Blu-ray Support in Mac OS X 10.5.6? [Archive]

MacRumors

Sep 19, 2008, 02:00 AM

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

After last week's release of the iPod Nano (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/09/4th-generation-ipod-nano-accelerometer-genius-colors-taller/), iPod Touch (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/09/2nd-generation-ipod-touch-2-1-firmware-speaker-thinner/) and iTunes 8 (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/09/itunes-8-hd-tv-shows-grid-view-genius-playlists-nbc/), we neglected to post our traditional rumor wrap up. In the end, however, our pre-event rumor roundup (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/08/lets-rock-rumor-roundup-and-expectations/) accurately spelled out the major releases.

The bulk of the information came from Kevin Rose (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/08/22/new-ipod-nano-ipod-touch-itunes-8-0-blu-ray-in-10-6/) who detailed a number of the changes accurately. Readers should find interesting that Rose also revealed some future details that have not yet materialized.

Specifically, Rose expects that Blu-ray support will finally be built into Mac OS X 10.5.6. Blu-ray is the next generation high definition video disc format that only recently (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/01/04/hd-dvd-vs-blu-ray-battle-over-warner-switches-to-blu-ray/) "won" the format battle after major studios decisively chose it over HD-DVD. Apple has been a member of the Blu-Ray consortium for years but has not yet revealed their plans for Blu-ray support.

With the release of Mac OS X 10.5.5 earlier this week (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/15/apple-releases-mac-os-x-10-5-5/), Apple should begin work on Mac OS X 10.5.6. Built-in Blu-ray support into Mac OS X would open the door for Apple to finally incorporate Blu-ray drives into their Macs as well as Blu-ray support into their suite of iLife applications. The 10.5.6 update will not come before the rumored notebook revisions in October, but could conceivably be ready by Macworld San Francisco 2009.

Article Link (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/19/blu-ray-support-in-mac-os-x-10-5-6/)

TuffLuffJimmy

Sep 19, 2008, 02:06 AM

mmmn I wouldn't mind going off to college with a new iMac with a blu-ray drive next year.

richard.mac

Sep 19, 2008, 02:07 AM

is it likely Apple will add Blu-ray support to their software in a point update? i thought they would release it in a major upgrade.

HiFiGuy528

Sep 19, 2008, 02:13 AM

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time to get a BR drive.

MacTraveller

Sep 19, 2008, 02:14 AM

richard.mac

Sep 19, 2008, 02:16 AM

^ the article says that Blu-ray support will be added to OS X. so its unlikely that the support will linger around in the OS without hardware support 'til 2010. i predict 1st quarter 2009.

ryanw

Sep 19, 2008, 02:17 AM

I am just waiting for the day when my wife can FINALLY make use of the HD cam corder I bought earlier this year. It's a great consumer harddrive full HD cam-corder. Gorgeous picture quality! It'll be fantastic to have an option to burn those to blu-rays or even on dual-layer DVD's in HD formats to play on my PS3... iMovie is lagging in support for HD even though HD was all the rage a few years ago.... the hardware is now in place, it's in wide enough demand... now it's time for the software to get in gear.

Tallest Skil

Sep 19, 2008, 02:20 AM

Peace

Sep 19, 2008, 02:22 AM

I'm guessing that by the time Snow Leopard rolls around there will be Macs with Blu-Ray support.

PCMacUser

Sep 19, 2008, 02:24 AM

arn

Sep 19, 2008, 02:24 AM

is it likely Apple will add Blu-ray support to their software in a point update? i thought they would release it in a major upgrade.

It'll come when the hardware is required for it. I don't see it as a point release vs not point release issue. It's just drivers for the OS. The iLife suite will have to be upgraded to support.

iLife '09 seems like a good time.

arn

teme

Sep 19, 2008, 02:24 AM

If they release MBP's in few months, I hope that they offer blu-ray drives at least as a built-to-order option, even if the 10.5.6 update is not ready yet.

BWhaler

Sep 19, 2008, 02:25 AM

Highly doubtful.

Apple and Microsoft want the future to be HD downloads, not BluRay.

Sony has lost this war, they just don't realize it yet.

teme

Sep 19, 2008, 02:29 AM

Highly doubtful.

Apple and Microsoft want the future to be HD downloads, not BluRay.

Sony has lost this war, they just don't realize it yet.

Yes, but the movie companies decide how much they want to support digital downloads. Currently their support for digital movie downloads (even SD quality) outside USA is about zero, and buying/renting blu-rays and dvd's is the only option for most countries.

Stridder44

Sep 19, 2008, 02:30 AM

Highly doubtful.

Apple and Microsoft want the future to be HD downloads, not BluRay.

Sony has lost this war, they just don't realize it yet.

That's not going to happen as long as Comcast and other internet providers are giving us (the US) bulls**t connection rates.

On that note, I'm REALLY looking forward to Snow Leopard. When's it supposedly coming out again (I know no ones knows the exact date)?

Peace

Sep 19, 2008, 02:32 AM

That's not going to happen as long as Comcast and other internet providers are giving us (the US) bulls**t connection rates.

On that note, I'm REALLY looking forward to Snow Leopard. When's it supposedly coming out again?

That is exactly what the major studios want. They can make more money selling disks than hogging bandwidth trying to download a 5 GB file. Especially with the caps in place now.

aygie

Sep 19, 2008, 02:49 AM

Sony has lost this war, they just don't realize it yet.

What war? Blu-ray vs downloads? i'd like to see your figures.

gugy

Sep 19, 2008, 02:50 AM

pimentoLoaf

Sep 19, 2008, 03:16 AM

Whether there is BluRay or not next month, I'm getting a new powerBook ... er, um ... macBook Pro. It will be exactly 5 years since getting my last 17", only that this time I'll custom build one online.

Perchance an external BR drive will be made available from Apple?

Baadshah

Sep 19, 2008, 03:19 AM

but will this blu-ray support be in the new macbooks in oct 14?? but is this a rumors or will the new macbooks be availeble in oct??

I just cant wait to get a mac. Really want one, so are they rlsing it or not.

arian19

Sep 19, 2008, 03:21 AM

Core i 7

AND

Blu-ray

Yaya

fastbite

Sep 19, 2008, 03:23 AM

It will be great to have support for Blue ray, then again I believe B R is a total waste of time and it will be dead in a few years time.

xgfx

Sep 19, 2008, 03:38 AM

HD Downloads don't stand a chance at the moment with the way current ISP's are acting. Most major isps in the UK have either monthly caps in place, or even more annoyingly like mine, you can only download 1gb within a 4 hour period otherwise your connection is capped at 25% it's normal speed. As well as someone previously said, there just isn't a viable source to rent/buy HD downloads on the net for people outside the US yet. iTunes has nothing. The only viable source I have is through my cable box, I can rent HD content through there, but no purchase.

I think they should definetly have a BR drive in the next revisions or atleast a BTO, to just stay with current trends. People are beginning to want/need them. Especially those in creative industries.

gregdrummeraz

Sep 19, 2008, 03:43 AM

It'll come when the hardware is required for it. I don't see it as a point release vs not point release issue. It's just drivers for the OS. The iLife suite will have to be upgraded to support.

iLife '09 seems like a good time.

arn

I always wondered something arn... What is you Mac set up :)

Phil A.

Sep 19, 2008, 03:48 AM

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not keen on this at all: one of the things that slows Vista down is the end to end HDCP support insisted on by the movie companies to prevent copying. If OSX adds similar bloat to support BluRay it will be a step backwards IMO.

moby.gp

Sep 19, 2008, 03:50 AM

Next year will be much to late to add Blue Ray support to Macs. I can not believe, that Apple will wait that long while EVERYBODY else offer Blue ray support already.

teohyc

Sep 19, 2008, 03:53 AM

I hope the update will be in time so I can get the WALL-E Blu-ray.

motulist

Sep 19, 2008, 04:04 AM

not keen on this at all: one of the things that slows Vista down is the end to end HDCP support insisted on by the movie companies to prevent copying. If OSX adds similar bloat to support BluRay it will be a step backwards IMO.

A few weeks ago there was a rumor here that Apple was gonna be adding a special video chip into its new machines. Speculation by several people in that thread was that this special video chip is designed to handle the necessary bluray playback copy protection specifically so that Apple won't have to infest OS X with that end to end DRM crap.

RemarkabLee

Sep 19, 2008, 04:16 AM

A few weeks ago there was a rumor here that Apple was gonna be adding a special video chip into its new machines. Speculation by several people in that thread was that this special video chip is designed to handle the necessary bluray playback copy protection specifically so that Apple won't have to infest OS X with that end to end DRM crap.

+1
I also hope said chip enables hardware h.264 encoding to speed up HD video encoding, ala Elgato Turbo.264.

grue

Sep 19, 2008, 04:32 AM

Pity that so few Macs support HDCP in their video cards, and the Cinema Displays sure as hell don't.

yegon

Sep 19, 2008, 04:37 AM

HD Downloads don't stand a chance at the moment with the way current ISP's are acting. Most major isps in the UK have either monthly caps in place, or even more annoyingly like mine, you can only download 1gb within a 4 hour period otherwise your connection is capped at 25% it's normal speed.

Yup, people predicting the imminent death knell for Blu-Ray aren't taking this into account, nor the number of people who want a huge number of instantly accessible films at their fingertips. Until you can pick up extremely cheap, 10tb+ hdd's, Blu-Ray has a place. Pretty much guaranteed to be the last physical storage medium, but I think it'll be around for a while.

Btw, I heartily recommend the ISP Be-Unlimited (ran by BT). *Truly* unlimited downloads. I share a connection with my brother, we easily consume about 120gb+ a month, no throttling. We only live a stones throw from the exchange too, so we regularly get a 24mb connection. Not that expensive either.

onicon

Sep 19, 2008, 04:39 AM

could this mean new cinema displays as well?

tr0jan

Sep 19, 2008, 04:39 AM

Pity that so few Macs support HDCP in their video cards, and the Cinema Displays sure as hell don't.

i think there will be a big "blue-event" in january (mwsf) and apple will release macpro with bluray and also new ACDs with hdmi/hdcp.. (im praying for that)

Baadshah

Sep 19, 2008, 04:42 AM

can someone pls confirm, when will macbooks be out??

Late Sep
Oct 14th
Late Oct
Or Jan 09

?????????????

I am totally confused with these rumors, but how can u all say macbook is coming when apple have not even setup any ad or said abt macbooks in his keynotes??

And they have also not made any announcement abt keynote oct 14?

motulist

Sep 19, 2008, 04:44 AM

Yup, people predicting the imminent death knell for Blu-Ray aren't taking this into account, nor the number of people who want a huge number of instantly accessible films at their fingertips. Until you can pick up extremely cheap, 10tb+ hdd's, Blu-Ray has a place. Pretty much guaranteed to be the last physical storage medium, but I think it'll be around for a while.

Streaming movies are already a reality. The only thing stopping streaming movies from becoming huge is the media companies.

There's already hulu, Apple TV, on-demand cable, and many others who already are streaming high quality movies on demand.

http://www.hulu.com/browse/alphabetical/movies

can someone pls confirm, when will macbooks be out??

Late Sep
Oct 14th
Late Oct
Or Jan 09

?????????????

I am totally confused with these rumors, but how can u all say macbook is coming when apple have not even setup any ad or said abt macbooks in his keynotes??

And they have also not made any announcement abt keynote oct 14?

http://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/10/apple-notebook-updates-on-october-14th-120gb-macbook-air-hdd/

http://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/15/macbook-shipments-have-begun/

dAlen

Sep 19, 2008, 04:49 AM

Highly doubtful.

Apple and Microsoft want the future to be HD downloads, not BluRay.

Sony has lost this war, they just don't realize it yet.

Not quite...try storing all your downloads on a harddrive.
Blue Ray is here to stay until another physical media takes its place.

Its called, storage, backup, movies...how many can you fit on a harddrive. ;)

Physical media will never go away...unless you surrender your rights to own and keep your own content. (i.e., your software, movies are all loaded on someone elses host harddrive...and boom its gone if you dont want to pay a monthly license fee.)

Peace

dAlen

By the way, Blu ray support is long in the tooth - apple should have added it years ago. ;)

Jig

Sep 19, 2008, 04:52 AM

Btw, I heartily recommend the ISP Be-Unlimited (ran by BT). *Truly* unlimited downloads.

BE is not owned by BT, it was a separate company until last year when it was taken over by O2.

bobbleheadbob

Sep 19, 2008, 05:08 AM

This is overdue by now, and I'm guessing will be one of the 4-5 "big" announcements Steve Jobs makes during the Keynote at MWSF in January. :D

Stridder44

Sep 19, 2008, 05:09 AM

could this mean new cinema displays as well?

