don't. What does that have to do with the discussion?

Prices go up when sales increase.... if demand increases then so does the price.

If BR is expensive now, and if everyone were jumping on the BR ship then the prices would stay the same. Since no one is buying it (mainly because it's too expensive for the entire HD setup) the manufacturers are trying to find away to lower the prices.

I see you've re-written Econ 101. Nice job.

That would explain why DVD disks are still $29.99 (which is where they started), RAM still costs $500 per MB, a 4 MHz CPU costs $1,000, and VHS tapes still cost $19.99. Oh, wait.....

Actually it is on topic since many of us do not want the extra expense of a Blu-ray player in our Macs.

Since most new technologies have been offered as options until the cost came down enough to make them standard, I doubt that you have to worry about it. But those of us who DO want it, would be willing to pay for it if it becomes available.

I keep saying it. A good chunk of the US is stuck with dial-up.

Even beyond that, there is a large group of people with fast internet who don't have the ability to handle something as 'complicated' as downloading a movie. That's why there are so many VCRs still flashing 00:00.

[bdkennedy1]

No, not a surprise. Neither is this story since it was reported 4 days ago.

Not a surprise.

[diamond.g]

is this like Connect 360 ?

Nope, it replaces FrontRow on your Mac (basically).

[bdkennedy1]

is this like Connect 360 ?

No, it's a pet project of some developers that, for some ungodly reason want to run the original XBox media center on their Macs.

[digitalbiker]

You can always back it up to a HDD...

Magnetic media degrades rapidly over time. Even when not in use, magnetic discs only have 10 - 20 year life span and that is when properly stored in climate controlled environments. Life spans shorten to 6 - 12 years when in constant use. Many companies that used magnetic disc for archive in the mid 90's are already having issues with retrieving this older data.

Optical media has an estimated lifespan of 100 years. So HDD is not practical for long term storage. It also is not as easy to store off site which is necessary incase of a fire, flood, earthquake or whatever destroys the primary location.

Most people only have 100 GB or so of active data on their systems. Two 50GB Blu-ray discs nicely archive this quickly for most users.

Blu-ray costs will reduce drastically over the next year. Prices were held up previously due to format wars, uncertainty in the market, and lack of HD TV sales in the US. That is changing in a big way. HD TV sales are up, Blu-ray movie titles are exponentially increasing, HD-DVD is dead, movie rental houses are now stocking Blu-ray movies. This emerging market will allow mass distribution and mass competition which will drop prices quickly.

If you have ever seen true 1080i or p on a 50" 1080p TV vs AppleTV's supposed 720p or cable and satellite's HD there is no comparison. The quality is mind blowing both in sound and visually. Apple TV is way too compressed and is similar to standard DVD but looks poor on 50" HDTV.
Cable and satellite come in second but are still poor in comparison to Blu-ray 1080i or p.

[eric_n_dfw]

I'd rather do without Blu-ray on the Mac than have all the horrendously unstable, system-slowing DRM that it requires implemented on Mac OS X.

Look at the huge mess Vista is; this is mostly because of all the DRM required to satisfy the movie studios.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR, people. We can watch Blu-ray on our televisions. Keep this DRM crap off our computers. There's already some but we're nowhere as bad as Vista.

The rumors of Vista's DRM being it's death had been greatly exaggerated: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=299

[eric_n_dfw]

Optical media has an estimated lifespan of 100 years. So HDD is not practical for long term storage. It also is not as easy to store off site which is necessary incase or a fire, flood, earthquake or whatever destroys the primary location.
I generally agree with you, but the 100 year comment is highly subjective. A lot depends on what kind of dye is used in the CD-R/DVD-R/BD-R media you use.

Stamped, aluminum discs will last that long, but the recordables are a crap-shoot.

[Heil68]

I'm not looking for a BlueRay drive in my laptop, my PS3 suffices for that need.

[MarsUltor]

I'm not looking for a BlueRay drive in my laptop, my PS3 suffices for that need.

Chances are, it will come out for desktops long before it comes out on laptops anyways... by the time bluray comes out on laptops, it will be a much wider used medium (in my opinion at least)...

[seedster2]

1.Apple HAS to introduce BR drives, they are catering to a creative market. The demand is already there for the Mac Pro.

2.AppleTV is not a roaring success quite yet and a lot has to do with slow internet many people don't have access to online rentals.

3.Apple TV costs 300 bucks and Sony's CEO has hinted at the release of a $200 BR player this year so it will be slowly adopted like DVD. so the prices are already falling

4.AppleTV competes with VOD offered by cable providers, cable providers are changing their subscription models that will further hinder the cost effectiveness of online movie rentals

5. It can be made an optional drive just like the superdrive, I dont see while people are complaining. Just dont select it and your mac wont have it!!:eek:

6. People still like to lend movies to friends watch at their own convenience and rip them to their HD's

Physical media isn't going anywhere. Just look at the resurgence of vinyl

[Digital Skunk]

I see you've re-written Econ 101. Nice job.

That would explain why DVD disks are still $29.99 (which is where they started), RAM still costs $500 per MB, a 4 MHz CPU costs $1,000, and VHS tapes still cost $19.99. Oh, wait.....

Instead of being a smart guy that isn't actually arguing anything because you know that you're wrong, why don't you actually go do some homework?

Oh wait.... you're an idiot :rolleyes: my bad.

http://www.investopedia.com/university/economics/economics3.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand

Increase in demand.... increase in price, tell me how the opposite can make sense?

p.s. I actually don't mind it when someone doesn't know something.... but it pisses me off when you don't know ***** and you act like you do.

[Winglet]

[QUOTE=MacRumors;5130812]http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

Apple, however, has not yet shipped any high definition drives with any of their computers. They've instead focused on distributing digital content through their iTunes Store.

With the demise of the HD-DVD format, it seems only a matter of time before Apple adopts Blu-ray drives in their machines.


I think the key here is iTunes Store. Apple spent much time and effort negotiating with the major studios for the ability to rent movies via iTunes. Seems like adding a blu-ray drive, that would directly compete (from an entertainment standpoint) would undermine this work and take sales away from iTunes and Apple TV. Both of these mediums are easy money for Apple and with the current economy situation, a good source of revenue to ride out the storm.

[gkarris]

I haven't read everything (sorry)...

Why does Apple have to "talk" to Sony anyways? Pioneer makes great drives.

Also, HP is using the LG Super-Multi drives, which do HD DVD and Blu-ray.... :eek:

:confused:

[Digital Skunk]

Magnetic media degrades rapidly over time. Even when not in use, magnetic discs only have 10 - 20 year life span and that is when properly stored in climate controlled environments. Life spans shorten to 6 - 12 years when in constant use. Many companies that used magnetic disc for archive in the mid 90's are already having issues with retrieving this older data.

Optical media has an estimated lifespan of 100 years. So HDD is not practical for long term storage. It also is not as easy to store off site which is necessary incase of a fire, flood, earthquake or whatever destroys the primary location.

Most people only have 100 GB or so of active data on their systems. Two 50GB Blu-ray discs nicely archive this quickly for most users.

Blu-ray costs will reduce drastically over the next year. Prices were held up previously due to format wars, uncertainty in the market, and lack of HD TV sales in the US. That is changing in a big way. HD TV sales are up, Blu-ray movie titles are exponentially increasing, HD-DVD is dead, movie rental houses are now stocking Blu-ray movies. This emerging market will allow mass distribution and mass competition which will drop prices quickly.

If you have ever seen true 1080i or p on a 50" 1080p TV vs AppleTV's supposed 720p or cable and satellite's HD there is no comparison. The quality is mind blowing both in sound and visually. Apple TV is way too compressed and is similar to standard DVD but looks poor on 50" HDTV.
Cable and satellite come in second but are still poor in comparison to Blu-ray 1080i or p.

I agree, but who wants to save a 6 year old copy of LOTR on a 6 years old 500GB drive? I am sure the user would be replacing their drives ever so often. The media may not last, but it's still more cost effective as an archive solution than BR.

Two BR discs would cost you $100, the same price for a 500GB drive now, and much more in a few years.

I have seen true HD on true HD monitors, and the only limitations so far are the bandwidth of the internet which will improve, and the viewer's TV. Both of which will improve by the time BR really comes into maturity.

p.s. by the time BR comes to maturity, I am sure SSD would mature as well, and become a more stable and viable option for backups.

[Antares]

I like optical media and hope that Apple adds a Blu-ray writable drive by the time I'm ready to purchase my next computer.

People are kidding themselves if they think that downloadable content will completely replace physical media anywhere in the near future. You need to think about the big picture and the mass market. Downloadable content isn't a convenient thing for most people. It's not easily portable and can be confusing to work with. It is not only very limiting in how it can be used but also requires an investment in a massive amount of storage.

Regular people don't have access to ultra high speed internet. It's great that a country like Japan has the modern infrastructure to handle it. However, in a country like the United States, most of the infrastructure is decades old. You need to remember that actual speed is not only dependant on the speed of the service provider, but also the quality of the wiring in your home, distance from the provider's local center, bandwidth usage, connection speed with the server that you are downloading from, etc.. I have 2Mbps DSL but have never had a connection speed above 230Kbps. Below 100Kbps has been the norm. And that has been with various providers.

I also recently priced out how much I would have to spend to buy hard drives for all of my music and movies (ripped in the highest quality). It would cost me almost $4,000. I have my music collection currently ripped in 256 AAC but there is no way that I'm going to spend money to try and rip all of my movies. Music is one thing but the file sizes of movies are orders of magnitude higher....especially once you start getting at higher resolutions. Also, most people don't have computers anywhere near their tv's. Can you expect every single person in the world to buy an Apple TV, Slingbox, etc. to get downloadable movies to their tv's? There will be a definite market for physical media for the foreseeable future.

Now for storage, Blu-ray will also be great. More space, less discs. Personally, I only like to keep stuff on my computer/hard drives which I will be accessing over and over again. Any file that I don't need regular access to, I like to archive on DVD (TIFF's from my photography, uncompressed movies, etc.). Hard drives are guaranteed to eventually fail...often without warning. Sure, that's why you should back up your hard drives. But is regular Joe guaranteed to do that? I currently buy DVD's, Blu-ray Discs and CD's. However, I also download the occasional music and movie. I back up those digital copies on CD or DVD. The last thing that I want is for a hard drive to fail and for me to loose my entire music and movie collection (if it was theoretically purely digital) along with all of my original photos. Physical media virtually negates that risk.

As I have said, many time before on this site, I agree that digital media will likely someday eventually completely replace physical media. However, that is a long, long way off. Bring on Blu-ray for our Macs! It's about time.

[None Such]

What does Roxio Toast 8 do with Blu-ray? I remember seeing some option when I installed my copy.

[Digital Skunk]

Magnetic media degrades rapidly over time. Even when not in use, magnetic discs only have 10 - 20 year life span and that is when properly stored in climate controlled environments. Life spans shorten to 6 - 12 years when in constant use. Many companies that used magnetic disc for archive in the mid 90's are already having issues with retrieving this older data.

Optical media has an estimated lifespan of 100 years. So HDD is not practical for long term storage. It also is not as easy to store off site which is necessary incase of a fire, flood, earthquake or whatever destroys the primary location.

Most people only have 100 GB or so of active data on their systems. Two 50GB Blu-ray discs nicely archive this quickly for most users.

Blu-ray costs will reduce drastically over the next year. Prices were held up previously due to format wars, uncertainty in the market, and lack of HD TV sales in the US. That is changing in a big way. HD TV sales are up, Blu-ray movie titles are exponentially increasing, HD-DVD is dead, movie rental houses are now stocking Blu-ray movies. This emerging market will allow mass distribution and mass competition which will drop prices quickly.

If you have ever seen true 1080i or p on a 50" 1080p TV vs AppleTV's supposed 720p or cable and satellite's HD there is no comparison. The quality is mind blowing both in sound and visually. Apple TV is way too compressed and is similar to standard DVD but looks poor on 50" HDTV.
Cable and satellite come in second but are still poor in comparison to Blu-ray 1080i or p.

I agree, but who wants to save a 6 year old copy of LOTR on a 6 years old 500GB drive? I am sure the user would be replacing their drives ever so often. The media may not last, but it's still more cost effective as an archive solution than BR.

Two BR discs would cost you $100, the same price for a 500GB drive now, and much more in a few years.