Oh God those things are so overdue/overpriced it's not even funny.

mixel

Sep 19, 2008, 05:13 AM

Really looking forward to this actually, accumulating a nice little BD library already..

All the naysayers with the "Bluray will be dead in five years!" - so will most of the hardware you're using right now - that doesn't make it pointless.. Personally I'd say BD has a few years longer than that - it has taken off and people want things that show off their HDTVs. Downloads currently aren't as high quality and the storage issues aren't trivial.. Physical media is here to stay for a while at least.

BD isn't "Sony's format". AND it's a perfectly good format.. I don't know what people have against convenience and compatibility. :rolleyes:

I'm pretty sure my imac has HDCP on the 9800GS..? I hope so - i'd like to get a BD burner.

soundbwoy

Sep 19, 2008, 05:19 AM

Here is the deal, I have used mac for over 17 years and there is a reason why it is better, and no it's not the machine and it's architecture but the OS built around a specific architecture and the fact that I don't have to be Mr. Know It All to do simple things.

I use a PC at work and the ****** I have to go through to do the simplest task is ridiculous. Both machines have there strengths but what microsoft forgot was that there are far more casual users out there than Nerds, Geeks, Programmers. People that just want to use a computer and not feel lost and stupid like my mom and se's a pretty smart woman, and that's all apple is trying say... no 5 different iteration of the same OS but one good OS on an Architecture built for it. If Microsoft got smart they would actually get with the program. It wont be long before Linux takes over and apple follows suit.

DoFoT9

Sep 19, 2008, 05:20 AM

this would be a mighty good feature!!

now to get myself one of them BR drives..hhmmm

MrCrowbar

Sep 19, 2008, 05:31 AM

Physical media will never go away...unless you surrender your rights to own and keep your own content. (i.e., your software, movies are all loaded on someone elses host hard drive...and boom its gone if you dont want to pay a monthly license fee.)

Physical media will go away eventually. As many people here pointed out, it's probable that BD (Blu-Ray) is the last optical media. The efforts are going into cloud computing so your data would be everywhere and you only need a device to access it, be it a pocket-sized, laptop-sized or workstation-sized. Look at Google Docs, your data is on their servers and you can access it from anywhere.

For this to happen though, bandwidth would have to increase dramatically, both on cellular networks and wire-based ones. Personally, I don't like sharing all my stuff with the rest of the world like that though...

DoFoT9

Sep 19, 2008, 05:34 AM

SpookTheHamster

Sep 19, 2008, 05:37 AM

RoDe

Sep 19, 2008, 05:37 AM

My question is, and maybe some of you might know this? Will quicktime after this update use the GPU to decode the H264 stuff or will it still be software based decoding.

Courtaj

Sep 19, 2008, 06:05 AM

can someone pls confirm, when will macbooks be out??

I'm very pleased to at last be able to confirm once and for all that new macbooks will be released later.

toke lahti

Sep 19, 2008, 06:14 AM

could this mean new cinema displays as well?It could mean that ACDs are going same road than Xraids...

teme

Sep 19, 2008, 06:14 AM

kornyboy

Sep 19, 2008, 06:16 AM

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I have been wondering when they were going to do this. I can't wait to see Blu-Ray drives in new Macs.

DoFoT9

Sep 19, 2008, 06:17 AM

Once almighty Steve says that Blu-ray will be included to Macs (and in his typical style tells how awesome it is and how good 1080p looks), most people here will start to support Blu-ray. Until that happens, it's the same old 'Apple doesn't support it yet, so it isn't cool' story.

dont get me wrong. i LOVE the quality of bluray movies. i just HATE media. HD's are perfect because you can take one thing with you and have instant access to many movies. "all at the click of a button".

Michael CM1

Sep 19, 2008, 06:17 AM

Hoo-rah. I'd at least like to be able to get an external reader to just use something like HandBrake to get mah durn movies on iTunes. Not ready to blow another $2000 on a new MBP just for BD support.

I am also still astonished at the level of stupidity on this subject.

1) Blu-ray Disc. I know it's hard to remember because it's only, like, everywhere, but get on the truck. It's not Blue Ray. There is no E in the damn name. Never has been, never will be. Ya look stupid when you don't even know the name of the product you're slamming (stupid Windoes!).

2) Downloads aren't going to kill optical media anytime soon. I can buy a 50-disc set of DVD-Rs for about $10. 5GBx50=250GB. I spent $90 for a My Passport 250GB external hard drive ON SALE. Therefore, I spent $80 extra for the same storage space. Optical media will probably be around for a LOOOONG time. BD-R discs are expensive just like CD-R and DVD-R discs were when they first came out. At first BD-Rs were $20 each. They're now under $10 (some as low as $5).

Also, don't forget that not everybody (by a longshot) has broadband Internet. Even if you do, it's s-l-o-w to download even a 720p movie. It's literally faster to drive 10 miles to a store, buy a movie on BD, and come home. You can probably watch one before the download is finished. Broadband will have to jump way beyond the average of 1 or 2Mbps that most people have. Don't forget that people on this board are not "most people."

3) I hate all that DRM crap as much as the next person, but we can't even get it all off music yet. I hope one of these days that the video makers understand that movie pirates will find a way to bypass their DRM while those of us that just want to rip for personal use (and not distribute like crazy) are just inconvenienced by it. DRM-free music hasn't killed the music industry.

tygelert

Sep 19, 2008, 06:18 AM

Courtaj, when you say later, could you please be a little specific :rolleyes:

DoFoT9

Sep 19, 2008, 06:27 AM

Hoo-rah. I'd at least like to be able to get an external reader to just use something like HandBrake to get mah durn movies on iTunes. Not ready to blow another $2000 on a new MBP just for BD support.

I am also still astonished at the level of stupidity on this subject.

1) Blu-ray Disc. I know it's hard to remember because it's only, like, everywhere, but get on the truck. It's not Blue Ray. There is no E in the damn name. Never has been, never will be. Ya look stupid when you don't even know the name of the product you're slamming (stupid Windoes!).

2) Downloads aren't going to kill optical media anytime soon. I can buy a 50-disc set of DVD-Rs for about $10. 5GBx50=250GB. I spent $90 for a My Passport 250GB external hard drive ON SALE. Therefore, I spent $80 extra for the same storage space. Optical media will probably be around for a LOOOONG time. BD-R discs are expensive just like CD-R and DVD-R discs were when they first came out. At first BD-Rs were $20 each. They're now under $10 (some as low as $5).

2.5)Also, don't forget that not everybody (by a longshot) has broadband Internet. Even if you do, it's s-l-o-w to download even a 720p movie. It's literally faster to drive 10 miles to a store, buy a movie on BD, and come home. You can probably watch one before the download is finished. Broadband will have to jump way beyond the average of 1 or 2Mbps that most people have. Don't forget that people on this board are not "most people."

3) I hate all that DRM crap as much as the next person, but we can't even get it all off music yet. I hope one of these days that the video makers understand that movie pirates will find a way to bypass their DRM while those of us that just want to rip for personal use (and not distribute like crazy) are just inconvenienced by it. DRM-free music hasn't killed the music industry.

1. meh who cares its only the internet. anyone can do anything.

2. downloads are SLOWLY starting to kill optical media. i now download everything. our house used to buy 5-10 DVD movies a month. now its down to zero. we used to go to the movies about 3 times a month. we now go none, all because i download it.

2.5. yea hardly any1 has broadband, especially here is aus. we struggle to even get ADSL2+ in more than 10% of the nation (if that!). 720p movies are slow because no1 seeds it! im sure if you were doing it legally then it would be downloaded in a flash.

3. meh i have no input on this matter

DoFoT9

Sep 19, 2008, 06:28 AM

Courtaj, when you say later, could you please be a little specific :rolleyes:

give it a coupla blu moons (hehe notice the link to the topic..haha..uuh...:o i guess not)

yegon

Sep 19, 2008, 06:38 AM

BE is not owned by BT, it was a separate company until last year when it was taken over by O2.

Ah right, I'm mistaken then. Still, excellent ISP ime though :-)

ntg

Sep 19, 2008, 06:42 AM

With the release of Mac OS X 10.5.5 earlier this week (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/15/apple-releases-mac-os-x-10-5-5/), Apple should begin work on Mac OS X 10.5.6. Built-in Blu-ray support into Mac OS X would open the door for Apple to finally incorporate Blu-ray drives into their Macs as well as Blu-ray support into their suite of iLife applications. The 10.5.6 update will not come before the rumored notebook revisions in October, but could conceivably be ready by Macworld San Francisco 2009.

Article Link (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/19/blu-ray-support-in-mac-os-x-10-5-6/)

Is it not possible that 10.5.6 was started a while ago, in parallel with 10.5.5, and includes Blu-Ray support and support for the new laptops to be announced on October 14th?

Why should the seeding of one preclude the release of the other (especially when it would 'give away' the existence of new hardware?

Nig.
:D

sangosimo

Sep 19, 2008, 06:43 AM

what took apple so long :[

iPaf

Sep 19, 2008, 06:53 AM

MWSF 2009:

- iLife' 09
- iWork' 09
- Mac OS X 10.5.6 (BR support)

BOOM!

Everybody including me would prefer a release before that, but I think they will wait for THE MAJOR event!!

teme

Sep 19, 2008, 07:03 AM

MWSF 2009:

- iLife' 09
- iWork' 09
- Mac OS X 10.5.6 (BR support)

BOOM!

Everybody including me would prefer a release before that, but I think they will wait for THE MAJOR event!!

I'm afraid that Apple will wait for that... "BIG NEWS! From this day on, blu-ray drives will be included to macs... like most of the other manufacturers have done with PC's for months". Big news for a MAJOR event indeed.

ccuk

Sep 19, 2008, 07:21 AM

1. meh who cares its only the internet. anyone can do anything.

2. downloads are SLOWLY starting to kill optical media. i now download everything. our house used to buy 5-10 DVD movies a month. now its down to zero. we used to go to the movies about 3 times a month. we now go none, all because i download it.

2.5. yea hardly any1 has broadband, especially here is aus. we struggle to even get ADSL2+ in more than 10% of the nation (if that!). 720p movies are slow because no1 seeds it! im sure if you were doing it legally then it would be downloaded in a flash.

3. meh i have no input on this matter

Movies are slow because of connection speeds. You illegally downloading movies is not exactly a prime comparison to a legitimate business model of buying from itunes, amazon, netlifx etc. You defeated your own argument with your "we struggle to even get ADSL2+ in more than 10% of the nation (if that!)" statement. Until, worldwide, both internet connection speeds and the infrastructure behind the internet are such that they can sustain downloads of that size, in mass, physical media will remain a big seller and cash cow for both music and movie companies. Vinyl has seen over a 15% increase in sales last year... so much for wanting everything digital and downloaded then eh?

On the topic however, I have no idea why Apple, a member of the Blu-Ray consortium have yet to add support to their own products. It is rather illogical to me why they haven't added the drives. With the current rumors of new notebooks etc, I can't see them being foolish enough to miss the up and coming holiday period of Christmas by not releasing Blu-Ray capable notebooks.

Porco

Sep 19, 2008, 07:21 AM

It's about time.

I really want Blu-ray movie playback support in OS X. I think some people miss the point slightly. It's not just about the extra quality that BDs provide (though that is nice of course), it's the fact that if I buy one I want to be able to play it on my computer without having to also get the dvd!! It doesn't matter if it's image constrained because my monitor and/or video card isn't HDCP compliant if it's as good as (in fact still better than) DVD.

Saying you don't want a feature because Windows made it all bloated is like saying you don't want a GUI because you don't like Microsoft's implementation of it! Have some faith that OS X will deal with this stuff more nicely eh people? At least until we see if it does or not!

I think people who think downloads mean Blu-ray will die a quick death need a reality check. The speeds and usage allowances aren't there for most people in the western world yet, and are unlikely to be for some time. Yes downloads will one day be the way we get films I'm sure, and yes we all know Japan and Sweden and places are fibred up to the hilt, good for them, but even there it's not everywhere, and it will need the US and much more of Europe to have an order of speed greater before it even becomes a real competition.

mdriftmeyer

Sep 19, 2008, 07:25 AM

Apple wouldn't be just beginning work on BluRay. Internal builds will have been developed for the last year.

cgc

Sep 19, 2008, 07:37 AM

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time to get a BR drive.

Great, then you can add that to your forum tag...
[SIZE=1]__________________
~Humans make Music,
Music makes Miracles ~
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johnmcboston

Sep 19, 2008, 07:51 AM

I have to say, a blue ray drive would definitely put a new imac in my sights...

alphaod

Sep 19, 2008, 08:09 AM

Well I don't see what kind of support they need? Maybe rename the DVD Player to Bluray Player and incorporate decryption keys. AFAIK there is already Blu-ray support, just the lack of physical software to play movies, etc. You can already burn discs with Toast.

It would be nice if they enabled PureVideo HD or AVIVO HD (depending on if they went NVIDIA or ATi), so even MacBook could play 1080p files. This would be very very nice to have. Obviously, support for HDCP via the DVI port would be kick butt.

I know the desktop cards from both GPU makers have the capability to output audio and video through the DVI port when an HDMI adapter is installed. Again Apple could incorporate this into say a Mac Mini. That way people can hook it up to their TVs, watch 1080p stuff without any lag, have one cable instead of a zillion. Even on the MBP or MB it would useful to have.

The Tall One

Sep 19, 2008, 08:15 AM

Its about goddamn time!

solipsism

Sep 19, 2008, 08:18 AM

mdntcallr

Sep 19, 2008, 08:23 AM

YAWN.

Wake me up when they release Macs with both Blue-Ray support in the OS as well as a Blue-Ray disc drive. Only then can you really use and watch Blue-Ray discs/movies. When is that likely to happen? Macworld 2010?

i am puzzled at why Apple makes people wait on this.

To wait until macworld would continue the diasppointment of many consumers. they ought to include Blu-Ray Hardware support on the entire macintosh line as new models come out. especially just on the bd-rom reading for superdrives. the tech is there and apple is currently due to refresh the entire line.

Remember virtually every mac model is due for a refresh soon:
Mac Pro
Mac Mini
Macbook Pro
Macbook

Apple Cinema Display (needs to be updated for HDCP compliance for Blu-Ray)

and in about 2 months, iMac, but i wouldn't expect them to update that one until Macworld, they wouldn't update it during November, based on historical update cycle timelines. though they could refresh sooner.

macaco74

Sep 19, 2008, 08:26 AM

I can see a blu-ray CTO option for a price of $900. Would be nice though if it were closer to $200.

mdntcallr

Sep 19, 2008, 08:28 AM

The problem I have believing that Apple will release a BRD option in their notebooks or iMac anytime soon is the issue with the size drive required. 15" MBPs and 20" iMacs current require a 9.5mm optical drive. 17" MBPs and 24" iMacs require a 12.7mm optical drive.

The latter are prohibitively expensive, even for a reader, which won't make sense in a Mac, and the former doesn't yet exist, as far as I can tell. The BR drives you see in notebooks for $150 are 1.5" notebooks using clunky tray loading drives. I can't see Apple going that route for an optical format that very few people will use.

But Rose stated BR support in 10.5.6. To me, that isn't about adding an internal drives to the Mac line, but simply adding software support for iLife and Por apps and letting users use the cheaper and faster external 3rd-party BRD for their media. MacWorld would be great for new iLife and Pro Apps with this support.

nope, alot of us want to be able to watch our Blu-ray movie content on our laptops while travelling, and NO... dont care about the stupid extra disc that costs $5 more version with Digital copy, just want to watch a movie, without installing in in itunes and such.

i really hope they have made a deal for a slot loading reading drive for laptops. or even on imac's it is so frustrating they don't even give this as an option on BTO macs.

and for those who say the drive doesn't exist, that is just BS

Burning version is avail through third party manufacturer
http://www.tuaw.com/2007/04/07/fastmac-offers-slot-loading-blu-ray-burner/

so there must be a version available or could be made cheaper for reading BD discs and burning CD/DVD content.

AnalyzeThis

Sep 19, 2008, 08:43 AM

It is good to dream about it, but thinking that apple just started to work on 10.5.6 is just very naive. Apple is probably working on 10.5.7 release by now.
10.5.5 was released to testing months ago. There is no indication of BD support even in next 10.6. BTW, Apple was sitting on both chairs HD-DVD and BD, but none have been implemented. Apple was first to introduce CD in personal computer and they seems to be ahead of everyone this time by eliminating optical drives from computers in a similar fashion of floppy drives.
The max we should expect is to burn and play unencrypted HD content.

Keep on dreaming...:)

3247

Sep 19, 2008, 08:47 AM

the tech is there and apple is currently due to refresh the entire line.
Remember virtually every mac model is due for a refresh soon:
Mac Pro
Mac Mini
Macbook Pro
Macbook

Apple Cinema Display (needs to be updated for HDCP compliance for Blu-Ray)Yes, all of them are overdue.
My guess is that they'll release new versions with BluRay support really soon now.
For the Cinema Display, my guess is that they'll switch to 16:9 and add DisplayPort + HDMI.
Physical media will go away eventually. As many people here pointed out, it's probable that BD (Blu-Ray) is the last optical media. The efforts are going into cloud computing so your data would be everywhere and you only need a device to access it, be it a pocket-sized, laptop-sized or workstation-sized. Look at Google Docs, your data is on their servers and you can access it from anywhere.I don't think optical media will go away any time soon. People often want to buy and own a film, not just lease it from a store.
However, BluRay will be the last 2D film format. With a resolution of 1920x1080p, it just does not make sense to go any higher. Even cinemas don't use much higher resolutions for digital projections - usually it's just 2K (2048x<whatever>). Analogue projections don't even come close.

AidenShaw

Sep 19, 2008, 08:48 AM

Apple is probably working on 10.5.7 release by now.

Yes. They're also working on 10.6, and most likely have a small team planning for 10.7. It's even likely that some engineers are working on projects for 10.7.

Overlapping development is the standard way of doing things.

solipsism

Sep 19, 2008, 08:51 AM

nope, alot of us want to be able to watch our Blu-ray movie content on our laptops while travelling, and NO... dont care about the stupid extra disc that costs $5 more version with Digital copy, just want to watch a movie, without installing in in itunes and such.

i really hope they have made a deal for a slot loading reading drive for laptops. or even on imac's it is so frustrating they don't even give this as an option on BTO macs.

and for those who say the drive doesn't exist, that is just BS

Burning version is avail through third party manufacturer
http://www.tuaw.com/2007/04/07/fastmac-offers-slot-loading-blu-ray-burner/

so there must be a version available or could be made cheaper for reading BD discs and burning CD/DVD content.
1) "a lot of us" means nothing. I'm sure NAMBLA has "a lot" of members, but thankfully the percentage of these sickos in society. are quite low.

2) As for the drive not existing, I pointed out that a 12.7mm drive exists, but a 9.5mm drive does seem to exist yet. Your link only proves my point.

3) They charge $1000 for for 12.7mm slot loading BR SuperDrive. How much lower do you actually think a reader would be? $530 is for the desktop-grade tray-loading BRD.

4) I'm sure you, et al., do want to travel with a bunch of BR discs to run a power sucking BR optical drive that may give you just enough juice to watch a single movie, if your lucky, but I prefer to work in an effective and efficient manner when I travel. So I put my video onto a HDD that uses considerably less power, holds considerably more data,costs considerably less money, and takes up considerably less space per GB.

bommai

Sep 19, 2008, 08:53 AM

My question is, and maybe some of you might know this? Will quicktime after this update use the GPU to decode the H264 stuff or will it still be software based decoding.

Quicktime does not even have the capability to decode High Profile H.264 video right now. Only Base and Main Profiles are supported. Bluray uses High Profile.

Also to anyone that compares video streaming and calling it high quality are completely out of touch with what Bluray has to offer. Bluray offer 1920x1080 24p with H.264 or VC-1 or even MPEG-2 with bitrates as high as 40Mbps. The audio can be as high as 20Mbps. Yes you read that right. I have a concert BD that uses 5.1 channel 24-bit/96kHz PCM for an audio only bitrate of 13.6Mbps. If you guys want to compare this kind of capability with a 5Mbps or 6Mbps HD stream for both audio and video, I pity you guys.

Bluray makes a huge difference when it comes to displaying on a big screen and a good audio environment. Yes, this is not how majority of people watch home A/V, but again - we are talking about high quality here, not lowest common denominator.

My setup is a 1080p projector (Epson 1080UB) with native 24p support as well as 60p, 118" diagonal screen, Harman Kardon AVR 745, Klipsch Reference series speakers, Elemental Designs A3/350 subwoofer, PS3 (for DVDs and Blurays), iMac (for ripped DVDs), Dish ViP722.

Bubba Satori

Sep 19, 2008, 08:53 AM

what took apple so long :[

1. Restricting customer choices.
2. iTune monopoly on content.
3. Arrogance.
4. Not giving a *amn about computers anymore.
5. Blu-ray discs aren't thin enough. :D

bommai

Sep 19, 2008, 09:07 AM

I am a mac guy at home. I use PC only at work. I have an imac right now. However, I think Apple is severely behind in the laptop market now. They used to be about equal. When companies like Sony can sell a pretty good looking laptop with Bluray drive built-in as well as HDMI out, webcam, etc for the same price as a MacBook, it bothers me.

MrCrowbar

Sep 19, 2008, 09:29 AM

5. Blu-ray discs aren't thin enough. :D

People wanted to make DVDs half as thick to fit better into magazines and make it more environment-friendly. A DVD only uses half of its thickness for data (the reflecting material is sandwitched between two acrylic discs), so you could just put the label onto the reflective material (like CDs) and make it half as thick.

But these discs turned out to be very floppy and thus destroy disc drives they were put in rather quickly. It would probably work fine when you keep the thickness on the center part and have a thinner, but harder material like glass for the data. But if you've handled a glass CD negative (used for stamp-pressing CDs), you know how awkward, heavy and fragile they are.

PS: I "obtained" an IBM CPU-Wafer from an IT exposition once because It looked awesome as a mousepad. Fell on the floor and split into billions of pieces. I still find some sparkling stuff on the floor occasionally after 4 years. But damn, it was a cool mouse pad!

Ostersmasher

Sep 19, 2008, 09:33 AM

So now I need to wait until January for a worthwhile Mac Mini update before I buy? Damn!

Konstanty

Sep 19, 2008, 09:36 AM

If they release MBP's in few months, I hope that they offer blu-ray drives at least as a built-to-order option, even if the 10.5.6 update is not ready yet.

Same here. I'm not getting a new MBP until I can get a Blu-ray/DVD/CD combo drive in it.

Baadshah

Sep 19, 2008, 09:47 AM

I'm very pleased to at last be able to confirm once and for all that new macbooks will be released later.

later means?

Some says new macbooks will come out in jan 09, some says shipping and will be out on oct 31, some says it will be launched on oct 14.

Soo many romours.......

Can someone give 1 date hehe, its soo confusing, shell i buy a macbook now or wait.....

CmdrLaForge

Sep 19, 2008, 10:08 AM

Sony has lost this war, they just don't realize it yet.

I am not sure if there will be a clear winner soon

HD Downloads don't stand a chance at the moment with the way current ISP's are acting. Most major isps in the UK have either monthly caps in place, or even more annoyingly like mine, you can only download 1gb within a 4 hour period otherwise your connection is capped at 25% it's normal speed. As well as someone previously said, there just isn't a viable source to rent/buy HD downloads on the net for people outside the US yet. iTunes has nothing. The only viable source I have is through my cable box, I can rent HD content through there, but no purchase.

The real problem is that the IP provider need to figure out a way how to earn money on the ever expanding bandwith growth without people really paying for it.

Blu-Ray

Sep 19, 2008, 10:13 AM

If the new MBP's don't have BR and HDMI, I'm getting a Vaio. :o

kjs862

Sep 19, 2008, 10:19 AM

I wonder if the current line of Apple computers has enough horsepower to watch Blue-Ray Disc video smoothly. :confused:

akm3

Sep 19, 2008, 10:25 AM

I hope that they do it. While I have given up on Optical formats, I know a lot of other people really want it for some reason, and they have a right to be happy too.

shompa

Sep 19, 2008, 10:26 AM

Who cares about Bluray support? What people want is to play bluray movies with their drives. If I understand things right, this will not happen.

The reason why Apple don't have a software bluray player is because of the DRM that has to be implemented in an OS layer. I think it's good that Apple took a stance against the crazy DRM in Bluray. Maybe Bluray alliance has loosen their requirements to give Apple keys to decrypt blurays streams.

I don't think so.

The bluray option is the only reason why I have switched my HTPC from a macmini to a PC. But since PC can play software blurays from disk images, I don't need and hardware bluray drive to wath Blurays. I have all my bluray and HDDVD movies on hard drives.

shompa

Sep 19, 2008, 10:29 AM

I wonder if the current line of Apple computers has enough horsepower to watch Blue-Ray Disc video smoothly. :confused:

You need a computer with graphic card acceleration on PC. That means that the only macs that could play blurays are those with real graphics cards.

No macbooks. No macminis.

The next revision of Intel integrated graphics can play bluray. If Apple uses it, a hardware bump should be released same time as bluray support.

Baadshah

Sep 19, 2008, 10:30 AM

If the new MBP's don't have BR and HDMI, I'm getting a Vaio. :o

exactly my words, i have 2 choices.