I have seen true HD on true HD monitors, and the only limitations so far are the bandwidth of the internet which will improve, and the viewer's TV. Both of which will improve by the time BR really comes into maturity.

p.s. by the time BR comes to maturity, I am sure SSD would mature as well, and become a more stable and viable option for backups.

I haven't read everything (sorry)...

Why does Apple have to "talk" to Sony anyways? Pioneer makes great drives.

Also, HP is using the LG Super-Multi drives, which do HD DVD and Blu-ray.... :eek:

:confused:

That Pioneer drive only reads both discs, it doesn't burn either, and I recall it not being able to read or write any or a majority of DVD and CD media either.

[SPG]

I have no problem if Apple wants to add Blu-Ray as long as its optional and not forced on all of their computers. I will probably never use it but others may have a need for it but I don't want to pay extra...

I think I heard that same exact statement when the DVD drives were being rolled out, and also when the CD drives were being added to computers. In this case though, I do think that the BD drive will have to be an option rather than a standard since the cost is currently too high in relation to the need of the market. New software isn't going to be released on it like DVD, and as many people have pointed out hard drives and other storage mediums are more cost effective and convenient.

It is funny to see how the optical drive has gone full circle in Apple's portable line starting as an option with the combo drive, then the superdrive, and now an option again with the MacBook Air.

[jragosta]

Instead of being a smart guy that isn't actually arguing anything because you know that you're wrong, why don't you actually go do some homework?

Oh wait.... you're an idiot :rolleyes: my bad.

http://www.investopedia.com/university/economics/economics3.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand

Increase in demand.... increase in price, tell me how the opposite can make sense?

p.s. I actually don't mind it when someone doesn't know something.... but it pisses me off when you don't know ***** and you act like you do.

The funny thing is that you're managing to make yourself look stupid - and calling me names.

Your curves depend on a fixed production capacity. If that were true, higher demand would cause higher prices. In reality, the relevant factors in DVD and BR pricing are competition and reduced manufacturing costs through higher volumes.

Every single technology I can think of has gone down in price over time (unless there is a constrained supply). Your argument that higher popularlity will lead to higher prices is absurd - and contrary to the experience of the entire industry. As I said, DVD prices fell over time. VHS prices fell over time. RAM prices fell over time. TV prices fall over time -- in spite of vastly increased demand during the time that prices were falling. How do you explain that? And why do you think BR will be any different?

Oh, and I run a multimillion dollar company - very, very successfully. What's your business experience?

[MarsUltor]

Instead of being a smart guy that isn't actually arguing anything because you know that you're wrong, why don't you actually go do some homework?

Oh wait.... you're an idiot :rolleyes: my bad.

http://www.investopedia.com/university/economics/economics3.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand

Increase in demand.... increase in price, tell me how the opposite can make sense?

p.s. I actually don't mind it when someone doesn't know something.... but it pisses me off when you don't know ***** and you act like you do.

You are correct in principle, but you are neglecting a lot of important factors at play. Those principles are part of Adam Smith's invisible hand and do relate, to an extent, to your argument, but that analysis is only really good for snapshots in time (and theoretical constructions). Technology, in particular, is governed by supply and demand, as well as other aspects like: economies of scale, the fact that once capitol is purchased there is no need to purchase more, the fact that hardware consistently drops in price due to constant technological and engineering advances... all of these facts and more contribute to hardwares constant drops in price, not only do things cost less to manufacture, there is competition between manufactures (and it is lower prices that win over consumers, as well as quality/features)... think of it in these terms, the iPhone has more computing/communications power than all the computers involved in sending Apollo 11 to the Moon, yet costs a fraction of the cost, and is widely available to people throughout the world...

[MarsUltor]

Two BR discs would cost you $100, the same price for a 500GB drive now, and much more in a few years.


Sure, writable Blu-Ray discs cost a lot now, but your logic is well... illogical. This is an example of the transitive property: If a 500GB drive costs $100 dollars now, and if a larger drive costs $100 in the coming future, then a 500 GB drive in the coming future costs less than $100 dollars (end of transitive property). By this logic, hard drive prices drop in cost as time goes on, would it be illogical to think that writable blu-ray discs won't either? I mean it is a piece of plastic which costs a fraction of a cent to press. CD-R's, when first released, were around $20 a disc (maybe more), now we can purchase a spindle of 100 DVD's for $0.10 a disc... so blu-ray discs will most likely be in the several cent range in the coming years.

[Yvan256]

Magnetic media degrades rapidly over time. Even when not in use, magnetic discs only have 10 - 20 year life span and that is when properly stored in climate controlled environments. Life spans shorten to 6 - 12 years when in constant use.

[...]

Most people only have 100 GB or so of active data on their systems. Two 50GB Blu-ray discs nicely archive this quickly for most users.

[...]

To be honest, who doesn't replace his hard drives every 4 to 5 years? Would you still be able to store all your data on the hard drive you had 5 years ago?

We all buy new, bigger drives at some point, fill it up with the data from the previous drive, and donate/sell the old, smaller drive. I, for one, wouldn't want to waste space on my desk for a 40 or 80GB drive. I currently have a 1TB external drive for my CDs and DVDs, a 500GB Time Capsule for my system backups and yet another 250GB drive for company files.

As for Blu-Ray, it has already begun to suffer the same fate as CD's for backups: you already need at least a couple of discs for a complete backup, which is a non-starter. It doesn't matter if a rewritable Blu-Ray disc only costs 5$ if I need a dozen or so for a complete system/data backup.

We've all become lazy with handling media. The iPod, :apple:TV and Time Capsule are all proof of this. Either it's all automatic or most people won't bother with it.

As for Flash catching up to magnetic or optical media, it's still too expensive or even unavailable. Hard drives still provide the cheapest, biggest storage solution for the time being.

If the MacBook Air's SSD drive is any indication (1300$US for 64GB) it's that while solid-state storage is the future, it's still too expensive and doesn't have enough storage capacity. Given "Moore's Law" however, it could start to change in about 5 to 10 years.

If Seagate, Western Digital and cie. stand still for 5 to 10 years, that is.

[Digital Skunk]

Sure, ...

Come on dude, now you're trying to argue for arguing sake. My logic can't be illogical if you use it to prove why you think my logic is illogical.... and it's not illogical so your statement is all jacked up.

I am not saying that BR won't come down in price... all I was saying is that the cost to back up 100GB on BR is $100 while you can get a 500GB drive for that price and backup more.

Nothing else!

Read Yvan256's post above.

[bytethese]

I generally agree with you, but the 100 year comment is highly subjective. A lot depends on what kind of dye is used in the CD-R/DVD-R/BD-R media you use.

Stamped, aluminum discs will last that long, but the recordables are a crap-shoot.

I agree, but it also depends on humidity, direct sunlight, etc. :) Personally, I wouldn't let a disk more than 25yrs but at that, will there even BE optical drives 25yrs from now to read your data from?

[bytethese]

Chances are, it will come out for desktops long before it comes out on laptops anyways... by the time bluray comes out on laptops, it will be a much wider used medium (in my opinion at least)...

They've already BEEN out in laptops. Albeit these are media center laptops, but they have them, just not slot loading. :)

[MarsUltor]

Come on dude, now you're trying to argue for arguing sake. My logic can't be illogical if you use it to prove why you think my logic is illogical.... and it's not illogical so your statement is all jacked up.

I am not saying that BR won't come down in price... all I was saying is that the cost to back up 100GB on BR is $100 while you can get a 500GB drive for that price and backup more.


I was merely pointing out that your conclusions didn't make too much sense, in my opinion. Burnable Blu-ray discs are not economical for the typical user (yet), but the price drop in optical media falls at a far greater rate than that of magnetic media... and history is my proof of that...

[J-mizzle]

Yeah I'd dig a BD burner, but maybe waiting a year or two for the price of an external to drop is the way to go... I do want that new iMac people have been talking about, wether or not it has a Blu-Ray option.

[MarsUltor]

They've already BEEN out in laptops. Albeit these are media center laptops, but they have them, just not slot loading. :)

I didn't know that, but I was mainly basing that statement on the upcoming Macs...

[Digital Skunk]

I was merely pointing out that your conclusions didn't make too much sense, in my opinion. Burnable Blu-ray discs are not economical for the typical user (yet), but the price drop in optical media falls at a far greater rate than that of magnetic media... and history is my proof of that...

You're right... and sorry, I was still a bit fired up from the last post. :D Please accept my deepest apologies.

That is correct, but like you did say... the price of both will come down (as demand decreases) so users will still be left with both options, and HDDs will be the more economical choice for archiving, even if the medium only lasts a safe 6-10 years.

BR discs are still perfect for games, movies and more likely software distribution. Instead of putting Final Cut Studio on 4 DVDs, they can be on 1, and Apple may even have the large and heavy manuals for order, or PDF download, making the box a lot smaller and lighter to carry out of the store.

[psychofreak]

Prices go up when sales increase.... if demand increases then so does the price.This assumes a relatively constant cost of production. In the case of technological changes such as this one, the increased uptake of BR will lead to research to reduce the cost of production, thus shifting the supply curve outwards, and possibly decreasing prices:

http://img.skitch.com/20080310-prpsbg6n1sdy165hd4wpm8wk97.jpg

[Digital Skunk]

They've already BEEN out in laptops. Albeit these are media center laptops, but they have them, just not slot loading. :)

Just for the record.... there are slot loading BR disc drives.....

http://store.fastmac.com/product_info.php?products_id=338

But look at that PRICE!

$1000

[Great Dave]

I thought one of the benefits of HD-DVD is that is used existing DVD technology and the only difference was that it used a different CODEC - H.264 and/or Windows Media (VC-1). Is that correct?

I know my PC buddies have been able to play HD-DVD material.

Can I on a MacBook Pro?

Can I buy some of the now discounted HD-DVD movies and play them back using my MBP?

Thanks!!

[Digital Skunk]

This assumes a relatively constant cost of production. In the case of technological changes such as this one, the increased uptake of BR will lead to research to reduce the cost of production, thus shifting the supply curve outwards, and possibly decreasing prices:

http://img.skitch.com/20080310-prpsbg6n1sdy165hd4wpm8wk97.jpg

Yeah... I mentioned it before... tech is different because it's always advancing... it takes that initial surge of buyers to get the capital for R&D then the prices come down, but only because of the benefits of improved R&D and manufacturing,

NOT

because of increased demand.... I am willing to say that by the time BR drives come down in price substantially there won't be much of a demand for them.

[MarsUltor]

You're right... and sorry, I was still a bit fired up from the last post. :D Please accept my deepest apologies.


Accepted... it's always fun to make arguments on message boards...

[bytethese]

Just for the record.... there are slot loading BR disc drives.....

http://store.fastmac.com/product_info.php?products_id=338

But look at that PRICE!

$1000

Well yes, but are they offered in current MB/MBP configurations? :) They are offered in other brand laptops but not yet Apple. Hopefully with good negotiation, we may be able to perhaps have a BTO MB/MBP with a BD-R/RW drive for maybe another $100-$300. :)

[Great Dave]

... making the box a lot smaller and lighter to carry out of the store.

I don't know. I like it heavy. I feel like I am getting something substantial. ;)

[Digital Skunk]

Well yes, but are they offered in current MB/MBP configurations? :) They are offered in other brand laptops but not yet Apple. Hopefully with good negotiation, we may be able to perhaps have a BTO MB/MBP with a BD-R/RW drive for maybe another $100-$300. :)

I hope they do offer it, but I don't think it will be around $300. Maybe $799 or $899. And this drive is a writer and reader... not just the reader which does go for around $300.

Accepted... it's always fun to make arguments on message boards...

Yes, but only when it's a good civil debate. With either FACTS, or well known opinions backing up the argument..... or should I say debate.

I don't know. I like it heavy. I feel like I am getting something substantial. ;)

Amen, but the day I brought it home I had to carry it around the mall with the Significant Other, and for some reason it didn't dawn on me to drop it off at the car... :o

[asdavis10]

Magnetic media degrades rapidly over time. Even when not in use, magnetic discs only have 10 - 20 year life span and that is when properly stored in climate controlled environments. Life spans shorten to 6 - 12 years when in constant use. Many companies that used magnetic disc for archive in the mid 90's are already having issues with retrieving this older data.

Optical media has an estimated lifespan of 100 years. So HDD is not practical for long term storage. It also is not as easy to store off site which is necessary incase of a fire, flood, earthquake or whatever destroys the primary location.