1) New Macbook
2) Vaio SR or Z series.

If apple dont come with a new macbook in oct 31, i m going for a vaio.

I atleast need HDMI in the macbooks and more ram, hdd, processor etc.

a456

Sep 19, 2008, 10:36 AM

by the time Apple implement it, the PC world would have moved onto the next technology... :rolleyes:

Exactly, didn't Samsung or some other company say Blu-Ray only had another 6 months to a year to run. Maybe Apple are going to skip it and spend their money elsewhere - i.e. keep improving digital download technology while others get distracted by a short-term technology.

Tallest Skil

Sep 19, 2008, 10:39 AM

Maybe Bluray alliance has loosen their requirements to give Apple keys to decrypt blurays streams.

Well, since Apple has been on the Blu-ray board since its inception, I don't think they've "loosened" anything.

twoodcc

Sep 19, 2008, 10:47 AM

well that's a long time to wait, but looking forward to it!

Cave Man

Sep 19, 2008, 11:24 AM

I wonder if the current line of Apple computers has enough horsepower to watch Blue-Ray Disc video smoothly. :confused:

You need a computer with graphic card acceleration on PC. That means that the only macs that could play blurays are those with real graphics cards.

No macbooks. No macminis.

You are mistaken. Even a Mini has the ability to play Blu-Ray m2ts files.

lgoodlove

Sep 19, 2008, 11:50 AM

Tallest Skil

Sep 19, 2008, 11:52 AM

A year from now? Thats ridiculous, january 2009 is still to long to wait!

Again, Apple's been on the Blu-ray board since it was called Blue-ray... HDCP killed it for them.

edoates

Sep 19, 2008, 11:54 AM

Physical media will go away eventually. As many people here pointed out, it's probable that BD (Blu-Ray) is the last optical media. The efforts are going into cloud computing so your data would be everywhere and you only need a device to access it, be it a pocket-sized, laptop-sized or workstation-sized. Look at Google Docs, your data is on their servers and you can access it from anywhere.

For this to happen though, bandwidth would have to increase dramatically, both on cellular networks and wire-based ones. Personally, I don't like sharing all my stuff with the rest of the world like that though...

You should all take a deep breath and read "The Machine Stops" a short story by E. M. Forster. It provides an interesting insight into a world where someone else (them) control all of the conveniences of life (update would be "control our data"), and when the "machine" breaks...

I like all of my data in the "cloud" where I can get to it anywhere, but some stuff, like my personal docs and media, I want close at hand where I can control it. The cloud and my personal copies on physical media back each other up.

So, no physical media won't die for those of us who actually think about failure modes.

Eddie O

solipsism

Sep 19, 2008, 11:59 AM

A year from now? Thats ridiculous, january 2009 is still to long to wait! Apple could be making a huge premium if they sold Blu-ray drives, there expensive even on windows (even at places like newegg.com.)

Does any one agree with me on this? I'm not going to buy a blu-ray at the cost right now, but I know plenty of rich friends who would buy this.

How much is too much for Blu-ray? The retail price of a slime-line slot-loading Blu-ray SuperDrive is $1000, and that won't even fit in an MBs, 15" MBPs or 20" iMacs.

PS: It's funny how the same people that hate DRM and HDCP seem to be the same ones that just have to have Blu-ray with its DRM and HDCP.

Cave Man

Sep 19, 2008, 12:02 PM

PS: It's funny how the same people that hate DRM and HDCP seem to be the same ones that just have to have Blu-ray with its DRM and HDCP.

I just remove both of them.

Mr Lizard

Sep 19, 2008, 12:05 PM

*sigh*

You can already burn HD video to DVD and Blu-ray disks in OS X!

The only thing that you cannot do is burn or watch disks that use HDCP. That's IT!

And which native app allows you to burn to Blu-ray directly from iMovie?

Pretty sure you'll need a 3rd party solution til apple releases one

aygie

Sep 19, 2008, 12:07 PM

How much is too much for Blu-ray? The retail price of a slime-line slot-loading Blu-ray SuperDrive is $1000, and that won't even fit in an MBs, 15" MBPs or 20" iMacs.

PS: It's funny how the same people that hate DRM and HDCP seem to be the same ones that just have to have Blu-ray with its DRM and HDCP.

Didn't see you said slimline...

http://fastmac.com/slim_bluray.php

http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=BD6XMPINT&Category_Code=STORBD&Product_Count=1

MrCrowbar

Sep 19, 2008, 12:12 PM

You should all take a deep breath and read "The Machine Stops" a short story by E. M. Forster. It provides an interesting insight into a world where someone else (them) control all of the conveniences of life (update would be "control our data"), and when the "machine" breaks...

I like all of my data in the "cloud" where I can get to it anywhere, but some stuff, like my personal docs and media, I want close at hand where I can control it. The cloud and my personal copies on physical media back each other up.

So, no physical media won't die for those of us who actually think about failure modes.

Eddie O

True. But at some point, online storage will get cheaper at a faster rate than personal physical storage gets cheaper. People will like the convenience and opt for the online model when pricing is similar.

Hell, I don't even like IMAP because if you delete an e-mail there (from the web interface), it's pretty much gone for good. Too bad the iPhone wasn't made to handle POP3... never in sync with Mail on your computer. I wish iTunes would sync e-mail messages and apply the rules and junk filter on the iPhone so you don't get notified for junk mail when on the go. A clock syncing wouldn't hurt either, iTunes could set the iPhone time to the computer time (which is synced from the internet). My iPhone is off by a minute every month.

solipsism

Sep 19, 2008, 12:16 PM

Didn't see you said slimline...

http://fastmac.com/slim_bluray.php

http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=BD6XMPINT&Category_Code=STORBD&Product_Count=1

As I stated, It's $1000 for the drive and they won't fit into the most popular Macs because they require a 9.5mm slim-line slot-loading drive. Who is going to pay that much just to have an internal drive? Not many. Those that actually need it for professional reasons can use a external tray-loading drive for half the price.

digitalbiker

Sep 19, 2008, 12:28 PM

As I stated, It's $1000 for the drive and they won't fit into the most popular Macs because they require a 9.5mm slim-line slot-loading drive. Who is going to pay that much just to have an internal drive? Not many. Those that actually need it for professional reasons can use a external tray-loading drive for half the price.

So how come Sony can offer a 3.4 lb, 1 inch thick, vaio Z with Blu-ray drive for less money and better specs than the current MBPs and MBA?

I guess they didn't get the memo that it was too expensive or too big.

Besides, how do we know what dimensions or what type of drive Apple will use in the new models. Maybe Apple will move away from slot loading drives. There was some speculation that they might use a new design bottom loading drive.

solipsism

Sep 19, 2008, 12:49 PM

So how come Sony can offer a 3.4 lb, 1 inch thick, vaio Z with Blu-ray drive for less money and better specs than the current MBPs and MBA?

I guess they didn't get the memo that it was too expensive or too big.

1) Sony is behind Blu-ray and is desperately pushing the format before digital downloads get good enough for most people to jump from DVD to digital so they can sell these drives for little profit (like they are with their PCs) or even at a loss (like with the PS3) in the short term to push the format forward.

2) If you have proof of a slot-loading BRD that is at a reasonable price-point then point it out to us. If you have proof of a 9.5mm slot-loading BRD even exists then point it out to us.

3) You don't have a clue what you are talking about. The Z-series start at $1800 without a BRD. You have to pay $2079.99 for a 13" notebook before you even have and option for the BRD, which will cost you an additional $500.

4) The Z-series thickness is 1.0" at the front to 1.3". That is 33% thicker than a MBP and considerably more volume over a MB's current case. Again, exactly where would this fit in a MB or MBP that currently takes a 9.5mm drive? Do you think Apple is going to thicken it's cases and move to a tray-loading drive just to accommodate a few foolish people?

5) It's been stated several times now, the Z-series does not use a slot loading drive, yet it still costs $500 and is twice the thickness of the MB's optical drive. Are the words 'slot' and 'tray' really that difficult to comprehend?

PS: This is usually where someone responds with a lame comment that puts Apple on a pedestal and claims that Apple can have these non-existent 3rd-party drives and a much lower pricepoint than larger, cheaper drives simply because they are Apple.

Porco

Sep 19, 2008, 01:06 PM

1) Sony is behind Blu-ray and is desperately pushing the format before digital downloads get good enough for most people to jump from DVD[....]

2) If you have proof of a slot-loading BRD that is at a reasonable price-point then point it out to us. [....]
[....]

4) The Z-series thickness is 1.0" at the front to 1.3". That is 33% thicker than a MBP and considerably more volume over a MB's current case.[...] just to accommodate a few foolish people?

[....]

1) It's not the quality of the downloads that is the problem for most people, it's the connection speed (or rather the lack thereof) and downloads caps.

2) Maybe they'll get cheaper soon? Like CD and DVD drives did.

4) Maybe they'll get thinner soon? Like CD and DVD drives did.

digitalbiker

Sep 19, 2008, 01:15 PM

2) If you have proof of a slot-loading BRD that is at a reasonable price-point then point it out to us. If you have proof of a 9.5mm slot-loading BRD even exists then point it out to us.

3) You don't have a clue what you are talking about. The Z-series start at $1800 without a BRD. You have to pay $2079.99 for a 13" notebook before you even have and option for the BRD, which will cost you an additional $500.

4) The Z-series thickness is 1.0" at the front to 1.3". That is 33% thicker than a MBP and considerably more volume over a MB's current case. Again, exactly where would this fit in a MB or MBP that currently takes a 9.5mm drive? Do you think Apple is going to thicken it's cases and move to a tray-loading drive just to accommodate a few foolish people?

5) It's been stated several times now, the Z-series does not use a slot loading drive, yet it still costs $500 and is twice the thickness of the MB's optical drive. Are the words 'slot' and 'tray' really that difficult to comprehend?

So what's your point? I never said any thing about a slot loading drive. I just said that Sony is able to fit a blu-ray drive in a slim light weight laptop at a price point that is similar to the current MBPs and MBA.

If you haven't noticed everyone is talking re-design this time around for the MBP. How do you know that Apple won't taper the laptop similar to Vaio Z or the MBA and move away from slot-loading drives. Slot loading drives are a pain in the a#% anyway.

solipsism

Sep 19, 2008, 01:16 PM

1) It's not the quality of the downloads that is the problem for most people, it's the connection speed (or rather the lack thereof) and downloads caps.
I know this is an issue in countries like Australia, but in the US it's just starting become an issue. Still Comcast has put the current cap at 250GB. Currently, a 2 hour HD movie from iTS is about 5GB.

Note: Apple not including an internal BRD doesn't mean they can't include the ability to play BR media through an external drive either offered through them or a 3rd-party.

2) Maybe they'll get cheaper soon? Like CD and DVD drives did.
They will, but will it be cheap enough to be viable. As I've noted several times, a slot-loading BRD is cost and physically prohibitive according to all available sources i can find.

4) Maybe they'll get thinner soon? Like CD and DVD drives did.
They will, but when and how much will that shrunken tech will be. Do you remember the uproar when Apple released their first MBP and the 15" model didn't have a DL-DVD burner, but the 15" PowerBook did, because the tech hadn't caught up to the 9.5mm drives that Apple started using.

Note: Panasonic announced plans for a 9.5mm BRD earlier this year, but it was only an announcement and I can't find any additional info on, not even a demo of it at a convention.

neoelectronaut

Sep 19, 2008, 01:25 PM

I always have the worst timing with buying Macs.

First I bought my eMac about a month before they introduced USB 2.0

Now I bought my iMac right before they introduce Blu-Ray.

****.

Apple better come up with an external solution.

solipsism

Sep 19, 2008, 01:26 PM

So what's your point?
My point is that you et al. are only thinking with your Apple dicks and not looking at the big picture of what is feasible and possible at this time.

I never said any thing about a slot loading drive. I just said that Sony is able to fit a blu-ray drive in a slim light weight laptop at a price point that is similar to the current MBPs and MBA.
Do you know how ago it has been since Apple used a tray-loading optical drive in a notebook? BTW, if you think 1.3" is a "slim" notebook I would bet you'd trouble telling Rosie O'Donnell and Keira Knightly apart.

If you haven't noticed everyone is talking re-design this time around for the MBP. How do you know that Apple won't taper the laptop similar to Vaio Z or the MBA and move away from slot-loading drives. Slot loading drives are a pain in the a#% anyway.
A redesign in which Apple uses clunkier tech and requires to them to excessively "fatten" up their devices? Occam's Razor says no. I agree that slot-loading drives has some annoying limitations, but that hasn't stopped Apple from using them exclusively in all their Macs, except the Mac Pro in which a full-sized, full-speed tray-loading drive makes sense.

WelshDog

Sep 19, 2008, 01:37 PM

That's what people said about CD-Rs. It has to start out expensive CD-Rs were never that expensive. $12.50 for a Sony BD-R right now and that is a price drop. Dual layer is $30.

BR burning/recording won't become pervasive until those prices are cut down to a small fraction of what they currently are. Burner prices must drop as well. AND the encoding time has to be shortened by building rendering accelerator chips into the computers. Encoding for Blu-Ray video is seriously time consuming even with a fast computer.

jpine

Sep 19, 2008, 02:04 PM

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

With the release of Mac OS X 10.5.5 earlier this week (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/15/apple-releases-mac-os-x-10-5-5/), Apple should begin work on Mac OS X 10.5.6. Built-in Blu-ray support into Mac OS X would open the door for Apple to finally incorporate Blu-ray drives into their Macs as well as Blu-ray support into their suite of iLife applications. The 10.5.6 update will not come before the rumored notebook revisions in October, but could conceivably be ready by Macworld San Francisco 2009.

Article Link (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/09/19/blu-ray-support-in-mac-os-x-10-5-6/)

Forget iLife. DVDSP is WAY past due for an upgrade. Does anyone know of a professional app from Apple that is this long in the tooth? Besides, I get the impression that Jobs does not think optical media is important anymore given the integration of YouTube into iMovie and the lack of integration between iMovie and iDVD.

Lord Zedd

Sep 19, 2008, 02:41 PM

If Apple hasn't released it in Tiger OR Leopard they certainly aren't going to do it in a point-point release. Blue-ray in Snow Leopard, MAYBE. In a 10.x.x release? NFW.

Burners are already under $300 for the slimline models and under $250 for desktop models. Even less for a bulk purchase company like Apple.

There is NO reason for them to have delayed so long.

iMacmatician

Sep 19, 2008, 02:46 PM

Now everything comes clear.

MWSF 2009 = iLife '09 (with Blu-ray support) + new Cinema Displays (with Blu-ray movie support) + 10.5.6 (with Blu-ray support) + Nehalem Mac Pro (with Blu-ray drive BTO). :cool:

But where's the tablet and/or mini-tablet? :(:mad:

i am puzzled at why Apple makes people wait on this.

To wait until macworld would continue the diasppointment of many consumers. they ought to include Blu-Ray Hardware support on the entire macintosh line as new models come out. Given that two Macs STILL don't have DVD burners, I wouldn't hold my breath on Blu-ray, even readers, coming to the MacBook and Mac mini.

Some says new macbooks will come out in jan 09, some says shipping and will be out on oct 31, some says it will be launched on oct 14.

Soo many romours.......Can you link me to those rumors?

If you guys want to compare this kind of capability with a 5Mbps or 6Mbps HD stream for both audio and video, I pity you guys.
...
Yes, this is not how majority of people watch home A/V, but again - we are talking about high quality here, not lowest common denominator.But the question is whether Apple wants to cater to this high quality that, as you've said, "not how majority of people watch home A/V." If so, then we can see Blu-ray. If not, then the likelihood of Blu-ray is decreased quite a bit.

And I don't see cost being the main reason why there's no Blu-ray BTO in Macs, as there are RAM BTO options on the Mac Pro costing way more than any quoted Blu-ray drive prices in this thread.

solipsism

Sep 19, 2008, 02:53 PM

digitalbiker

Sep 19, 2008, 03:26 PM

My point is that you et al. are only thinking with your Apple dicks and not looking at the big picture of what is feasible and possible at this time.

Do you know how ago it has been since Apple used a tray-loading optical drive in a notebook? BTW, if you think 1.3" is a "slim" notebook I would bet you'd trouble telling Rosie O'Donnell and Keira Knightly apart.

A redesign in which Apple uses clunkier tech and requires to them to excessively "fatten" up their devices? Occam's Razor says no. I agree that slot-loading drives has some annoying limitations, but that hasn't stopped Apple from using them exclusively in all their Macs, except the Mac Pro in which a full-sized, full-speed tray-loading drive makes sense.

What's up with all the anger? You do realize that most people don't usually explode and start name-calling when someone mentions the change to a different optical format in a laptop.

For your information, Apple uses a tray loading drive in all the standard MacBooks. Only the MBP, and imac use a slot loading drive. The MBP is due for a redesign.

The Sony Vaio Z is a really nice looking light weight laptop it weighs 3.4 lbs. That is less weight than the MBP and almost the same weight as the MBA. So no a re-design including BD does not have to be clunky.

Maybe you should open your mind a little to more alternatives for tech than just being stuck on a design which has had little significant change since 2000 with the Titanium PB.

mdriftmeyer

Sep 19, 2008, 03:27 PM

So what's your point? I never said any thing about a slot loading drive. I just said that Sony is able to fit a blu-ray drive in a slim light weight laptop at a price point that is similar to the current MBPs and MBA.

If you haven't noticed everyone is talking re-design this time around for the MBP. How do you know that Apple won't taper the laptop similar to Vaio Z or the MBA and move away from slot-loading drives. Slot loading drives are a pain in the a#% anyway.

The point solipsism is using is called a design constraint when making a concerted effort to determine the requirements for Apple to achieve their end game--native BluRay in Macs with a consumer solution for free, combined with a professional level that incorporates third parties.

The BTO that I mentioned on AppleInsider about 9 months ago is the starting point for BluRay on Mac Pros. You're not going to see the Consumer beat the Pro level on BluRay.

Cinemas also have been discussed to death at AI where I drove the angle that Apple will enter the HDTV market [capable displays for both]. They won't go after the large form factor. They'll target the HD end that allows professionals to have a higher benefits/cost ratio.

Regarding Nehalem and the transition from 45nm to 32nm off of TGDaily:

In 2009, Nehalem will be scaled down from a 45 nm to the 32 nm core Westmere. Sandy Bridge will be the successor of Nehalem’s architecture and debut in 2010 as a 32 nm CPU. Ivy Bridge will shrink Sandy Bridge to 22 nm in 2011 and Haswell will be a completely new architecture that is planned to be introduced in 2012 as a 22 nm chip.

If Mac Pros are outfitted with 45nm CPUs then there is a short term transition to 32nm versions. This is where Apple has a decision to make on either offering two Mac Pro refreshes within 6 months, create a middle tier box to be one revision behind [45nm while the Mac Pro gets the 32nm]--highly unlikely, or will they stretch out the current boxes and add BTO options for BluRay, more GPUs and such until the 32 nm chips are ready to roll.

toke lahti

Sep 19, 2008, 03:29 PM

True. But at some point, online storage will get cheaper at a faster rate than personal physical storage gets cheaper. People will like the convenience and opt for the online model when pricing is similar.

Hell, I don't even like IMAP because if you delete an e-mail there (from the web interface), it's pretty much gone for good. Too bad the iPhone wasn't made to handle POP3... never in sync with Mail on your computer. I wish iTunes would sync e-mail messages and apply the rules and junk filter on the iPhone so you don't get notified for junk mail when on the go. A clock syncing wouldn't hurt either, iTunes could set the iPhone time to the computer time (which is synced from the internet). My iPhone is off by a minute every month.
Optical media will stay cheaper than hdd/sdd at least for a decade.
Maybe you should set your imap client to put deleted messages to Trash, so you can remove them from there later.

Saladinos

Sep 19, 2008, 04:31 PM

There are two uses for BluRay:

- Data. Requires UDF 2.60. Leopard already has read/write support for UDF 2.60.

- Movies. Requires codecs (VC-1, H.264, MPEG-2), and HDCP-compliant drivers and displays. OSX supports all but VC-1 out of the box. These codecs are mandatory for any device that claims to allow playback of Blu-Ray media. OSX does not have any support for HDCP, and Apple's displays lack support as well. Without HDCP, devices cannot be marketed as "HD ready" in Europe.

To enable Blu-Ray movie playback, Apple would need to:
- Ship a VC-1 codec. FFMpeg provides a free one, but it's likely Apple will want to write their own. Possibly part of QuickTime X that will be brought back to QT7. This is mandatory.
- Add HDCP support
- To the Apple Cinema Displays
- To notebook displays
- To OSX
- To OSX's device drivers for graphics cards

HDCP is technically not required for Blu-Ray playback. However, some disks may demand it, and will not play back in HD if the system does not support it. That may lead to class-action lawsuits. These lawsuits stand a reasonable chance of winning, as HDCP is required for "HD ready" marketing in Europe and other territories. A judge might not need much convincing to establish that marketing a non-HDCP device as capable of HD movie playback was wrong and misleading to customers.

I doubt Apple will take that route. A more likely course of action is that, as drivers are rewritten for the true-64-bit Snow Leopard, HDCP support will be added. Perhaps Apple will ship a preliminary solution by giving leopard a VC-1 codec only, but I don't see much incentive for that.

DoFoT9

Sep 19, 2008, 04:31 PM

1. Movies are slow because of connection speeds. You illegally downloading movies is not exactly a prime comparison to a legitimate business model of buying from itunes, amazon, netlifx etc. You defeated your own argument with your "we struggle to even get ADSL2+ in more than 10% of the nation (if that!)" statement. Until, worldwide, both internet connection speeds and the infrastructure behind the internet are such that they can sustain downloads of that size, in mass, physical media will remain a big seller and cash cow for both music and movie companies. Vinyl has seen over a 15% increase in sales last year... so much for wanting everything digital and downloaded then eh?

2. On the topic however, I have no idea why Apple, a member of the Blu-Ray consortium have yet to add support to their own products. It is rather illogical to me why they haven't added the drives. With the current rumors of new notebooks etc, I can't see them being foolish enough to miss the up and coming holiday period of Christmas by not releasing Blu-Ray capable notebooks.

1. illegally downloaded movies (and everything else) is a darn good comparison. if you think about it..if you go onto a torrent site and look at how many times a movie has been downloaded, you will see that it can easily go higher than 100,000 times. that could mean 100,000 more sales for a company. which is quite a lot! it may not be a true comparison, but it is definately biting into the consumer's decisions about whether to go 'legal' or not.

we struggle to get the faster speeds because of our largeness, that doesnt mean that the 10% (which is where around 80% of our population lives) doesnt have fast speeds. if movies were available at HD/BR quality then many people would download them, even on a 256kb cap it wouldnt take that long and would be much faster than on some torrent sites.

oh and vinyl sales has increased probably because old people still think they are 'hip' and 'in with in', and cant adjust to change. but u know... ahwell (ignore the stereotype)

Mal

Sep 19, 2008, 04:32 PM

For your information, Apple uses a tray loading drive in all the standard MacBooks. Only the MBP, and imac use a slot loading drive. The MBP is due for a redesign.

Umm, what? No they don't. In fact, none of Apple's products except the Mac Pro have had tray-loading drives since about 2002. Have you ever seen a MacBook?

jW

digitalbiker

Sep 19, 2008, 04:45 PM

Umm, what? No they don't. In fact, none of Apple's products except the Mac Pro have had tray-loading drives since about 2002. Have you ever seen a MacBook?

jW

Yeah, my wife has one and it uses a tray loading drive. It is on the right hand side. You hit eject and the tray pops out. I haven't looked lately at the new MB but I think it is still the same.

Oops, my mistake! I see that the new one does have a slot loading drive. On hers the the lower portion of the back of the laptop pops out with a tray. I didn't realize that these were changed.

Regardless it still doesn't mean that Apple will have to stick with a slot loading drive.

Galley

Sep 19, 2008, 05:38 PM

Of course, they are gonna start to support BD soon, because I just bought a PS3 today. D'oh! :rolleyes:

comradesnarky

Sep 19, 2008, 05:39 PM

oh and vinyl sales has increased probably because old people still think they are 'hip' and 'in with in', and cant adjust to change. but u know... ahwell (ignore the stereotype)
It's amazing how inaccurate this is. Vinyl sales are increasing because of young people. Heard of scene kids? That's where your vinyl sales are coming from. Also, I'm sure that those people who enjoy pinching pennies notice that vinyl albums can sometimes be half the price as the CD, and usually include a free digital download.

captnfun

Sep 19, 2008, 05:55 PM

dont get me wrong. i LOVE the quality of bluray movies. i just HATE media. HD's are perfect because you can take one thing with you and have instant access to many movies. "all at the click of a button".

Until the Hard Drive crashes and you lose them all at once.

solipsism

Sep 19, 2008, 06:09 PM

Yeah, my wife has one and it uses a tray loading drive. It is on the right hand side. You hit eject and the tray pops out. I haven't looked lately at the new MB but I think it is still the same.

Oops, my mistake! I see that the new one does have a slot loading drive. On hers the the lower portion of the back of the laptop pops out with a tray. I didn't realize that these were changed.