Most people only have 100 GB or so of active data on their systems. Two 50GB Blu-ray discs nicely archive this quickly for most users.

Blu-ray costs will reduce drastically over the next year. Prices were held up previously due to format wars, uncertainty in the market, and lack of HD TV sales in the US. That is changing in a big way. HD TV sales are up, Blu-ray movie titles are exponentially increasing, HD-DVD is dead, movie rental houses are now stocking Blu-ray movies. This emerging market will allow mass distribution and mass competition which will drop prices quickly.

If you have ever seen true 1080i or p on a 50" 1080p TV vs AppleTV's supposed 720p or cable and satellite's HD there is no comparison. The quality is mind blowing both in sound and visually. Apple TV is way too compressed and is similar to standard DVD but looks poor on 50" HDTV.
Cable and satellite come in second but are still poor in comparison to Blu-ray 1080i or p.

Yes because we all still have drives that are 10-20 years old. People replace their drives (even computers) more recently because it is fairly inexpensive to do so. Blu-ray disks will never replace hard drives (magnetic or flash) for mass storage. Can't network your Blu-ray backup. And you can store your external drive off site as well. So that was a poor point.

1080i or 1080p is irrelevant. We are talking about APPLE including Blu-ray in their products. Last time I checked, Apple doesn't make home entertainment equipment other than Apple TV which is never going to be combined with a Blu-ray player. Viewing even 720p on a iMac, MB, MBP or Mac Pro with Cinema Displays is a waste until Apple develops newer high definition displays. The size of the displays is too small to make the best of Blu-ray. And then you bring up sound. Can you please tell me which Apple product has superior sound? Only Apple TV. Maybe the Mac Pro will get HDMI output support but that will be it.

Anyone that needs a Blu-ray burner should buy an external one. Wanting one to watch movies on your Mac is a waste of money.

[bytethese]

[QUOTE=Digital Skunk;5134028]I hope they do offer it, but I don't think it will be around $300. Maybe $799 or $899. And this drive is a writer and reader... not just the reader which does go for around $300.

I could live with a BD-ROM/DVD-RW DL if it was a $200 upgrade. I'm terribly optimistic that because Apple is on the Board of Directors for the Blu-ray Consortium, that they may be able to better negotiate cheaper prices for creation of BD-R/RW drives. :)

[bytethese]

Anyone that needs a Blu-ray burner should buy an external one. Wanting one to watch movies on your Mac is a waste of money.

*ehems and raises hand*

Um, I'd LOVE to watch Bluray movies on my laptop. I'd love to do what I currently do, buy a DVD, watch it at home, or bring with me on a trip and watch on the plane/train/etc. I'd hate to buy a movie and be stuck only being able to watch it at home. :)

Or if I travel, I can use my DVI port to output to an HDTV and use my Mac as a Blu-ray player when I travel.

[MarsUltor]

1080i or 1080p is irrelevant. We are talking about APPLE including Blu-ray in their products. Last time I checked, Apple doesn't make home entertainment equipment other than Apple TV which is never going to be combined with a Blu-ray player. Viewing even 720p on a iMac, MB, MBP or Mac Pro with Cinema Displays is a waste until Apple develops newer high definition displays. The size of the displays is too small to make the best of Blu-ray. And then you bring up sound. Can you please tell me which Apple product has superior sound? Only Apple TV. Maybe the Mac Pro will get HDMI output support but that will be it.

Not all users of internal blu-ray players are using it to view movies... sure that is the immediate use, but in the coming months/years more applications will require that sort of size (like games), and people will require more capacity to burn uncompressed video (to be viewed in said Blu-Ray players), and other large files

Anyone that needs a Blu-ray burner should buy an external one. Wanting one to watch movies on your Mac is a waste of money.

Sure it is a little frivolous, but who are you to say it is a waste of money? In some people's opinions (not mine) it is money well spent...

[SPG]

I'm guessing we may now see DVDSP5 with full Blu-Ray authoring capabilities now that HD-DVD is out of the way - here's hoping as it's been quite some time!!!

There's been a bit of talk on this subject in the DVD industry and very little real information. Apple dropped out of this years NAB show, so there goes one possible venue to release it. Apple had a solution for HD on disc with HD DVD playable content recorded on regular DVD-R. There are "affordable" one off Blu-Ray capabilities on PC today although you can't master with them or get the level of quality that's needed for commercial releases.

From an authoring standpoint, to do quality work for Blu-Ray and master is also very expensive. Good software and compression setups are in the six figure range compared to mid to low five figure for DVD when it first came out.
The other big problem with BluRay for a lot of the professionals right now is in replication (manufacturing 1,000 pieces instead of duplicating a few). The client needs to pay about $5,000 in MANDATORY DRM license fees* before you can even press a single disc. That's not a problem if you're making 100,000 copies or more and you spread that cost out, but it's $5 a disc if you're making 1,000 BluRay discs of an indie movie in a niche market. This is the show stopper for almost all of my clients right now. Everyone wants HD on a disc, but they can't afford the fees that come with it, so they sit and wait, and release on DVD and then eventually sell it on iTunes.
Everyone says that the Blu-Ray prices will come down, but there are some factors that just don't allow it. The components for a BluRay player are more expensive than a DVD player by about 3x. And that's not a factor of scale, but complexity. The replication lines are more complex and more expensive than DVD was at the beginning, so even with more of them coming online, the cost won't approach that of DVD...ever.
It currently costs four to six times as much to manufacture a BluRay disc than it does for a DVD and that is not including licensing. Even if the prices drop with an increase in volume that DVD had (ain't gonna happen) BluRay will still cost twice as much to manufacture.

Oh yeah, HD DVD costs? Just a tiny bit more than DVD since they were able to be manufactured on retrofitted DVD lines and DRM was optional so you could avoid all those fees.


*$3,000 of that is to register with AACS LA, which is a one time fee, but for a company that only makes a single movie per year, it may as well be per movie. All replicated BluRay discs must have AACS DRM on them or they can't be played in a BluRay player.

[asdavis10]

*ehems and raises hand*

Um, I'd LOVE to watch Bluray movies on my laptop. I'd love to do what I currently do, buy a DVD, watch it at home, or bring with me on a trip and watch on the plane/train/etc. I'd hate to buy a movie and be stuck only being able to watch it at home. :)

Or if I travel, I can use my DVI port to output to an HDTV and use my Mac as a Blu-ray player when I travel.

I guess you must have one of the Hi-Def laptop screens that haven't been developed yet. DVI port to output Blu-ray quality to an HDTV. Good luck.

Not all users of internal blu-ray players are using it to view movies... sure that is the immediate use, but in the coming months/years more applications will require that sort of size (like games), and people will require more capacity to burn uncompressed video (to be viewed in said Blu-Ray players), and other large files



Sure it is a little frivolous, but who are you to say it is a waste of money? In some people's opinions (not mine) it is money well spent...

Which is why an external is the better option than having it in a laptop or even Mac Pro. The speed would be crippling slow. An internal slot-loading Blu-ray drive for a laptop is going to be ridiculously expensive. And any digital professional that needs a Blu-ray drive isn't going to have to have it in a laptop.

[Digital Skunk]

*ehems and raises hand*

Um, I'd LOVE to watch Bluray movies on my laptop. I'd love to do what I currently do, buy a DVD, watch it at home, or bring with me on a trip and watch on the plane/train/etc. I'd hate to buy a movie and be stuck only being able to watch it at home. :)

Or if I travel, I can use my DVI port to output to an HDTV and use my Mac as a Blu-ray player when I travel.

I like that idea. In the meantime I would probably rent the movies from online and watch them on my laptop... watching them on the HDTV at a hotel may be hard... most of the hotels on the east coast are still 4:3... I am grateful that they are at least 27"

[bytethese]

I guess you must have one of the Hi-Def laptop screens that haven't been developed yet. DVI port to output Blu-ray quality to an HDTV. Good luck.


That's not the point. The point is not having to buy the same movie twice. If I already own the Blu-ray disk at home, I want to play it on my laptop when I travel.

Sure I'll take a hit on displaying it externally via DVI-HDMI cable. I'd also take a hit on my laptop but last I checked, 900 lines of resolution is greater than 480 (DVD), but maybe that's just me...

[gkarris]

That's not the point. The point is not having to buy the same movie twice. If I already own the Blu-ray disk at home, I want to play it on my laptop when I travel.

Sure I'll take a hit on displaying it externally via DVI-HDMI cable. I'd also take a hit on my laptop but last I checked, 900 lines of resolution is greater than 480 (DVD), but maybe that's just me...

Yea, but it's a bit of a mess right now.

Computers right now cannot show a Blu-ray movie in its entirety on a single battery charge.

I would imagine the computers in the Fall with the new processors, chipset, Blu-ray drive, and graphics will be available that won't eat up the battery for Blu-ray 1080 decoding.

LionsGate is going to have on its Blu discs the computer file to play on other devices... so you won't have to drag the Blu-ray disc along!

[MarsUltor]

Everyone says that the Blu-Ray prices will come down, but there are some factors that just don't allow it. The components for a BluRay player are more expensive than a DVD player by about 3x. And that's not a factor of scale, but complexity. The replication lines are more complex and more expensive than DVD was at the beginning, so even with more of them coming online, the cost won't approach that of DVD...ever.
It currently costs four to six times as much to manufacture a BluRay disc than it does for a DVD and that is not including licensing. Even if the prices drop with an increase in volume that DVD had (ain't gonna happen) BluRay will still cost twice as much to manufacture.

Oh yeah, HD DVD costs? Just a tiny bit more than DVD since they were able to be manufactured on retrofitted DVD lines and DRM was optional so you could avoid all those fees.


You seriously think prices won't come down as a result its complexity? I'll pose a few examples that will shoot that idea to pieces (one of which i brought up a few pages ago). The computers that sent Apollo 11 to the moon was exceptionally complex and expensive (by today's standards, with inflation, billions of dollars), now the iPhone has greater computing and communications power than all the computers involved in the launch (put together). Another example, in the early '80s a brand new technology for listening to crystal clear audio came out... it was called CD's, a player cost upwards of $800 dollars (mind you lasers were a pretty new consumer technology in those days, and were very tough to manufacture cheaply), also this was just a player, that means you needed an amp and speakers as well... in the modern time you can by a CD player for $20... how could blu-ray player's never approach DVD players in cost? That just seems irrational considering that everything gets more complex, yet, every drops in prices...

[MarsUltor]

The last line is not even funny. I hope that you aren't trying to negate over 100 years of economic research? It's a FACT man get over it.

By the way.... I bet Sony isn't lowering the price of BR because people have been flocking to the shelves to pick up that $500-$800 BR player... and like I said... if we all went to fastmac.com and bought that $1000 slot loader maybe the will lower the price next month since business is doing so well, and they don't need the profit.

By the way again.... "Why would a company with a product that everyone wants, lower it's prices when they have hundreds of people coming to pick up said product?"

Or, would they keep the prices the same, or raise them do to demand as basic economics dictates...?

Now, once demand decreases, and there is a surplus, and since it's been a while since the product was released (time for manufacturing methods to improve... spend all that money earned through demand on R&D) we can lower the price.



I think that the increase in supply is more due to the fact that there is an increasing number of entrants into the blu-ray hardware business. This not only increases the number of machines on the shelves, but also forces competition between companies to drop prices. Think in these terms, in a monopoly, the company can essentially ask as much as they want; as we move into an oligopoly, the price is forced lower as a result of the market competition, as more and more companies enter the market the price is forced to a point when no profit can be earned... do you want me to find the graphs that prove this point?

[2ms]

The longer Apple waits on Bluray the better as far as I'm concerned. So far, the abandonment of HD-DVD has only caused Bluray hardware prices to go up. It was a misdesigned format that came out costing way more than intended in the first place. Both the hardware and the media.

[Great Dave]

...

Amen, but the day I brought it home I had to carry it around the mall with the Significant Other, and for some reason it didn't dawn on me to drop it off at the car... :o



Well, I am sure that you made a ton of people jealous by walking around with it in the mall!! ;)

[Digital Skunk]

I think that the increase in supply is more due to the fact that there is an increasing number of entrants into the blu-ray hardware business. This not only increases the number of machines on the shelves, but also forces competition between companies to drop prices. Think in these terms, in a monopoly, the company can essentially ask as much as they want; as we move into an oligopoly, the price is forced lower as a result of the market competition, as more and more companies enter the market the price is forced to a point when no profit can be earned... do you want me to find the graphs that prove this point?