Regardless it still doesn't mean that Apple will have to stick with a slot loading drive.
"The new one"? All MacBooks have had a slot-loading drive. They were never changed. This is why I angry with posters on MacRumurs, as opposed to AI, the average age and/or IQ has got to be much, much lower because even the simplest of Google searches seems to be beyond many posters here. Apple transitioned tray-loadng optical drives out of all but the worlstation almost a decade a go and no Intel Mac has had a tray-loading drive, except for the Mac Pro workstation.

You're right, it doesn't mean Apple has to stick with slot-loading drive, but I pointed out incidents where Apple was willing to sacrifice functionality to maintain thinness and noted that they are obsessed with making their hardware thinner. What rationale do you have that a seldom used optical drive would warrant an excessive thickening of the Mac notebook chassis with a a clunky, un-seamless drive that is too expensive for most users, that takes up more space than any other component in the notebook, and holds very little information and is considerably slow compared to HDD and flash storage mediums?

PS: Apple will be phasing be the optical drive out. On the consumer side, the technology is dying. Installing applications and OSes via optical disc is no longer the best method. People don't use their optical drives much as it is and using a Blu-ray reader on a note book to watch a movie with only the battery is foolish, at best. Either Apple will move the optical drive outside of portable Macs with the upcoming case revision or the one after that. That doesn't mean that Blu-ray still can't be supported or be an option when that happened, it just means it won't be an internal solution.

solipsism

Sep 19, 2008, 06:20 PM

Until the Hard Drive crashes and you lose them all at once.

Hopefully it's backed up. I have automatic cloud computng that backs up all my basic notes and contacts and emails (of course) and documents. I travel with a 250GB 2.5" HDD that is powered via FW. It's simple and effective. It's also cheaper than 5 50Gb Blu-ray discs and smaller, too, when you consider their cases.

digitalbiker

Sep 19, 2008, 06:26 PM

"The new one"? All MacBooks have had a slot-loading drive. They were never changed. This is why I angry with posters on MacRumurs, as opposed to AI, the average age and/or IQ has got to be much, much lower because even the simplest of Google searches seems to be beyond many posters here. Apple transitioned tray-loadng optical drives out of all but the worlstation almost a decade a go and no Intel Mac has had a tray-loading drive, except for the Mac Pro workstation.

You're right, it doesn't mean Apple has to stick with slot-loading drive, but I pointed out incidents where Apple was willing to sacrifice functionality to maintain thinness and noted that they are obsessed with making their hardware thinner. What rationale do you have that a seldom used optical drive would warrant an excessive thickening of the Mac notebook chassis with a a clunky, un-seamless drive that is too expensive for most users, that takes up more space than any other component in the notebook, and holds very little information and is considerably slow compared to HDD and flash storage mediums?

PS: Apple will be phasing be the optical drive out. On the consumer side, the technology is dying. Installing applications and OSes via optical disc is no longer the best method. People don't use their optical drives much as it is and using a Blu-ray reader on a note book to watch a movie with only the battery is foolish, at best. Either Apple will move the optical drive outside of portable Macs with the upcoming case revision or the one after that. That doesn't mean that Blu-ray still can't be supported or be an option when that happened, it just means it won't be an internal solution.

Why are you so bent out of shape about optical drives? Almost every computer sold today has an optical drive. Sure they will be replaced eventually as will every bit of hardware you own.

If Apple phases out the optical drive on this new release they will loose a lot of sales. Many, many, many people still need and use optical drives.

Besides you make it out like they will destroy your precious laptop aesthetics? This is just not true. I think that the Sony Vaio Z is an excellent example of portability and functionality.

All I want is for Apple to release a new line to bring it up to date with what other notebook manufacturers are now offering.

For your information I have been working with computers probably before you were born. I started working with computers in the early seventies. I made the honest mistake on the Macbook drive because I didn't realize that Apple had changed them since I bought my wife's ibook in 2003, only five years by the way not a decade ago. It didn't matter anyway because it was not the point of the argument.

If you don't want to have the choice of a BTO blu-ray drive in the next MBP thats fine. I do want the choice as do many others. I have a large blu-ray collection, I live in an area with poor internet speeds. My nearest video rental store is 25 miles away. I have a 60" pioneer kuro plasma TV. I use a 8 core MacPro with dual 30" cinema displays for work and play.

I have tried Apple's HD itunes service and it stunk. I am not a fan of cloud computing in general because it means I have to rely on someone else's service to access my data. So far I have not been impressed with any of the offerings.

captnfun

Sep 19, 2008, 06:32 PM

You're right, it doesn't mean Apple has to stick with slot-loading drive, but I pointed out incidents where Apple was willing to sacrifice functionality to maintain thinness and noted that they are obsessed with making their hardware thinner. What rationale do you have that a seldom used optical drive would warrant an excessive thickening of the Mac notebook chassis with a a clunky, un-seamless drive that is too expensive for most users, that takes up more space than any other component in the notebook, and holds very little information and is considerably slow compared to HDD and flash storage mediums?

PS: Apple will be phasing be the optical drive out. On the consumer side, the technology is dying. Installing applications and OSes via optical disc is no longer the best method. People don't use their optical drives much as it is and using a Blu-ray reader on a note book to watch a movie with only the battery is foolish, at best. Either Apple will move the optical drive outside of portable Macs with the upcoming case revision or the one after that. That doesn't mean that Blu-ray still can't be supported or be an option when that happened, it just means it won't be an internal solution.

Does Apple have to keep making things slimmer now that they have a slim option in the Macbook Air? If you want slim, and don't care about Blu-Ray buy the MacBook Air? Maybe they will even put out a netbook type laptop too?

Maybe they will choose a slightly thicker and bigger laptop form in order to put Blu-Ray in, and perhaps a bigger battery. Regardless if you want to play Blu-Ray movies or not, few people would not benefit from longer runtime. All of this would be possible with a case redesign (widely rumored) and a move to 16x9 screens (hopefully with 1080p resolution).

I think that Steve Jobs sits on the Board of Disney and probably owns more stock than Walt's kids. Disney is sold out to Blu-Ray, every studio is sold out to Blu-Ray, every other laptop manufacturer has Blu-Ray options and some are dang cheap. Apple's core markets include Video professionals, and in 2005 Steve declared it the year of HD! Its only 3 years late Steve.

My Biggest fear, as stated here by others is will they do it in October or wait for the big Macworld announcement? Because I think the announcement for Blu-Ray would have to be a sweeping announcement of all new hardware across the entire Mac lineup (and cinema Displays). With everything moving to 16X9 screens and getting Blu-ray support.

I have literally had thousands of dollars in the bank waiting for the Blu-Ray announcement. They don't get my dollars until they announce it. I only get a new laptop every five years, so it has to count when I pull the trigger.

iMacmatician

Sep 19, 2008, 06:35 PM

If Mac Pros are outfitted with 45nm CPUs then there is a short term transition to 32nm versions. This is where Apple has a decision to make on either offering two Mac Pro refreshes within 6 months, create a middle tier box to be one revision behind [45nm while the Mac Pro gets the 32nm]--highly unlikely, or will they stretch out the current boxes and add BTO options for BluRay, more GPUs and such until the 32 nm chips are ready to roll.Westmere, according to sources and roadmaps, isn't due until end 2009 / early 2010. So it looks like we may see new Mac Pros at the start of every year.

captnfun

Sep 19, 2008, 06:53 PM

The problem I have believing that Apple will release a BRD option in their notebooks or iMac anytime soon is the issue with the size drive required. 15" MBPs and 20" iMacs current require a 9.5mm optical drive. 17" MBPs and 24" iMacs require a 12.7mm optical drive.

The latter are prohibitively expensive, even for a reader, which won't make sense in a Mac, and the former doesn't yet exist, as far as I can tell. The BR drives you see in notebooks for $150 are 1.5" notebooks using clunky tray loading drives. I can't see Apple going that route for an optical format that very few people will use.

But Rose stated BR support in 10.5.6. To me, that isn't about adding an internal drives to the Mac line, but simply adding software support for iLife and Por apps and letting users use the cheaper and faster external 3rd-party BRD for their media. MacWorld would be great for new iLife and Pro Apps with this support.

Not slot load, but according to engadget they do exist at 9.5mm. That was almost a year ago, so maybe Apple will introduce the very first 9.5mm slot loaders?

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/panasonic-whittles-thinnest-blu-ray-drive-for-laptops-down-to-9/

solipsism

Sep 19, 2008, 07:08 PM

If Apple phases out the optical drive on this new release they will loose a lot of sales. Many, many, many people still need and use optical drives.
I said move to an external setup since they aren't often used, not completely drop the format and forget about it. But the argument that Apple will loose sales from dropping a dying format like DVD is untrue. They dropped floppies, serial and parallel ports before others and they did okay with that. They like to trim the fat. They also like to keep the costs down, which means they aren't coming out with a new model with a cryptic name with every industry change or trying to make a a machine for every possible person out there. They have the MB and MBP. The MB is one size with two different processor speeds. The MBP is 15" or 17" and has 3 different processor speeds. They are the four best Intel has to offer, without being power sucking Extreme chips.

You also have to remember that Apple will keep the same design for the next 3 years. So they need to think ahead when deciding what to keep in their systems. You say they need to bring the mac "up to date" but you're saying this with the originally designed Intel Macs, which haven't been updated since the first part of the year. But that is getting off track, the point is the comments that "Apple/Jobs can do anything because they are Apple/Jobs" and "[Insert OEM] has this [insert buzzword] so Apple should have had [insert previous buzzword]" makes no sense if you aren't looking at the whole picture. You need to ask yourself: Is this a good move for Apple? How does this benefit the majority of Apple's customers? Is this price prohibitive? Does this fit into Apple's philosophy? I think you'll find that turning a Mac notebook into a Dell and does not work for Apple.

Besides you make it out like they will destroy your precious laptop aesthetics? This is just not true. I think that the Sony Vaio Z is an excellent example of portability and functionality.
They [Apple] won't destroy the aesthetics, and i never said they would. In fact I said they won't use a tray-loading drive and thicken up their designs in the process preciously because of the aesthetics. You are the one who is claiming that Apple will do this simply because you want it. You mention 'aesthetics' and then use the Vaio's 'portabilty and funcionlaity' as an example. Does not compute!

All I want is for Apple to release a new line to bring it up to date with what other notebook manufacturers are now offering.
New Macs are in the pipeline. Apple has no choice but to be behind the other OEMs for the majority of its offerings. That is not going to change because there are supply issues involved. Apple dominates the consumer side of higher0end PCs. Where Sony, Dell and HP only need a few of these new Intel chips to accommodate their new BTO systems, Apple needs only a handful of these higher-end Intel chips, but needs a great deal of them and they need to have many thousands in their stores (or on their way) the day they announce these new Macs. This puts Apple at a disadvantage for in the time when other OEMs have the new chips and Apple is waiting for the new chips in bulk. This issue is just cmpounded as they grow.

For your information I have been working with computers probably before you were born. I started working with computers in the early seventies. I made the honest mistake on the Macbook drive because I didn't realize that Apple had changed them since the ibook. It didn't matter anyway because it was not the point of the argument.
They changed to slot-loading in the iBook when they introduced the G4s. They were the last bastion of tray-loading drives in Macs but hat was still a half decade ago.

If you don't want to have the choice of a BTO blu-ray drive in the next MBP thats fine. I do want the choice as do many others. I have a large blu-ray collection, I live in an area with poor internet speeds. My nearest video rental store is 25 miles away. I have a 60" pioneer kuro plasma TV. I use a 8 core MacPro with dual 30" cinema displays for work and play.
If you have a 60" plasma why would you not want a Blu-ray appliance for your playback? The Mac Pro would get a desktop-grade tray-loading BRD. This should be an option because the price is more reasonable and Mac Pros are more likely to be used by professionals that could utilize the drive. But that doesn't explain why Apple would all of a sudden stop being Apple just to offer something that relatively few people use at a price that is considered too expensive for most and that Apple is trying to compete against. It just doesn't make sense.

I have tried Apple's HD itunes service and it stunk. I am not a fan of cloud computing in general because it means I have to rely on someone else's service to access my data. So far I have not been impressed with any of the offerings.
Nothing looks good after Blu-ray and Apple and others had to make concessions with bitrate and HD for the internet. But you need remember that iTS quickly beat out CD sales and is still beating out Amazon despite it's higher bitrate and no DRM. Convenience and 'good enough' is what matters to most people and having a $1000 BRD in a notebook that dies on battery before I can finish a 2 hour movie is not good enough or convenient.