No, that's okay because that is a well known point that I won't debate because it's true. Like you said, in a monopoly it's cut and dry since it's just a dual market (consumer/company or demand/supply). It's easier to understand that as demand increases supply increases and price increases.

Now once a second supplier enters the game things change a bit. The second supplier can undercut the bigger company by shaving off some profit on their end, but they still need to make a profit.

Let's say Apple sells computers for $500, and people by them by the droves, and it costs Apple $200 to make each one, $300 profit. If no one enters the market they can raise prices, and people will still buy them. Dell comes along and notes that, while Apple sells their machines for $500 they can sell them for a little less, like $450. They could go down to $250 but why would they? HP comes along and undercuts Dell to $400, same thing, they could go to $250 or even $205 but why? Now, by this time demand has come down because there are other vendors supplying the machines, not just Apple with their limited supply.

Now the part that some are missing.... Apple selling their at $500 has much more profit than Dell and HP for R&D. They can learn how to make their machines cheaper, and now that demand is down and no one is buying a computer at $500 they can lower prices. Now it costs Apple $100 to make a machine, so they sell them for $300. Tech moves forward and prices come down.

But once a new product comes to market (a faster computer) prices shoot back up because people are demanding faster machines. The Mac II (just for names sake) costs $700, since Apple is using a new way to make the machine with newer parts. It costs them $500 to make it. If more people demand it and Apple runs out of supply, people will be willing to pay more for it (check ebay for the iSight or when the iPhone was backordered... D300 and D3 are more examples)

Once equilibrium is hit price stays the same as does supply and demand.... the cycle goes on.

When you say, the demand for computers has gone up, so should the price, you're (not you MarsUltor anyone) missing the point. It's the demand for new tech, not just the computer and especially not the old stuff. If I went into the future and grabbed a 15" MBP with dual 3.0GHz processors and 8x BR burner I could sell it for $5000 since it's new and people want it. When supplies run out I can jack the price up to $7000 and someone would still buy it. As soon as the market doesn't demand it anymore, or when other vendors make their versions and we can't sell anymore price goes down.

Lastly let's look at milk. Farmers are taking their corn and turning it into bio fuel instead of feeding their cows because they can make more money. People need milk, but the supply is shrinking as more farms make bio fuel. Demand goes up... so does the price. On the other side, as bio fuels become more available and people demand more of it the price goes up until equilibrium. Once farmers make bio fuel easier and cheaper they can lower prices.

Sorry for the long post. It was hard for me to learn at first too, you know us Amurican be stuppid. :D

p.s. thanks admins...

[mixel]

I for one am really looking forward to BD in future Macs. Apple have no choice, they can't phase out optical drives for a good few years, and all the other manufacturers will have them. I hope they pretty much put them in across the line, possibly cutting into their profits (as Sony did to begin with on the PS3) to give them a price edge. Nobody wants to pay $1000 for a BD-writer. XD

The nay-sayers are being a bit daft, methinks. All of the things which made DVD good, BD does them better. I'd take a DVD with art and extras over an inferior quality, bare-bones, using-up-disk-space-needlessly version.. Until *that* becomes the standard and they start treating it as a lead distribution channel, offering the same quality/material.. Which isn't going to happen in the nex 5 years... I'd move over to digital if it competed. Right now it doesn't.

[sbluetruck]

I'd love to see Blu-Ray in the Mini upgrade. This would be a television's best friend.

what about in the apple tv?? just a reader?

that could be the ultimate home entertainment solution. sure you can buy and rent movies through teh iTunes store, but you can also pick up and play hard copies of your favorite DVD's and Bluray movies. the only downside to that is the fact that it would take away potential sales, and we all know how :apple: feels about that

[digitalbiker]

To be honest, who doesn't replace his hard drives every 4 to 5 years? Would you still be able to store all your data on the hard drive you had 5 years ago?

We all buy new, bigger drives at some point, fill it up with the data from the previous drive, and donate/sell the old, smaller drive. I, for one, wouldn't want to waste space on my desk for a 40 or 80GB drive. I currently have a 1TB external drive for my CDs and DVDs, a 500GB Time Capsule for my system backups and yet another 250GB drive for company files.

As for Blu-Ray, it has already begun to suffer the same fate as CD's for backups: you already need at least a couple of discs for a complete backup, which is a non-starter. It doesn't matter if a rewritable Blu-Ray disc only costs 5$ if I need a dozen or so for a complete system/data backup.


I agree that Networked storage disks are the best methods for daily backup. I was arguing for permanent storage long term at an alternate site. Proper data back up procedures requires both. Blu-ray discs will work much better than magnetic hdd for permanent off site storage.

Blu-ray discs will also work better for mailers to clients if a person has a large HD presentation to send. It would be much better to mail out a disk or two rather than mail out a 100 GB HDD.

I don't see why everyone attacks Blu-ray as a short lived format that Apple shouldn't offer for their users. Why not? I for one would love for OS X to support Blu-ray so I could use final cut pro to author my own high def movies.

Why Couldn't Apple integrate a blu-ray player into the AppleTV, then a user could buy one device that both downloads movie rentals and supports playing back store rentals or disks from a personal movie collection?

If a pro user wants a blu-ray burner in their MBP to edit an HD movie shot on location with a portable HD camera, why shouldn't Apple offer the option. Most PC's will have this bto option before too long.

[jbernie]

Regardless of whether the internet is going to replace the local video store with HD-DVD being no more the higher end machines will carry BR drives at some point. Not everyone is going to send everything via an internet connection, likewise pulling dvd discs and going online only will be a stupid move as alot of people won't buy the content.

Also, BR will provide a new alternate for backing up systems for at least data. Having an iTunes library backed up on a BR disc is a good example.

[digitalbiker]

what about in the apple tv?? just a reader?

that could be the ultimate home entertainment solution. sure you can buy and rent movies through teh iTunes store, but you can also pick up and play hard copies of your favorite DVD's and Bluray movies. the only downside to that is the fact that it would take away potential sales, and we all know how :apple: feels about that

It might drop rental sales but it also might increase AppleTV sales. Apple makes more money on the hardware sale than the download sale.

Also movie studios are leery of Apple getting too much control of digital media, as a result most of the studios are limiting the titles available for movie rental. So if Apple doesn't provide support for hard media then it is not as attractive due to the poor movie download catalog.

Why not have one device that does both?

[TonnyTech]

Just for the record.... there are slot loading BR disc drives.....

http://store.fastmac.com/product_info.php?products_id=338

But look at that PRICE!

$1000

You can order a Dell XPS M1530 today with a slot loading blu-ray burner as an option for an extra $500. This is a more elegant solution than having an external burner, for those like me that look forward to edit and distribute oringinal HD content, and want the portability of a laptop.

[megfilmworks]

Now that my supply of Netflix HD-DVDs is drying up, I have been forced to use my Bluray player. I have experienced 2 disc failures on new releases (something I never have had yet with HD-DVD)
And the menu/time line sucks!
And Trailers up the wazoo.
I see prices are now looking like there is no competition.
I think the wrong format won....even thought they are both doomed.

[quantumbits]

Why not have one device that does both?

My thoughts exactly. I would buy an Apple TV w/ Blue-Ray in a heartbeat. I know a number of people whom feel the same way.

Plus, I don't see how a BR player would eat too much into the iTunes rental store model. I would use the BR player to play pre-existing media, and iTunes to watch new flicks on the fly.

Then again, maybe 802.11n makes this all moot?

[vixapphire]

It seems bad for the industry, and the users, if everyone has to pay homage to Sony and only Sony.

sony = the prescription drug "big pharma" equivalent in the optical-media space.

if they develop it on their dime and they win teh format war, they've earned their licensing monopoly. that's generally how things work around here.

[vixapphire]

I think it's a safe bet that blu-ray will be the last major pre-recorded format as such. I think everything will simply be easy storage methods in the future. You may eventually see download stations in stores for something like a credit card sized storage device (heck this 4GB sony micro USB drive I have in front of me is small enough to fit about 4 in one credit card sleeve in my wallet) that will hold the movie until you transfer it to your computer at which point you could clear it for more shopping (reusable so no waste). Or you could download off the net if you have a good connection and/or maybe even store ALL you movies on one small card/device some day (capacity will only get larger, maybe even holographic storage methods to store in 3-dimensions). The only real issue will be this DRM business. It makes life difficult for legitimate customers while true pirates get around it every time. Hopefully, the industry will wise up and get rid of it.

lots of new car models debuting this year with usb jacks in addition to aux in 1/8" jacks and ipod adaptors, so your dream of plugging in a remote drive or memory card reader into the car stereo is already fast becoming real.

i've had enough problems with the p.o.s. magnetic stripes on my credit and ATM cards to trust the likes of starbucks cards, memory cards holding data that i've paid for, or anything else in that form-factor that would be carried around in a wallet cardslot where a$$-sweat and other environmental effects would raise the likelihood of failure. when i buy a CD, it works. if it doesn't, i can send it back to the manufacturer and they replace it (i did this with a bum Mahavishnu Orchestra CD back in the mid-90's once). where do you go when, between loading up your card at the store and getting it plugged into your computer at home, there's a fault and the card is no longer functioning? when the stores actually have this stuff set up and it's all working splendidly, then they can begin phasing out optical disc drives. until then, far as most consumers (including me) are concerned, most of this "over the air" stuff is with the 50's rocket-boy sci-fi novels. i downloaded a 43 minute tv show episode once from itunes. took over an hour. they've got some miles to travel before they sleep soundly with the knowledge that the whole "air" idea is a proven winner. give 'em a few years; meanwhile, i'll take the physical disc, thanks.

anyhow, if as you say the blu-ray is the last-for-all-time pre-recorded media format, that's all the more reason to make it available in a line of computers before doing away with pre-recorded media readers, don't you think? seems dumb that there'll be blu-ray discs out there, but no apple computer that'll ship with the drive.

[Digital Skunk]

You can order a Dell XPS M1530 today with a slot loading blu-ray burner as an option for an extra $500. This is a more elegant solution than having an external burner, for those like me that look forward to edit and distribute oringinal HD content, and want the portability of a laptop.

I agree, and wouldn't mind that kind of functionality either. The Dell doesn't have a slot loader though, it's a tray loader. Not as big as the ones in desktops though.

I am more in it for the future of media. I do wish to burn some HD content in the future, so I do wish to get a BR option in the MBP by next year.

[jpine]

So far the discussion often revolves around BD (presumably a BR-recordable) soon becoming obsolete because of the fast-dropping prices of hard drives. However, there are a few niche markets that I can think of where a BD-R drive with good interactive software (DVDSP5?) would come into its own---wedding/event video producers, indie film producers, and interactive training apps. Just my $.02 USD.

[DocSki]

Anyone have any guesses as to when Apple will ship PowerBooks with a BlueRay drive? I'm waiting to upgrade to a new laptop for that feature, assuming it is going to happen soon...say June?

[Di9it8]

Anyone have any guesses as to when Apple will ship PowerBooks with a BlueRay drive? I'm waiting to upgrade to a new laptop for that feature, assuming it is going to happen soon...say June?
As long as there is a slim enough drive, slot loading for the portables, all Apple needs are the drivers:rolleyes:

[Digital Skunk]

Anyone have any guesses as to when Apple will ship PowerBooks with a BlueRay drive? I'm waiting to upgrade to a new laptop for that feature, assuming it is going to happen soon...say June?

The Apple portables have been rebranded MacBook Pro. I know it's hard to say and it's a mouth full, but we gotta live with it.

[TonnyTech]

I agree, and wouldn't mind that kind of functionality either. The Dell doesn't have a slot loader though, it's a tray loader. Not as big as the ones in desktops though.

I am more in it for the future of media. I do wish to burn some HD content in the future, so I do wish to get a BR option in the MBP by next year.

This is a first for Dell. Click on this link http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xpsnb_m1530?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~tab=bundlestab and then click on Tech Specs and go down to Optical Drives. Both, the DVD and the Blu-Ray burners are slot loaders.

[Apple Ink]

Oh Finally
There'll be a $1500 BTO

[Adamo]

Microsoft had previously been shipping an HD-DVD accessory for their Xbox 360, so their adoption of Blu-ray would represent a significant turnaround.

Simply untrue, MacRumors. They originally stated they would support HD-DVD and Blu-ray if the demand or otherwise enticed them to do so. They are not and were not dedicated to one HD format above their own (digital downloads via Xbox Live), HD-DVD was giving people the choice to buy the drive if they wanted it, Blu-ray was passed upon originally due to costs and a contract with Toshiba, as far as I'm aware, but they never said they'd not support Blu-ray in the form of an external drive.

[jragosta]

As long as there is a slim enough drive, slot loading for the portables, all Apple needs are the drivers:rolleyes:

Well, there's nothing stopping them from putting BR into the Mac Pro other than drivers - and having the will to do it. I assume that the drivers could have been done by now, so what's stopping them?

[Digital Skunk]

This is a first for Dell. Click on this link http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xpsnb_m1530?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~tab=bundlestab and then click on Tech Specs and go down to Optical Drives. Both, the DVD and the Blu-Ray burners are slot loaders.

O...M...Gosh.....!

Wow man, Dell is actually stepping up (although there may be some PC users that beg to differ since slot loading drives can't handle the smaller diameter discs...), and I fear that Apple may be a little behind in industrial design. The current MBP design works, but it's very tired and ordinary. The Dell doesn't look that much better, but at least it's new and different.

Slot loading BR/DVD drive on a Dell! What's next...?

[gkarris]

O...M...Gosh.....!

Wow man, Dell is actually stepping up (although there may be some PC users that beg to differ since slot loading drives can't handle the smaller diameter discs...), and I fear that Apple may be a little behind in industrial design. The current MBP design works, but it's very tired and ordinary. The Dell doesn't look that much better, but at least it's new and different.

Slot loading BR/DVD drive on a Dell! What's next...?


Nintendo Wii...

I have external slot-loading DVD burners (one FW and the other USB), and both handle the smaller discs...

[MikeTheC]

And this is news how?

Sure must be a slow news day around here. I mean, what did you folks think was going to happen? Apple continuing with DVD-only drives? Putting floppy drives back in? What?

[gkarris]

And this is news how?

Sure must be a slow news day around here. I mean, what did you folks think was going to happen? Apple continuing with DVD-only drives? Putting floppy drives back in? What?

floppies.... :D

(see avatar)

[SPG]

You seriously think prices won't come down as a result its complexity? I'll pose a few examples that will shoot that idea to pieces (one of which i brought up a few pages ago). The computers that sent Apollo 11 to the moon was exceptionally complex and expensive (by today's standards, with inflation, billions of dollars), now the iPhone has greater computing and communications power than all the computers involved in the launch (put together). Another example, in the early '80s a brand new technology for listening to crystal clear audio came out... it was called CD's, a player cost upwards of $800 dollars (mind you lasers were a pretty new consumer technology in those days, and were very tough to manufacture cheaply), also this was just a player, that means you needed an amp and speakers as well... in the modern time you can by a CD player for $20... how could blu-ray player's never approach DVD players in cost? That just seems irrational considering that everything gets more complex, yet, every drops in prices...

And Apollo 11 went to space when? And how many Apollo Rockets did we make? And a CD player cost $800 when? And how many do we make now?
I'm very much aware that costs come down over time, and when the volume of manufacture is increased, but the issue here is that a specific optical format isn't expected to be relevant in 20 to 50 years, and there are serious doubts that it will reach the near 100% saturation that DVD and computers have reached. We have a timeframe of about 2 years to make BluRay stick and the pricing structures that are in place are not going to be impacted that severely in that timeframe.
The manufacturing line for BluRay discs is not going to drop to 15% of it's current cost within 2 years. Blue laser diodes, pickups, and all the other components will not drop that dramatically in two years and the license fees for the technology aren't expected to disappear either.
I completely agree with the basis of your argument and we will see BluRay players and even the discs get cheaper, but not nearly cheap enough quick enough to be able to dominate the market the way that DVD did.
We shouldn't forget that right now there are other options for viewing video content that weren't as competitive when DVD came out. Internet download, HD cable, HD broadcast OTA, and even upsampled SD DVD all look pretty damn good on an HD set. And let's also not forget that not everyone has an HD set and the desire for HD content.
While I'm feeling pissy, the flipside of the complexity argument can argued with this analogy... I also do a fair amount of carpentry (not professionally) and if you look at the standard tools in that trade, the complexity has gone way up and so have the costs. A $20 hammer is now a $300 nailgun, a $20 handsaw is now a $175 wormdrive circular saw. The nailgun has come down in price since it's very first introduction, but then has been the same cost and more for the last 15 years. The circular saws actually cost more than they did 20 years ago due to ...wait for it... complexity and cost of quality components!

[jragosta]

And Apollo 11 went to space when? And how many Apollo Rockets did we make? And a CD player cost $800 when? And how many do we make now?
I'm very much aware that costs come down over time, and when the volume of manufacture is increased, but the issue here is that a specific optical format isn't expected to be relevant in 20 to 50 years, and there are serious doubts that it will reach the near 100% saturation that DVD and computers have reached. We have a timeframe of about 2 years to make BluRay stick and the pricing structures that are in place are not going to be impacted that severely in that timeframe.
The manufacturing line for BluRay discs is not going to drop to 15% of it's current cost within 2 years. Blue laser diodes, pickups, and all the other components will not drop that dramatically in two years and the license fees for the technology aren't expected to disappear either.
I completely agree with the basis of your argument and we will see BluRay players and even the discs get cheaper, but not nearly cheap enough quick enough to be able to dominate the market the way that DVD did.
We shouldn't forget that right now there are other options for viewing video content that weren't as competitive when DVD came out. Internet download, HD cable, HD broadcast OTA, and even upsampled SD DVD all look pretty damn good on an HD set. And let's also not forget that not everyone has an HD set and the desire for HD content.
While I'm feeling pissy, the flipside of the complexity argument can argued with this analogy... I also do a fair amount of carpentry (not professionally) and if you look at the standard tools in that trade, the complexity has gone way up and so have the costs. A $20 hammer is now a $300 nailgun, a $20 handsaw is now a $175 wormdrive circular saw. The nailgun has come down in price since it's very first introduction, but then has been the same cost and more for the last 15 years. The circular saws actually cost more than they did 20 years ago due to ...wait for it... complexity and cost of quality components!


Want to bet?

It wasn't very long ago that DVD recorders were expensive and people said they wouldn't drop as much or as fast as they did.

There's nothing magical about blue lasers. Yes, they were hard to make the first time, but the volume will be there. They have value not just for BR, but for other communication processes, as well. There's nothing else in BR drives that is significantly different than DVD drives, although slightly tighter tolerances.

And your prediction that BR's window is only 2 years is silly. There's absolutely no evidence of a trend that would lead to that conclusion. What percentage of movies are downloaded vs. purchased on disk? Has it reached 0.01% yet? Even for music which is much more mature, annual sales exceed 300 M CDs (roughly 3 billion songs per year) in the US compared to it taking Apple something like 7 years to reach 1 billion songs sold (and they have a huge percentage of the total. CDs are still around - and selling millions of units per week. Given that only a small percentage of users have the bandwith to download HD content as well as the fact that transferring video to a TV is harder than transferring it to an iPod means BR is likely to have a longer life, not a shorter one.

[SPG]

Want to bet?

It wasn't very long ago that DVD recorders were expensive and people said they wouldn't drop as much or as fast as they did.

There were two tough goals for DVD recorders, laptop size and dual layer. Those were serious technical challenges but the market size was there to justify the development. As far as the drop in cost I used to have a $2500 DVD burner that burned $30 blanks. I bought it in 1998 or 99 iirc. It took about 4 years for burners to drop to "cheap" prices and that was after people had widely adopted the format as both a media and data system.
Don't forget that the landscape was very different when DVD came around. VHS was crap, the internet was slow, data was outgrowing CD capacity, and you could tell the quality difference immediately on any TV, no expensive HD set needed. DVD was a uniquely successful format because of all these reasons that BluRay just doesn't have.

There's nothing magical about blue lasers. Yes, they were hard to make the first time, but the volume will be there. They have value not just for BR, but for other communication processes, as well. There's nothing else in BR drives that is significantly different than DVD drives, although slightly tighter tolerances.

That's an understatement for sure. But I recognize your point that the prices will come down eventually. They will. But, will the market be there by the time they do? Right now Blu-Ray is being subsidized on the PS3 and "simple" players are still $400 to $500 retail with little or no margin for Sony.
BTW, did you remember that there never even was a HD-DVD burner released? They couldn't get one engineered that was reliable or cheap enough. That says something about the level of complexity and tolerances involved.

And your prediction that BR's window is only 2 years is silly. There's absolutely no evidence of a trend that would lead to that conclusion. What percentage of movies are downloaded vs. purchased on disk? Has it reached 0.01% yet? Even for music which is much more mature, annual sales exceed 300 M CDs (roughly 3 billion songs per year) in the US compared to it taking Apple something like 7 years to reach 1 billion songs sold (and they have a huge percentage of the total. CDs are still around - and selling millions of units per week. Given that only a small percentage of users have the bandwith to download HD content as well as the fact that transferring video to a TV is harder than transferring it to an iPod means BR is likely to have a longer life, not a shorter one.

A format has to attain a certain critical mass or it will be cast aside. How many DVD-Audio discs do you have? SACD? MiniDisc? There are plenty of format flops out there and those are just the ones that were the "new CD". The danger for BluRay is that it will become a niche delivery medium for collectors while the majority of the market gets their content through other means. It is not written in stone that Blu Ray is the replacement for DVD. If people conclude that they don't need to invest in Blu-Ray to get the content they want, then they won't. I'm not saying that in two years everyone will be downloading all their HD movies and that Sony will be bankrupt, but that the Blu-Ray format has a better than 50% percent chance of just not catching on in the mainstream. I think they have less than a 10% chance of getting anywhere near DVD saturation levels.
There's quite a few people in the DVD business who have conceded that Blu-Ray is probably the last optical disc format we'll see. Steve Jobs is aware of this, why else would he be pushing a discless MBA, AppleTV, and iTunes movie rentals while ignoring HD authoring in iDVD and DVD Studio Pro.
Trust me, I wish this wasn't the case as I make my bread and butter in the optical disc business, but we're going to ride out the last years of optical's heyday and transition into the other media. It's not the end of the world, just another transition in how we get our content.

[digitalbiker]

There's quite a few people in the DVD business who have conceded that Blu-Ray is probably the last optical disc format we'll see. Steve Jobs is aware of this, why else would he be pushing a discless MBA, AppleTV, and iTunes movie rentals while ignoring HD authoring in iDVD and DVD Studio Pro.


Come on! Do you really believe this drivel? Who are the quite a few people who believe this is the last optical disc format? That is like saying that 45 nm is the smallest chip size ever. Improvements will be made, storage will get better, faster, smaller.

Steve Jobs and Apple have never made any such commitment. The MBA is a unique light weight travel computer for a special niche of consumers. They are not about to pull optical drives from their entire line up of laptops. They did it in the MBA to eliminate weight and save space, otherwise they would have included a DVD drive. Not having one is definitely a negative for the MBA. Haven't you been reading about the "compromises" Apple "had" to make to reduce size and weight. If Apple could have fit a DVD drive in the MBA effectively, they would have.

Apple hasn't ignored HD authoring, they simply were waiting for the format wars to consolidate on a standard. Now that Blu-ray has won, you will see Blu-ray drives in mac pro, imacs, and mbp. Apple will definitely add HD support in final cut pro and other products before year end or they will loose significant market share to Adobe Premier and other packages. Professionals are definitely going high-def in a big way.

Apple TV and movie download services have two big obstacles.

Obstacle One, download bandwidth and infrastructure. The US does not even have broadband available in 50% of the households. Of that broadband most is DSL with less than 1.5 mbps download speed. There is no way consumers will be happy with the compressed garbage that they will forced to download at these rates of transfer. Infrastructure changes are very slow at getting upgraded, because it will take a massive re-investment in cabling, switching stations, ditch digging in easements for laying cable or optical lines, etc.

Two, content providers are not going to relinquish control of titles to Apple or any other download site. They will control the market by releasing to blu-ray first, and then holding off on releasing to Apple. That is why Apple is having such a hard time with movie downloads. Their catalog is very limited and studios are reluctant to release their top titles.

The high-def blu-ray market is just beginning. People are just now buying record numbers of HD tv's. The US is just now forcing digital broadcasting of TV. The blu-ray drive is just now ready to take off. Prices will drop and they will drop fast. Predicting a 2 year life for blu-ray is just plain ridiculous.