I'm not sure why you haven't stripped the DRM from your BR movies and stored them on a HDD. This way can travel with them much easier and aren't using the originals which can get scratched.

solipsism

Sep 19, 2008, 07:28 PM

Does Apple have to keep making things slimmer now that they have a slim option in the Macbook Air? If you want slim, and don't care about Blu-Ray buy the MacBook Air? Maybe they will even put out a netbook type laptop too?
The slimmer thing is a PITA, but Apple still focuses on it, even with the new Nano. Who would have thought it could be that much thinner from the original Nano. The MBA doesn't work because it uses a slower C2D and has other limitations that make it far from ideal in price, performance and connectivity for most people. It has its niche, but it's small.

Maybe they will choose a slightly thicker and bigger laptop form in order to put Blu-Ray in, and perhaps a bigger battery. Regardless if you want to play Blu-Ray movies or not, few people would not benefit from longer runtime. All of this would be possible with a case redesign (widely rumored) and a move to 16x9 screens (hopefully with 1080p resolution).

Larger battery in a larger case to hold a larger optical drive that can only hold 50GB of data, at most and has horrible read times and even worse writing times when compared to Flash and HDD? Does that really seem like an option to you?

I think that Steve Jobs sits on the Board of Disney and probably owns more stock than Walt's kids. Disney is sold out to Blu-Ray, every studio is sold out to Blu-Ray, every other laptop manufacturer has Blu-Ray options and some are dang cheap. Apple's core markets include Video professionals, and in 2005 Steve declared it the year of HD! Its only 3 years late Steve.
BR in a home appliance for your HDTV is not the same as BR in a $1000 notebook. If Apple was really all about Blu-ray why hasn't it been in the Mac Pro as an option before now? Why do the posters here think that a BR option in a MB is inevitable when no other Mac has gotten the option despite the more pressing need and lower cost for the Mac Pro.

My Biggest fear, as stated here by others is will they do it in October or wait for the big Macworld announcement? Because I think the announcement for Blu-Ray would have to be a sweeping announcement of all new hardware across the entire Mac lineup (and cinema Displays). With everything moving to 16X9 screens and getting Blu-ray support.
What will this do for sales? Will there be an explosion of sales for ugly Macs with large tray-loading BRD? Retro appeal. Or are you talking about $1000 Macs with $1000 BRD? Not much of a market there.

I have literally had thousands of dollars in the bank waiting for the Blu-Ray announcement. They don't get my dollars until they announce it. I only get a new laptop every five years, so it has to count when I pull the trigger.
If you want a desktop Mac you may be in luck, but don't count on an internal drive if you want a notebook. There seems to be too much looking at it from your POV and comparing Apple to other OEMs. If you look at it from Apple's POV there are plenty of reasons why they wouldn't offer it and some why they can't offer it.

Not slot load, but according to engadget they do exist at 9.5mm. That was almost a year ago, so maybe Apple will introduce the very first 9.5mm slot loaders?

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/panasonic-whittles-thinnest-blu-ray-drive-for-laptops-down-to-9/
I mentioned that article in a previous post. I can't find any evidence to support that they've even been shown off at a fair at this point. Apple does have a history of adopting a tech an getting the company to be hush hush about it, but this doesn't fit the build as it would only cause the price to be excessively higher. It's not a revolutionary new tech that Apple can by exclusive rights to, it's just a slimmer drive.

Cave Man

Sep 19, 2008, 09:01 PM

All I have to say is that Blu-Ray video looks simply marvelous on my Mac Mini/1080p projector/5.1 DD DTS system. Anyone who says there's no perceptual difference between 720 and 1080 hasn't spent much time in a side-by-side comparison.

Come on Apple, give us Blu-Ray.

Lynxpro

Sep 19, 2008, 09:24 PM

This must happen sooner or later. Although by the time Apple implement it, the PC world would have moved onto the next technology... :rolleyes:
Sony's first laptop with bluray drive came out about two years ago, and cost the same as a Macbook Pro. I'm not sure what's taking Apple so long.

Apple is stubborn and Jobs thinks the longer they delay implementing Blu-ray in Macs will lead to better sales of *allegedly* HD content in the iTunes Store.

Seriously, I wish Apple would've thrown more of their support behind Blu-ray a lot sooner because we might've gotten iPod portable files standard on the Blu-ray movie releases. Then again, Apple's not the only one snoozing...had Sony been fired up on all cylinders, they would've packed UMD discs with the Blu-ray titles to entice consumers to buy the Sony PSP. But of course Sony thinks it wiser to try to sell new releases on UMD for between $15 and $25 which is clinically insane and has hurt the PSP more than they think.

Lynxpro

Sep 19, 2008, 09:27 PM

It will be great to have support for Blue ray, then again I believe B R is a total waste of time and it will be dead in a few years time.

You obviously don't own Blu-ray or have an appreciation for motion pictures in high resolution.

If it's an opinion based upon economics, please be advised that prices for HDTVs are dropping and there are even Blu-ray players below $300 now.

If you have a PC or a PowerMac/Mac Pro, you can buy an internal Sony BD-Rom drive for about $120.

Oh wait...you are in the UK. I forgot how much a lot of the UK'ers I've conversed with online have such negative feelings about HD since the UK and the BBC are trailing the USA/Canada/Japan on the HD adoption curve. They always seem to cling to the idea that the BBC didn't massively screw up in not having shot Doctor Who in HD from day 1 when they brought the show back in 2005. Of course even then, they were behind most US drama programming which had moved to HD cameras circa 2001 (or earlier). And even before then, the US production teams had used 16mm or better film stock and not cheap video (obviously excluding sitcom productions)... But I do concede that the UK had superior analog colo(u)r television than us since the mid 1970s since PAL was superior to NTSC [well, except for when using the tv for video games]...

Lynxpro

Sep 19, 2008, 09:48 PM

and in about 2 months, iMac, but i wouldn't expect them to update that one until Macworld, they wouldn't update it during November, based on historical update cycle timelines. though they could refresh sooner.

Personally, I think Apple waiting for MacWorld for new hardware releases is ridiculous because they miss the Christmas/Holiday season.

I have my fingers crossed that we'll see new hardware in the next few weeks and then Apple use MacWorld to hype Snow Leopard; Mobile Me working properly; and another new iPhone which not only adds new features to stay competitive with all the new touchscreen phones (like the T-Mobile G1) but also encompasses and harnesses Snow Leopard's features and Mobile Me syncing.

I guess if I renew with T-Mobile with a 2 year contract for the G1, it'll take me to the time that Apple's exclusive contract with AT&T here in the USA expires. Of course, I'm also hoping that AT&T spins off their wireless division (again) and buys Vodafone's stake in Verizon Wireless in order to clear the way for the eventual AT&T/Verizon merger. Vodafone could then buy out the former AT&T/Cingular Wireless company and bring their worldwide economies-of-scale to reduce handset prices and also invest in building a decent GSM/3G/4G network in this nation since AT&T certainly can't/won't.

TuffLuffJimmy

Sep 19, 2008, 09:56 PM

Personally, I think Apple waiting for MacWorld for new hardware releases is ridiculous because they miss the Christmas/Holiday season.

I have my fingers crossed that we'll see new hardware in the next few weeks and then Apple use MacWorld to hype Snow Leopard; Mobile Me working properly; and another new iPhone which not only adds new features to stay competitive with all the new touchscreen phones (like the T-Mobile G1) but also encompasses and harnesses Snow Leopard's features and Mobile Me syncing.

I guess if I renew with T-Mobile with a 2 year contract for the G1, it'll take me to the time that Apple's exclusive contract with AT&T here in the USA expires. Of course, I'm also hoping that AT&T spins off their wireless division (again) and buys Vodafone's take in Verizon Wireless in order to clear the way for the eventual AT&T/Verizon merger. Vodafone could then buy out the former AT&T/Cingular Wireless company and bring their worldwide economies-of-scale to reduce handset prices and also invest in building a decent GSM/3G/4G network in this nation since AT&T certainly can't/won't.

YES! A mobile phone monopoly! What could possibly be wrong with that?

.Chris

Sep 19, 2008, 10:01 PM

Blieve it or not there are people that want to see blu-ray on macs. Just because you dont doesnt mean others do.

people are treating blu-ray like it will take over your system. thats not the case.

.Chris

Sep 19, 2008, 10:05 PM

It will be great to have support for Blue ray, then again I believe B R is a total waste of time and it will be dead in a few years time.

can we say the same for macs and apple in general? :rolleyes:

You obviously don't own Blu-ray or have an appreciation for motion pictures in high resolution.

He doesnt. He might as well just watch VHS as "DVDs are a total waste of time" Bluray is really DVD 2.0 if he doesnt like the features of blu-ray then he wont like the DVD features ad they are basicly the same thing, just more interactive.

.Chris

Sep 19, 2008, 10:14 PM

Lynxpro

Sep 19, 2008, 10:18 PM

YES! A mobile phone monopoly! What could possibly be wrong with that?

Well, the way it is in the USA, we're going to get down to 2 large mobile phone companies tied to traditional POTS. Instead of competing against POTS, they are welding mobile phone services with POTS to protect their near monopolies. Unless something happens, it is going to be between AT&T and Verizon Wireless. I would like to see Vodafone - a purely wireless international phone company - enter the market without the strings that are currently tied to them. They were stupid for having merged "Vodafone Airtouch" with what became Verizon Wireless because since Verizon backed CDMA, it did not bring cost savings from the rest of Vodafone's holdings. Thus if Vodafone sold or swapped their near 50% stake in Verizon Wireless to AT&T in exchange for AT&T's wireless division - which like Vodafone backs GSM - then we'd have an international heavyweight that could compete not just in terms of mobile service, but mobile service against POTS.

A monopoly on POTS is just a monopoly for poor and old customers. It is dying off like non-broadband 56k ISPs. Let AT&T and Verizon merge. Sure, they'll have a monopoly, but they'd then combine AT&T U-Verse and Verizon's FIOS fiber optic television services together and that would lead to a really serious competitor to cable tv providers and the satellite services. It would be a next-gen slugfest. It might even cause the eventual company built from the merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable into lowering prices. And then they all will be competing against DirecTV which will have acquired Dish Network by that time.

However, BluRay will be the last 2D film format. With a resolution of 1920x1080p, it just does not make sense to go any higher. Even cinemas don't use much higher resolutions for digital projections - usually it's just 2K (2048x<whatever>). Analogue projections don't even come close.

No. 35mm "analogue" projections are the equivalent of 4K resolution projectors...the type of projectors Sony likes selling to cinema chains. For the home consumer market, the only thing close under development is in Japan and known as "Ultra HD" which is 2160p resolution. We're a long way from homes or the cinema delivering an HD solution that equals 70mm. The one true area that HD projections beat "analogue" projections is that digital always delivers the same presentation level whereas film degrades [wear & tear] each time it is presented [which is why seeing a motion picture when it first opens generally has the best quality]...well, that and cutting out delivery and duplication costs from the margins.

Blu-ray could be used to deliver 2160p to the consumer because the studios can make 3 and 4 layer BDs. However, by that point, Sony & Co. would probably bring out Super Blu-ray since they'd want to increase the available bandwidth to truly match performance with that resolution. Otherwise, they'd be replicating the mistakes of HD DVD which had a very inferior bandwidth transmission than Blu-ray.

DoFoT9

Sep 19, 2008, 11:04 PM

It's amazing how inaccurate this is. Vinyl sales are increasing because of young people. Heard of scene kids? That's where your vinyl sales are coming from. Also, I'm sure that those people who enjoy pinching pennies notice that vinyl albums can sometimes be half the price as the CD, and usually include a free digital download.

no freebies in my country, so yea no. oohh look out the scene kids are gonna take over the market and start nipping all the sales from CD's!! next they'll start buying floppy disks and other outdated pieces of crap.

Until the Hard Drive crashes and you lose them all at once.

ever heard of Mr. Raid??

Cave Man

Sep 19, 2008, 11:20 PM

ever heard of Mr. Raid??

Isn't he the guy that invented bug spray?

Brien

Sep 19, 2008, 11:40 PM

I hope they add BD support. I've been wishing they would.

dmelgar

Sep 20, 2008, 12:13 AM

toke lahti

Sep 20, 2008, 04:49 AM

Also to anyone that compares video streaming and calling it high quality are completely out of touch with what Bluray has to offer. Bluray offer 1920x1080 24p with H.264 or VC-1 or even MPEG-2 with bitrates as high as 40Mbps. The audio can be as high as 20Mbps. Yes you read that right. I have a concert BD that uses 5.1 channel 24-bit/96kHz PCM for an audio only bitrate of 13.6Mbps. If you guys want to compare this kind of capability with a 5Mbps or 6Mbps HD stream for both audio and video, I pity you guys.
Bluray makes a huge difference when it comes to displaying on a big screen and a good audio environment. Yes, this is not how majority of people watch home A/V, but again - we are talking about high quality here, not lowest common denominator.Word!
I really don't get it when people say 5Mbps is as HD as 40Mbps.
Anyway blu-ray is now _the only one_ standardized physical medium for hd for small scale distribution or consumer distribution. So it is not a question of how good it is, it just is the only one.
We need standards; you can't sell content in a store or send a product to a client with pages long specs how to playback it and have a doubt that it's not working.
If Apple would like to make another standard, they should standardize it through ISO & IEEE.