[SPG]

Come on! Do you really believe this drivel? Who are the quite a few people who believe this is the last optical disc format? That is like saying that 45 nm is the smallest chip size ever. Improvements will be made, storage will get better, faster, smaller.

Who? The DVD industry. That's who. The people who make their living off this stuff. Improvements have been made but they've been made in compression, hard drives, bandwidth, storage costs, etc. There isn't a huge demand for another optical format, just like there isn't a huge demand for another consumer tape format. That doesn't mean that DVD and even BluRay disappear completely, but it does mean that they can be marginalized to some degree.

Steve Jobs and Apple have never made any such commitment. The MBA is a unique light weight travel computer for a special niche of consumers. They are not about to pull optical drives from their entire line up of laptops. ...

Didn't say that they were doing it today. The writing is on the wall just like the imac with no floppy drive. There will come a time where the optical drive will be an option. It won't be this year, but eventually it will happen.

Apple hasn't ignored HD authoring, they simply were waiting for the format wars to consolidate on a standard. Now that Blu-ray has won, you will see Blu-ray drives in mac pro, imacs, and mbp. Apple will definitely add HD support in final cut pro and other products before year end or they will loose significant market share to Adobe Premier and other packages. Professionals are definitely going high-def in a big way.

Actually, Apple has ignored it. They released an update to Final Cut (which has done HD for quite some time), but not DVD Studio. They pulled their booth from NAB. Compressor was updated with new codecs to compress your HD content to all sorts of delivery mediums. BluRay authoring is the missing link and I sure do hope they come out with a good solution.
The other big problem with adoption of BluRay outside of the "Hollywood Studios" is replication costs. BluRay is prohibitively expensive in anything under 20,000 units due to mandatory DRM license fees. This creates a bit of chicken and egg situation where smaller studios won't invest in it and the consumer is left with fewer choices and less incentive to buy in.

Apple TV and movie download services have two big obstacles.

Obstacle One, download bandwidth and infrastructure. The US does not even have broadband available in 50% of the households. Of that broadband most is DSL with less than 1.5 mbps download speed. There is no way consumers will be happy with the compressed garbage that they will forced to download at these rates of transfer. Infrastructure changes are very slow at getting upgraded, because it will take a massive re-investment in cabling, switching stations, ditch digging in easements for laying cable or optical lines, etc.

Most consumers are happy with DVD. Those that have HD sets (a minority) think that DVD looks pretty good upsampled and many incorrectly believe it to be HD. They also watch SD cable, HD cable (compressed), HD OTA, VideoOnDemand, Tivo, and play games on their HD sets. This isn't 2000 where DVD was competing against VHS and cable. BluRay has to compete with all the other options before we even talk about movie downloads.

Two, content providers are not going to relinquish control of titles to Apple or any other download site. They will control the market by releasing to blu-ray first, and then holding off on releasing to Apple. That is why Apple is having such a hard time with movie downloads. Their catalog is very limited and studios are reluctant to release their top titles.

see above. It doesn't matter.

The high-def blu-ray market is just beginning. People are just now buying record numbers of HD tv's. The US is just now forcing digital broadcasting of TV. The blu-ray drive is just now ready to take off. Prices will drop and they will drop fast. Predicting a 2 year life for blu-ray is just plain ridiculous.

My point wasn't that BluRay has a two year life, but that it has two years to catch on and establish a market for itself or it will be relegated to niche status. Things don't look that good for Blu-Ray's chances with all the competition from other media compared to Blu-Ray's costs.
I don't want to declare BluRay dead, but I'm not convinced it will be a success either. DVD will be around for a while because of the installed base, but BluRay has a short window to establish a foothold or consumers will bypass it completely.

[JesterJJZ]

There's quite a few people in the DVD business who have conceded that Blu-Ray is probably the last optical disc format we'll see. Steve Jobs is aware of this, why else would he be pushing a discless MBA, AppleTV, and iTunes movie rentals while ignoring HD authoring in iDVD and DVD Studio Pro.
Trust me, I wish this wasn't the case as I make my bread and butter in the optical disc business, but we're going to ride out the last years of optical's heyday and transition into the other media. It's not the end of the world, just another transition in how we get our content.

HVD anyone? :D

[digitalbiker]

Didn't say that they were doing it today. The writing is on the wall just like the imac with no floppy drive. There will come a time where the optical drive will be an option. It won't be this year, but eventually it will happen.


There is no writing on the wall. Please stop comparing the floppy to the optical drive. When Apple dropped the floppy, it was useless. The storage capacity was too small to hold most any file. The transfer speeds were woefully inadequate. Dial-up internet was at it's maturity and could easily handle floppy sized files. Floppies were not the industry standard for movies, video, HD content, music, etc.


Actually, Apple has ignored it. They released an update to Final Cut (which has done HD for quite some time), but not DVD Studio. They pulled their booth from NAB.


They haven't ignored it. They were waiting for the right time. Why do you think they are now talking to Sony? They pulled out of NAB because they didn't have anything monumental to release and Apple is trying to pick and choose it's venues these days to save costs and maximize their control over the sales pitch.


Most consumers are happy with DVD. Those that have HD sets (a minority) think that DVD looks pretty good upsampled and many incorrectly believe it to be HD. They also watch SD cable, HD cable (compressed), HD OTA, VideoOnDemand, Tivo, and play games on their HD sets. This isn't 2000 where DVD was competing against VHS and cable. BluRay has to compete with all the other options before we even talk about movie downloads.

When DVD was released it's competition was VHS, Cable, Satellite TV, OTA, theatre and rentals.

It realy isn't much different now for Blu-ray. There is HD cable, HD satellite, HD OTA, theatres, DVD, and rentals.

Blu-ray 1080p is vastly superior to 480p DVD, Even more than DVD 480p was to VHS 480i. Large screen HD TV's were one of the biggest selling items last christmas. DVD looks anemic on a 50" or better HD TV. 1080p blu-ray on a 50" HD TV just has to be seen and fairly compared to standard DVD and consumers will be hooked. Prices will drop. The market for HD video is already growing rapidly based on the sales of new electronic HD gear.

[cthomet]

There is no writing on the wall. Please stop comparing the floppy to the optical drive. When Apple dropped the floppy, it was useless. The storage capacity was too small to hold most any file. The transfer speeds were woefully inadequate. Dial-up internet was at it's maturity and could easily handle floppy sized files. Floppies were not the industry standard for movies, video, HD content, music, etc.

agreed. i think it is silly to compare an optical drive to a floppy. the floppy was phased out by optical. if optical is ever removed, it will be because something better has come out, not because the world becomes completely digital.

[SPG]

There is no writing on the wall. Please stop comparing the floppy to the optical drive. When Apple dropped the floppy, it was useless. The storage capacity was too small to hold most any file. The transfer speeds were woefully inadequate. Dial-up internet was at it's maturity and could easily handle floppy sized files. Floppies were not the industry standard for movies, video, HD content, music, etc.

Again, this isn't happening today, but it will eventually happen. Thankfully DVD still has some legs left.

They haven't ignored it. They were waiting for the right time. Why do you think they are now talking to Sony? They pulled out of NAB because they didn't have anything monumental to release and Apple is trying to pick and choose it's venues these days to save costs and maximize their control over the sales pitch.

I like Apple too, but I'm not going to imagine or invent excuses for them. The HD formats have been around for a long time and they have done some very good things on the edit side like ProRes and making FCP fully scaleable, but they haven't released anything for BluRay or real HD DVD authoring (though the HD DVD content on a SD DVD was a nice trick).


When DVD was released it's competition was VHS, Cable, Satellite TV, OTA, theatre and rentals.

It realy isn't much different now for Blu-ray. There is HD cable, HD satellite, HD OTA, theatres, DVD, and rentals.

Rentals were VHS, theater shmeater, the real difference is that way more people watch time shifted TV, VOD wasn't there at all, and internet video was nearly nonexistant. Even if you ignore downloading movies to burn to DVD, there is a ton of good video content online. The bottom line is that there are only so many hours a day to consume video content and now there are way more options competing for that same time.

Blu-ray 1080p is vastly superior to 480p DVD, Even more than DVD 480p was to VHS 480i. Large screen HD TV's were one of the biggest selling items last christmas. DVD looks anemic on a 50" or better HD TV. 1080p blu-ray on a 50" HD TV just has to be seen and fairly compared to standard DVD and consumers will be hooked. Prices will drop. The market for HD video is already growing rapidly based on the sales of new electronic HD gear.

I agree that 1080p looks great on my 54", but honestly a good movie with good cinematography looks good enough upsampled from a DVD. I'm not replacing my catalog of DVDs with BluRay, but I do buy new ones in HD/BD, and even then not all the time depending on the price difference. For a lot of consumers though it's irrelevant because they don't have an HD set. A lot of people who do, have smaller ones that don't show the difference as much as a 50"+ set does. Are they knocking each other over to get Blu Ray players?
You should take a look at what a DVD looks like on a good upsampling DVD player connected with HDMI. Keep in mind too that not everyone is as concerned with the quality difference. Not having to rewind was a big deal too for DVD.

We can go on forever with the back and forth but I'll restate my opinion one more time. BluRay is in a much tougher spot than DVD was in gaining widespread adoption. Increased competition for consumers time, cost, installed HD base, smaller perceived difference in quality, and equivalent alternatives are all going to make it very hard for BluRay to reach a saturation point in the market that will make it a successful format. Throw in some consumer confusion during the HD DVD format battle and it's doubtful that BluRay will see anywhere near the adoption rate of DVD. What's left? A niche market for movie collectors and a method of one off sample delivery for HD studios. That might be enough to keep Sony happy, but it won't be the future of media delivery.

[Bubba Satori]

It will happen, but it will be an optional upgrade and the price will be ridiculous.


Then Apple can sell it in the rack next to their obscenely priced memory upgrades.:D I'll buy one elsewhere for 1/4 the price.:apple:

[blakgandolf]

I recently switched from a pc to an iMac and I'm very happy with what I have so far and right now I have no real need for blu-ray dvd's on my computer...blu-ray would look great on my tv, don't need it for much else.

[MikeTheC]

This thread is an amazing example of how, with one commonly-observed set of events, different people can draw completely different conclusions. I guess that's human nature and all, but...

Alright, let me tackle this.

Standard Def. vs. High Def.:

I have to start here, because this is the basis for everything else discussed up-thread, and in my post here. The entire basis for high-def, fundamentally beginning here in the U.S. and then traveling around the world, as it is generally presented or assumed to be, is a lie. High-Def does not exist in any way, shape or form because of consumer or even entertainment industry demand. Period. It exists because the BROADCAST industry -- and nobody else -- wanted a way to hold onto the frequency spectrum they had, and were forced by the FCC, beginning back in the late 80s, to come up with a justification for it.

I'm not trying to say that high-def isn't a worthy successor -- at least, as the standards have come to be refined now -- to standard-def analog NTSC / PAL / SECAM, because it certainly is, but only insofar as I might qualify it as being "on a purely technical basis".

The reason you still don't see a mega-fold adoption and absolute market saturation of HD paraphernalia is because this is NOT a from-the-ground-up kind of thing. This is NOT even another iPod-like phenomena. And when you add in the latter-day intellectual property and DRM efforts which have been, effectively, grafted onto this "great new technology", it should come as no surprise there's plenty of folk out there who are balking at it.

I, for one, own nothing that's high-def (except, naturally, my computer equipment), do not subscribe to even ANALOG full tv service, and don't even personally own a television set. There's nothing on that I want to watch, NOW. Why the heck would I want to spend a bunch of money (which I can't justify) on equipment to show me a higher-def version of content that I ALREADY DON'T WANT TO SEE ?!?!?!?!?!?!? (But, admittedly, I can only speak for myself on that point.)


Blu-Ray, DVD and the Floppy Analogy:

Actually, I can't help what the rest of what you said, SPG is actually very astute to make this observation. Why is that, you might ask? Well...
At the time floppy drives were still in meaningful common use, computers were in no way considered to be substitutes for televisions, VCRs, (heck, even DVD players), stereo systems, etc. So trying to say there was no "entertainment content" on floppy, or merely arguing against them on the basis of speed, reliability and capacity is a straw-man argument at best.
Floppy discs were NOT superseded by CD-ROMs. They were superseded by SyQuest and then by ZIP drives, both of which were a darn sight faster, more reliable and held vastly greater storage capacity. Magnetic media as a WHOLE was ultimately REPLACED by CD-ROMs.
To this day, the most common distribution of computer data is NOT on DVD, but still on the hard-working 700MB CD-ROM.
It's worth noting that, even in light of the popularity of CD-Rs, CD-RWs, and now even DVD-R and DVD-RW, there is an ENORMOUS market in the modern equivalent of the floppy, the USB flash-media drive. The cost per megabyte is far higher on them than it is on optical media, yet they came into existence largely after lower-cost optical media, and despite that are in many areas actually dominating the storage market.

Blu-Ray's "Window of Opportunity":

While I think it may be a touch naïve of SPG to think Sony would, in any sense, let Blu-Ray go by the wayside (trust me, as a former Sony employee, I can tell you first hand you simply have no idea how Sony's going to fight to keep Blu-Ray from failing, nor how far they may be willing to go to save themselves from another loss-of-face embarassment such as the failures Connect, MiniDisc, their line-up of proprietary, ATRAC-using portable media players, eVilla, oh, the list just goes on and on...). However, what SPG says is correct: there is a window of opportunity for adoption, and it certainly will be interesting to see if Sony is actually successful this time.

Tell you one thing, tho... and you folks may laugh at this, but I'm being utterly serious: the porn industry is very seriously not happy about Blu-Ray winning the fight, so don't think for a moment there aren't some very deep pockets out there to produce yet another contender for high-def-friendly content distribution.

Besides, do you folks honestly believe companies out there like having to pay licensing fees to companies such as Sony for the privilege of "just using" their media to distribute whatever it is they're distributing? Imagine having to pay a royalty to the John Q. Doe Asphalt company, or to Ford / Honda / Chevy / etc. every time you wanted to drive somewhere on an asphalt road, and in someone's vehicle. But anyhow, I digress...


Apple Support for HD Content Creation / Editing:

Apple has been wise to sit this one out and wait for something to settle out as a so-called "standard". And I still, myself, think of Blu-Ray as being a "standard", so-called because it is not in any sense officially sanctioned by any independent authority out there, or by the defacto standard of public adoption and usage. Imagine if Apple decided to jump into this and had picked HD-DVD instead? It'd be like PCI-X all over again, only worse this time because the Mac community would (legitimately) bitch about how we'd been marginalized (again).

So, come on!

[jragosta]

Who? The DVD industry. That's who. The people who make their living off this stuff. Improvements have been made but they've been made in compression, hard drives, bandwidth, storage costs, etc. There isn't a huge demand for another optical format, just like there isn't a huge demand for another consumer tape format. That doesn't mean that DVD and even BluRay disappear completely, but it does mean that they can be marginalized to some degree.

You keep saying that. If it were true, why don't you provide some quotes? How about providing a reference to all these DVD industry personnel who say BR is end of the line and won't last long?

Or are you just blowing smoke?

[SPG]

You keep saying that. If it were true, why don't you provide some quotes? How about providing a reference to all these DVD industry personnel who say BR is end of the line and won't last long?

Or are you just blowing smoke?

Sorry, I don't usually make a transcript with all my phone conversations and business meetings. I'm also not going to quote my peers' private email to prove a point so let's just say I'm blowing smoke?

Ignoring what I hear from people in the business, since it's just opinions anyway, let's look at what is available publicly:

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jul2005/nf20050713_8906_db011.htm (businessweek July 2005 )
But a new story is picking up steam in Hollywood -- the once red-hot DVD market is cooling off faster than the moguls might have expected only months back.

Variety this January:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117978576.html?categoryid=20&cs=1
Final results for the year are trickling in -- and they all show significant erosion in DVD sales, despite a tsunami of B.O. hits hitting shelves over the holiday season.

On Monday, the Digital Entertainment Group released figures putting the dip in domestic DVD sales at 3.6%, a slight improvement over earlier tallies that showed a 4.5%-5% drop.

And here's Barron's take on the future from this past December:

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2007/12/21/cds-are-dying-are-dvds-next/

December 21, 2007, 2:36 pm
CDs Are Dying. Are DVDs Next?
Posted by Eric Savitz
The compact disk is gradually becoming an endangered species. That’s not new information, but it is an ongoing trend that investors in media stocks continue to struggle with. Meanwhile, there is a new wrinkle in the changing face of digital media: the DVD also appears to be fading.

Michael Nathanson, an analyst with Bernstein Research, notes today that through early December, DVD sales were down 4.1% for the year, including a 2.1% decline in the fourth quarter, citing data from Nielsen VideoScan. Nathanson notes that this would be the first down year in the short history of the DVD. Nathanson thinks that media retailers will soon do with DVDs what they have done with CDs, and reduce the amount of floor space they devote to the category.

None of these mean that you should throw out your DVDs, but it doesn't exactly give a ringing endorsement of the future strength of DVD, let alone BluRay.

[cthomet]

ok so this is a heated debate, will apple put blu-ray drives in their machines or is there even a need. my question is, why would apple rush to put a blu-ray drive in a machine with a 15 inch screen (or thereabouts depending on the machine). honestly i dont think you could tell the difference, especially considering the screens currently in use across the board. Im not saying it might not eventually happen, but just because apple is in talks with sony doesnt mean we can expect to see the drives anytime soon. but hey, i would love for apple to prove me wrong

[jragosta]

Sorry, I don't usually make a transcript with all my phone conversations and business meetings. I'm also not going to quote my peers' private email to prove a point so let's just say I'm blowing smoke?

Ignoring what I hear from people in the business, since it's just opinions anyway, let's look at what is available publicly:

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jul2005/nf20050713_8906_db011.htm (businessweek July 2005 )


Variety this January:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117978576.html?categoryid=20&cs=1


And here's Barron's take on the future from this past December:

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2007/12/21/cds-are-dying-are-dvds-next/



None of these mean that you should throw out your DVDs, but it doesn't exactly give a ringing endorsement of the future strength of DVD, let alone BluRay.

OK. So you don't have any evidence to back up your claim that 'the entire industry' says that BR will be the last optical format. You're expecting us to believe that you are some hot shot with lots of private information that no one else has. Sorry, that doesn't wash.

None of those quotes say anything of the sort, either. Mostly, they say that DVD sales recently have been disappointing. That's a long way from saying that optical storage is dead.

[MikeTheC]

None of those quotes say anything of the sort, either. Mostly, they say that DVD sales recently have been disappointing. That's a long way from saying that optical storage is dead.
Apple seems to want us to believe it is.

[SPG]

OK. So you don't have any evidence to back up your claim that 'the entire industry' says that BR will be the last optical format. You're expecting us to believe that you are some hot shot with lots of private information that no one else has. Sorry, that doesn't wash.

None of those quotes say anything of the sort, either. Mostly, they say that DVD sales recently have been disappointing. That's a long way from saying that optical storage is dead.

This is going nowhere. I'm not a "hot shot" but someone who's worked in the optical disc business for nearly ten years, which makes me a newbie to the guys who developed Laserdisc and launched CD. The information that I do have is conventional wisdom amongst most people working in the optical disc business. The industry listserv that I subscribe to is purely "off the record" and so I can't quote. I don't take this forum so seriously that I would violate the terms, so fine...it doesn't wash, move on.
The two points that seem to have gotten your knickers in a twist are that eventually optical disc formats will no longer be relevant, and that BluRay is the last consumer optical disc format we'll see. I don't see what the big deal is.
Eventually every format loses it's position as media leader when technology advances. They may stick around in some form if they're genuinely irreplaceable like print, but it's simple evolution. If your CD/DVD drive in your computer crapped out today, how long could you last without it? You could get music and software off the internet, transfer files with your iPod or external drive, and yes, it might be inconvenient to live without it but you could get by just fine for quite some time. Is it so hard to imagine that in 10 years you wouldn't need it at all?
For right now DVD has a place as much because it came up as both a data delivery and a media delivery platform that was a compatible size with the established CD. BluRay is trying to do the same thing but in a smaller market of HD set owners that have other attractive options so it's more difficult to say whether it will catch on (I'm hoping it does with some changes in license fees). As far as being the last consumer optical format, what else is there? Super duper HD TV sets in the pipeline? Nope. Is there a burning need for a method to transport more than 50gigs of data in a handheld size? Well not only does my iPod do that, but I have a 160gb USB/FW hard drive that can do it and not have to wait nearly an hour to burn. And flash memory is jumping in capacity while dropping in price. Simply put, optical discs have their limitations and there are much better options in other formats. In this landscape how is it that there would be a need for another optical format? I saw my first BluRay player on a store shelf in Japan FIVE years ago. I heard about it's development a couple years before that. How many new optical formats are currently mentioned as being in development to replace BluRay or DVD? None. Of course we can hold the door open for some secret lab working on a breakthrough, but even that's a far cry from developing and launching it as a successful consumer format. A consumer format nobody is looking for.

As far as the DVD sales numbers, that's the beginning of the end. Across the board in all the markets besides Hollywood the numbers are even more disappointing. They will continue to trend down and eventually hit an equilibrium point that will stay constant for a bit, then there will be another drop that puts optical into a smaller legacy position like vinyl LPs.

[Digital Skunk]

As is typical in a MR thread, there is a lot of wisdom and sound arguments floating around... many of which are backed by sound evidence and general knowledge.... SPG, MikeTheC I salute you both. I read all of your posts and they are all truly an example for us all.

Some other arguments for some reason just aren't reaching that point, even some of mine.

Mike, I love the breakdown that you gave a few posts back, especially the part talking about the comparison of Floppies and DVDs, and bringing up the all too forgotten life of the Zip Drive, and flash. To me, (personally that is) Zips drives failed because they were a day late and a dollar short for wide spread use, and their main problem was the drive that needed to be attached to them. When it failed, you have to go and find another one just like it, and you couldn't use any other disc with any other drive.

Main point, BR will have it's market and come into it's own, but as many people are saying, it won't be adopted as widely because there are other forms of media to compete with it, and I know (just take a look around) people are tired of changing their computers, TVs, disc players, music players, cell phones, electronics every few years.

The idea of going from VHS to DVD and seeing a notable change was another good point. Going from DVD on an SD TV to HD on an HD TV is noticeable, but you need the HD TV to see that difference, then the player, then the discs.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/31530/113/

[SPG]

As is typical in a MR thread, there is a lot of wisdom and sound arguments floating around... many of which are backed by sound evidence and general knowledge.... SPG, MikeTheC I salute you both. I read all of your posts and they are all truly an example for us all.

uh, thanks? I didn't think there was that much too it. I probably wouldn't have come back to this thread except that I was fascinated by the hostility to an idea that is conventional wisdom amongst the people who are most impacted by it. That and I accidentally subscribed to instant notifications of posts.

Any idea that bucks the status quo is going to get attacked and that's fine. The challenge and response is how peer review works to filter out the bad ideas and prove the worthy ones. It's just funny to find what is status quo for one group to be near heresy to another.

oh and one more thing...it's still just opinion. I like to think that mine are a little more informed opinions, but really we're all wrong sometimes no matter how well informed our opinions are. Thanks for reading them and hopefully we all learn something here.

[jragosta]

This is going nowhere. I'm not a "hot shot" but someone who's worked in the optical disc business for nearly ten years, which makes me a newbie to the guys who developed Laserdisc and launched CD. The information that I do have is conventional wisdom amongst most people working in the optical disc business. The industry listserv that I subscribe to is purely "off the record" and so I can't quote. I don't take this forum so seriously that I would violate the terms, so fine...it doesn't wash, move on.
The two points that seem to ha

So, IOW, you have absolutely no evidence to back your claim that BR is the last optical disk format we'll see and the 'evidence' you did provide doesn't say anything like what you claimed it said. And the fact that there are already experimental formats to supercede BR doesn't mean anything - those companies are throwing money away just for kicks. After all, Mr. SPG knows everything about the industry and his 'conventional wisdom' is all that matters - even if he can't support it with evidence.

[MikeTheC]

As is typical in a MR thread, there is a lot of wisdom and sound arguments floating around...
And I thank you, sir, for your generous and very kind words.

Mike, I love the breakdown that you gave a few posts back, especially the part talking about the comparison of Floppies and DVDs, and bringing up the all too forgotten life of the Zip Drive, and flash.
Ok, Digital Skunk, here's a "blast from the past" trivia question for you. And yeah, you could probably go look it up on Wikipedia or something, but see if you can get it by yourself...

What removable cartridge media came out before SyQuest? For one point, name the storage system. For two points, also name the company. And I'll give you a hint: even if you didn't use their first round of storage products, you did use their later product line.

[AreanFSL]

I definitely would purchase an iMac if blu-ray drives were introduced! Combination of that would be nice with a 1080P output of the iMac monitor.

[DiamondMac]

As many here have said, I can't wait for the day when I can download my content directly from the internet. At the moment though, there just isn't a chance in hell my internet company would allow that with the size of such files.

I have a PS3 and think the BR is FAN-FREAKIN-TASTIC

[SPG]

So, IOW, you have absolutely no evidence to back your claim that BR is the last optical disk format we'll see and the 'evidence' you did provide doesn't say anything like what you claimed it said. And the fact that there are already experimental formats to supercede BR doesn't mean anything - those companies are throwing money away just for kicks. After all, Mr. SPG knows everything about the industry and his 'conventional wisdom' is all that matters - even if he can't support it with evidence.

Yep, you hit the nail on the head. Since we're talking about trends and future development nobody can prove facts that haven't happened yet. We can only look at what has happened, and what is happening now and make predictions based on that. My observations are that BluRay has had a low adoption rate so far despite the hundreds of millions invested in pushing it. Consumers options are much different now than when DVD debuted making it harder for BluRay to win large adoption, and also impacting the current sales of DVD. These observations lead me to believe that optical discs will not increase their market and will most likely continue to decline.
With the increase in effectiveness:cost of other formats and methods, optical discs are less likely to remain competitive. With no new optical formats announced, hinted at, or otherwise in a reasonable state of development, how can you believe that there will be another one targeted at mass consumption? Do you know something the rest of us don't? Please share, cite references, and prove that there is another optical disc format viable on a consumer level and has been adopted by more than 65% of US households.
As far as conventional wisdom, it's not mine, but by definition held by a group. The consensus is that DVD will linger for some time, BluRay will be here as the domain of the major studios and as a one-off delivery medium, but it's widespread adoption and success is not guaranteed. Eventually both will become marginal as all modern formats eventually do.
If you'd like to discuss this on the merits, please explain why you think my opinion is so wrong rather than just repeating that I can't prove it. Of course I can't prove it because it is an opinion, and because it is a prediction of the future. Do you think that in 20 years we'll still be getting the majority of our entertainment on shiny 5" discs? Do you think everyone will have a BluRay player and recorder in 2 years? If so, why? What current realities suggest that the status quo will remain in place despite consumer behavior and technology shifting so quickly?

[Digital Skunk]

And I thank you, sir, for your generous and very kind words.


Ok, Digital Skunk, here's a "blast from the past" trivia question for you. And yeah, you could probably go look it up on Wikipedia or something, but see if you can get it by yourself...

What removable cartridge media came out before SyQuest? For one point, name the storage system. For two points, also name the company. And I'll give you a hint: even if you didn't use their first round of storage products, you did use their later product line.

I guessed first, then looked it up online.... yeah... I'm not that old. But my guess was IBM, I was wrong when I read somewhere in the sea of Wikipedia words that it may have been Seagate.... but i have a good feeling that I am wrong.

[jragosta]

Yep, you hit the nail on the head. Since we're talking about trends and future development nobody can prove facts that haven't happened yet. We can only look at what has happened, and what is happening now and make predictions based on that.

OK. Let's look at what has happened in the past.

VHS started expensive and slowly caught on and became very inexpensive.
CD started expensive and slowly caught on and became very inexpensive.
HDTV started expensive and slowly caught on and became very inexpensive.
DVD started expensive and slowly caught on and became very inexpensive.

So what past experience indicates that BR is going to remain expensive and that no new optical technologies will ever be developed?

[SPG]

OK. Let's look at what has happened in the past.

VHS started expensive and slowly caught on and became very inexpensive.
CD started expensive and slowly caught on and became very inexpensive.
HDTV started expensive and slowly caught on and became very inexpensive.
DVD started expensive and slowly caught on and became very inexpensive.

So what past experience indicates that BR is going to remain expensive and that no new optical technologies will ever be developed?

DVDA started out at a reasonable cost and never caught on.
SACD started out at a reasonable cost and never caught on.

You're absolutely right that most technologies get cheaper when they become more widely adopted and the volume of production increases. That's a bit more than half the picture here. Some of the reasons that I don't think that BluRay will be able to drop as dramatically in price as DVD has is that the license fees associated with the technology are much higher, the comparative level of complexity of the components is greater (even factoring advances in the last 10 years), BluRay is already subsidized in the PS3, and the installed base of HD owners is smaller than the near 100% of people who could use DVD. Right now we just saw a jump in real prices on BluRay players with HD DVD bowing out. Over time we'll see those prices come back down and drop further, but do you really think we'll see $29 BluRay players in a couple years?
Even though HD sets have dropped substantially in the past few years they're still several times more expensive than old tube TVs and thus out of reach for a lot of consumers, and thus keeping BD in a smaller market. The other struggle BD has for acceptance is that there are a lot more options for viewing content. You can get by just fine without a BD player and a lot of people will. In two years if BD hasn't captured a large market the stores will not give it a large square footage and the death spiral begins. If BD does catch on where better than 75% of HD owners are invested in it and willing to shell out to own discs, then it's another story. Right now WalMart is shrinking the size of it's DVD area because fewer people want to own DVDs. If that behavior carries over to BD, then the format will have real viability issues. No matter how good a format is if the consumers don't buy it, it's over.
From a CE company perspective, BD is having a tough time so why would you rush out another optical format to compete with it? There is no demand for it at all and unless it would be several magnitudes better/cheaper than all the other non optical formats. You wouldn't be able to make it stick. Consumer habits (especially of early adopters) have changed greatly in the last few years. More time online (including TV online), more time on games, less time in front of the TV, and even then more rentals and less desire to own the content. Flash memory, hi speed internet, cable VOD, are all advancing at much faster rates than optical discs, so why is it so hard to believe that the future lies there instead of another form of DVD or BD? Unless there is a new TV standard that becomes widely adopted and that requires more storage than can be delivered on a BD or DVD, there is no reason to develop a new optical disc format.

[3247]

DVDA started out at a reasonable cost and never caught on.
SACD started out at a reasonable cost and never caught on.Both have been entangled in a format war. Neither format provides an advantage over CDDA for the average user; they're both niche products for audiophiles with multi-k€ equipment. Furthermore, neither format provides a new, larger storage medium for computers.

BluRay, on the other hand, has won the format war. It provides larger discs for computers and other devices (and unlike HD DVD, BluRay has working writers). And a few people even have "HD ready" or "Full HD" TVs that can take advantage of the better resolution. Of course, DVD is "good enough", so updating to BluRay is not a high priority.

I don't think that there will be a comsumer Super-FullHD standard. Cinemas haven't been providing better resolutions for decades. The next big leap is probably 3D.

[BRLawyer]

And I thank you, sir, for your generous and very kind words.


Ok, Digital Skunk, here's a "blast from the past" trivia question for you. And yeah, you could probably go look it up on Wikipedia or something, but see if you can get it by yourself...

What removable cartridge media came out before SyQuest? For one point, name the storage system. For two points, also name the company. And I'll give you a hint: even if you didn't use their first round of storage products, you did use their later product line.

Iomega Bernoulli? ;)

[SPG]

Both (SACD & DVDA :ed) have been entangled in a format war. Neither format provides an advantage over CDDA for the average user; they're both niche products for audiophiles with multi-k€ equipment. Furthermore, neither format provides a new, larger storage medium for computers.

BluRay, on the other hand, has won the format war. It provides larger discs for computers and other devices (and unlike HD DVD, BluRay has working writers). And a few people even have "HD ready" or "Full HD" TVs that can take advantage of the better resolution. Of course, DVD is "good enough", so updating to BluRay is not a high priority.

Very true. BluRay does have more of a noticeable quality difference than SACD and DVDA did outside of the most high end gear, but the similarity in that BluRay does require a more expensive HD set puts it in closer company to the niche audio formats than Sony would like to admit. I expect BluRay to get a better level of acceptance than DVDA and SACD, but the question is still how much more?
I doubt that computer use will become nearly as ubiquitous as the CD or DVD where you can hand one to just about anyone and expect that they can play it.

[MikeTheC]

Iomega Bernoulli? ;)
Nailed it one, sir! :)

Here's a piccy of it for you folks:

http://www.recycledgoods.com/images/s_p_8031_1.jpg

[Decrepit]

Nailed it one, sir! :)

Here's a piccy of it for you folks:

http://www.recycledgoods.com/images/s_p_8031_1.jpg

Huh. I didn't know that Bernoullis were Iomega boxes. I thought they were a different company entirely. My dad had to use Bernoullis at work and lock the cartridges in a safe at night. (nuclear weapons lab).

[SPG]

Speaking of "dead" formats and DVD, did you know that DVD masters are still delivered on DLT tape? What used to be a fairly common backup media is now living out it's retirement as a niche delivery format.

[MikeTheC]

Huh. I didn't know that Bernoullis were Iomega boxes. I thought they were a different company entirely. My dad had to use Bernoullis at work and lock the cartridges in a safe at night. (nuclear weapons lab).
Interesting. Now, one can speculate how many cartridges your dad's lab had, but it's amazing to stop and think that software to control nuclear devices (and very probably designs, schematics, etc.) all could be made to fit on what I believe were 40MB cartridges!

How times have changed! (Of course, I go back far enough to remember when an 400K floppy disk could hold Apple's MacOS, MacPaint, and still had free space left over for a user document or two.)

[SPG]

Sony says Blu Ray is the last optical format.

http://www.electricpig.co.uk/2008/09/01/sony-blu-ray-format-can’t-be-improved/

Blu-Ray’s conquered the HD format war, but its design and technical limitations mean the current format is as good as it’ll get. Sony says it’ll be the last optical format, after which, we’ll move way from shiny discs altogether.
See, it’s all down to the limitations of lasers and the discs themselves.
Speaking at IFA, Taka Miyama, Sony’s product strategy manager for home video marketing in Europe told us: “Blu-Ray is the final format for the optical disc. We don’t have a shorter laser. In the future, if we have a physical media format, it will change physically. It won’t look like an optical disc.”

[Tallest Skil]

Sony says Blu Ray is the last optical format.

Perhaps they've not heard of neither Holographic Video Disks (HVD) or Protein-Coated Disks (PCD), the latter of which can hold several dozen terabytes of information... and it's a DISK.

Idiots.

[t0mat0]

Sony says Blu Ray is the last optical format.

http://www.electricpig.co.uk/2008/09/01/sony-blu-ray-format-can’t-be-improved/

That's a misquote - Taka Miyama says BR “Blu-Ray is the final format for the optical disc. We don’t have a shorter laser. In the future, if we have a physical media format, it will change physically. It won’t look like an optical disc.”
BR disc has nearered the wavelength buffers (previously, it was for the want of a laser that is now in blu ray players - it didn't exist that long ago). Doesn't mean other things can't happen.

The hologram discs etc have been touted and retouted. I thought that one of the major companies had said that BR wasn't round much longer anyhow, and that it was getting updated?

[LeoLohan]

i am waiting for blue ray disk to get into my computer

[Tallest Skil]

i am waiting for blue ray disk to get into my computer

You can do that now, you know. You can do everything but play Hollywood movies in OS X.

[richard.mac]

^ only in a Mac Pro or with an external. unless people want to upgrade their iMacs and MacBooks to Blu-ray which not many people would do. so we have to wait for Apple.

[Ironduke]

lol whats the point of watching blurays on tiny screens:cool:

[satcomer]

lol whats the point of watching blurays on tiny screens:cool:

I don't know but my 24 inch HD display iTunes HD movies look OK. So I think with a current video card (with) Bluray might look good also.

[Ironduke]

I don't know but my 24 inch HD display iTunes HD movies look OK. So I think with a current video card (with) Bluray might look good also.


better sit right up close booby...although not as close as those with macbooks lol

[VoR]

... and it's a DISK.

Idiots.

Are you sure? :)

[Adamo]

Considering I've not installed any software from disc in..well, a long time, the need for Blu-ray in a computer is only down to each individual, perhaps in a Mac Pro, but otherwise I can't see the point unless you really must have it for films in a MacBook Pro with the relevant resolution.