Also these standards have to live a decade or two, so when they are released they have to be very expensive state-of-the-art, because it takes 2-3 years for early adaptors to adapt it and about 5 years to masses to accept it and that's when prices go down. And that's also about time when new standard will be released.
In 2015 we will have 8-layer bd disks (=200GB) for $2-4 and price of 64GB ssd will be ten times more. Hdd's will be quite gone, so there's no question that optical storage will still be around.

ccuk

Sep 20, 2008, 09:52 AM

1. illegally downloaded movies (and everything else) is a darn good comparison. if you think about it..if you go onto a torrent site and look at how many times a movie has been downloaded, you will see that it can easily go higher than 100,000 times. that could mean 100,000 more sales for a company. which is quite a lot! it may not be a true comparison, but it is definately biting into the consumer's decisions about whether to go 'legal' or not.

we struggle to get the faster speeds because of our largeness, that doesnt mean that the 10% (which is where around 80% of our population lives) doesnt have fast speeds. if movies were available at HD/BR quality then many people would download them, even on a 256kb cap it wouldnt take that long and would be much faster than on some torrent sites.

oh and vinyl sales has increased probably because old people still think they are 'hip' and 'in with in', and cant adjust to change. but u know... ahwell (ignore the stereotype)

Wow... some serious gripes with physical and optical media in this thread...

My point is that the penetration of Internet connections over 2mb is actually pretty small worldwide. If I want to download a film, length of approximately 2 hours, you are looking at a file size of about 1.5 GB from iTunes. It will take about 1 and a half hours to download at 2mb. Now if you are capped at your "it won't take very long" 256kb, then it will take nearer 13 hours...

In the UK, the average speed is about 4mb. Now imagine everyone downloading films online as that is the only way to obtain them, it just wouldn't work in the current state. Despite the media hype, a small percentage of connected internet users use P2P to download films illegaly, and even with that small proportion, ISPs are unable to cope with the amount of bandwdth required of them, hence the capping. The small number of people using the BBC iPlayer is enough to cause concern to UK ISPs with regards to bandwidth issues. Bringing me back once again to that fact that the entire infrastructure of the internet needs an overhaul if its is to be able to sustain the selling of digital media.

Also what are you arguing about when it comes to the legal or not legal issue? What difference does that make to the argument that optical media will remain here for the foreseeable?

And lastly, what are you on about when it comes to vinyl... it was merely an example of how physical media is still in demand. Businesses work on a meet the demand model.

valvehead

Sep 20, 2008, 01:52 PM

And lastly, what are you on about when it comes to vinyl... it was merely an example of how physical media is still in demand. Businesses work on a meet the demand model.

Exactly, vinyl is still in demand. It has outlasted 8-tracks, cassettes, DAT, DCC, and MD. There may have been a surge in sales recently due to the young crowd, but vinyl has stuck around this long because people enjoy the sound and the process involved in listening to it.

There is a ritual in listening to a record. At most I have about 20 minutes before I have to flip the record or throw on a new one. It forces me to pay attention to the music. In fact I will often just sit in the sweet spot and do nothing except listen. It's at that point that I'm glad that I spend the time and money on system. A well-mastered record on a high-quality, well-maintained turntable sounds incredible. If I'm busy doing things around the house I'll throw on a CD or plug in the iPod, but that greatly reduces my enjoyment of the music because I'm too busy to give it much attention.

I have a huge attachment to physical media. I haven't bought a single track off of iTunes because I don't see the point in paying the same price for music that is compressed, void of packaging, and locked down by DRM. The only MP3s I have downloaded were exclusive free tracks from the artists directly. I also try to avoid buying software that is download-only. If there is an option to get it on a disc, I go for it.

On the whole Blu-ray thing, I agree that Apple is way behind on this. I hope that when they do finally release Macs with Blu-ray BTO options that they don't do it with much too much fanfare. That would make them look silly as they are already 2 or 3 years behind everyone else. At this point I don't have a HDTV or a BD player, but I will in the future when the price is right. Download HD video? You've got to be kidding me! Maybe ten years from now the internet will be fast enough, but not now.

I see a lot of people complaining about how much battery life would suffer if Macs had Blu-ray drives. How often would you watch a 2 hour movie on battery power? Where are you at for that long without access to AC? Camping in the woods? :p OK, I jest, but come on. Doing anything CPU or GPU intensive is going to drain the battery quickly. I see lots of people playing video games at my uni. They are almost always plugged in at the time. And the price of Blu-ray drives? Who cares if they are expensive? There are obviously plenty of people willing to pay for them. Let them have a BTO option.

grue

Sep 20, 2008, 10:47 PM

i think there will be a big "blue-event" in january (mwsf) and apple will release macpro with bluray and also new ACDs with hdmi/hdcp.. (im praying for that)

They need a hell of a lot more than just HDMI and HDCP. Non-crappy specs in general would be a good start. :)

solipsism

Sep 20, 2008, 10:52 PM

They need a hell of a lot more than just HDMI and HDCP. Non-crappy specs in general would be a good start. :)

New ACDs would be getting higher ppi. The problem with higher ppi is the lack of effective Resolution Independence in Leopard. Updated ACDs are so long overdue that Apple may be waiting until they get RI worked out.

PS: New ACDs would mostly included iSight camera, IR receiver, adnd DisplayPort, not HDMI or DVI.

solipsism

Sep 20, 2008, 11:01 PM

I see a lot of people complaining about how much battery life would suffer if Macs had Blu-ray drives. How often would you watch a 2 hour movie on battery power? Where are you at for that long without access to AC? Camping in the woods? :p OK, I jest, but come on. Doing anything CPU or GPU intensive is going to drain the battery quickly. I see lots of people playing video games at my uni. They are almost always plugged in at the time. And the price of Blu-ray drives? Who cares if they are expensive? There are obviously plenty of people willing to pay for them. Let them have a BTO option.

It's not just the GPU and CPU, it's the optical drive that is a huge drain on the battery. Any relatively forward thinking person would have ripped video to the HDD so they don't have to run an optical drive or cart around a bunch of discs.

But that still hasn't addressed the physics involved. I suppose if Apple can buy the patents to TARDIS™ they could even get a PS3 into a 1" notebook for under $500.

DoFoT9

Sep 21, 2008, 12:47 AM

Isn't he the guy that invented bug spray?

lol ever heard of Mr. Sarcasm?

Wow... some serious gripes with physical and optical media in this thread...

1. My point is that the penetration of Internet connections over 2mb is actually pretty small worldwide. If I want to download a film, length of approximately 2 hours, you are looking at a file size of about 1.5 GB from iTunes. It will take about 1 and a half hours to download at 2mb. Now if you are capped at your "it won't take very long" 256kb, then it will take nearer 13 hours...

2. In the UK, the average speed is about 4mb. Now imagine everyone downloading films online as that is the only way to obtain them, it just wouldn't work in the current state. Despite the media hype, a small percentage of connected internet users use P2P to download films illegaly, and even with that small proportion, ISPs are unable to cope with the amount of bandwdth required of them, hence the capping. The small number of people using the BBC iPlayer is enough to cause concern to UK ISPs with regards to bandwidth issues. Bringing me back once again to that fact that the entire infrastructure of the internet needs an overhaul if its is to be able to sustain the selling of digital media.

3. Also what are you arguing about when it comes to the legal or not legal issue? What difference does that make to the argument that optical media will remain here for the foreseeable?

4. And lastly, what are you on about when it comes to vinyl... it was merely an example of how physical media is still in demand. Businesses work on a meet the demand model.

1. well i dont know about you, but i see 13 hours as a pretty quick download time. it will only be an overnight download, nothing wrong about that (from where i see it anyways). ok i have ADLS2+, its the fastest we can get around here unless we move to the city, it is blisteringly fast. even when i upped to 8mbits p/s that was fast.

i know that i'd be willing to wait a little while for a movie, as opposed to driving around looking for the movie in HD (DVD = nono these days) or waiting a week for it to torrent!

2. you think your ISP's need an overall?? man please come to australia and check it out, our system is terrible.

if you have solid numbers about the "slowing of the ISP's" and whatnot, come and share please. i'd love to know the actual impact P2P and all the other types of shows have on everything.

3. there are two main points i am making with that statement.

a) people are downloading more, thus keeping things on their hard drives more, thus using less DVD's and optical media (this is also people of the whole "computer home theatre" systems. e.g. connecting your macmini into a HD screen and using that as your media server. (i am doing this in a coupla months, just gotta get the mini :) ).

b) legal or illegal, people are downloading a hell of a lot more than they used to, optical media (especially in the movie sector) has taken a pretty nasty hit. just look at the iTunes stores numbers, they have many titles available for you to download yada yada yada and they are pretty darn cheap. so yea. it all counts.

4. i am COMPLETELY confused as to why people want to use "old" technology. its wayyy outdated, it sounds pathetic, and its overall just crap. who are you going to see carrying around a record player and a few records.. i just completely miss the point of using outdated technology (except for when it cant be afforded of course).

.Chris

Sep 21, 2008, 01:16 AM

What does it mean to add Blu-ray support?

Applications already support it in Leopard, Roxio Toast, a new app ArchiveMac, and even base Leopard disk utility.

LG makes an excellent Blu-ray burner that Newegg is selling for $249. It can also read HD-DVD if anyone cares anymore.

Not only that but more apps will run on the mac witch may draw more people to the mac.

Also, macs run windows right?

How about a MBP running the latest verson of OSX and Vista ultimate SP1. tblu-ray etc. that right there at least in my opinion, is one sweet system. the only one you'll ever need since you have the best of both worlds.

On the whole Blu-ray thing, I agree that Apple is way behind on this. I hope that when they do finally release Macs with Blu-ray BTO options that they don't do it with much too much fanfare. That would make them look silly as they are already 2 or 3 years behind everyone else. At this point I don't have a HDTV or a BD player, but I will in the future when the price is right. Download HD video? You've got to be kidding me! Maybe ten years from now the internet will be fast enough, but not now.

Apple needs to know not everyone has fast internet connection speeds.

I see a lot of people complaining about how much battery life would suffer if Macs had Blu-ray drives. How often would you watch a 2 hour movie on battery power? Where are you at for that long without access to AC? Camping in the woods? :p OK, I jest, but come on. Doing anything CPU or GPU intensive is going to drain the battery quickly. I see lots of people playing video games at my uni. They are almost always plugged in at the time. And the price of Blu-ray drives? Who cares if they are expensive? There are obviously plenty of people willing to pay for them. Let them have a BTO option.[/QUOTE]

Exactrly. Very good point. People under estmate things way to much. If people want blu-ray let them have it and stop wineing

DoFoT9

Sep 21, 2008, 01:22 AM

1. Not only that but more apps will run on the mac witch may draw more people to the mac.

Also, macs run windows right?

How about a MBP running the latest verson of OSX and Vista ultimate SP1. tblu-ray etc. that right there at least in my opinion, is one sweet system. the only one you'll ever need since you have the best of both worlds.

2. Apple needs to know not everyone has fast internet connection speeds.

I see a lot of people complaining about how much battery life would suffer if Macs had Blu-ray drives. How often would you watch a 2 hour movie on battery power? Where are you at for that long without access to AC? Camping in the woods? :p OK, I jest, but come on. Doing anything CPU or GPU intensive is going to drain the battery quickly. I see lots of people playing video games at my uni. They are almost always plugged in at the time. And the price of Blu-ray drives? Who cares if they are expensive? There are obviously plenty of people willing to pay for them. Let them have a BTO option.

1. im sorry but the day when apple starts selling any mac with microsoft OS's is the day that i start to loose trust in them. that just makes me shiver.

2. yes thast a very good point, the MAIN power drain would be from CPU/GPU usage, not optical media. if its anything to judge by apple's coding of QuickTime (which, to watch a 1080p rip on my computer uses a good 95% CPU whilst stuttering every other frame) im not 100% sure if the battery life would exceed 1.5 hours, what with the optical drive constantly spinning AND the CPU going along.

i care if their expensive. i dont know where your family background lies but my family isnt that rich, BluRay discs are very expensive, let alone for the player to play them with. hell i spend 4/5 of my weekly wage just getting to uni!

Good point about the BTO though, when i finally get out into the proper workforce hopefully there will be newer technologies for me to spend all of my monies on eheh.

cdbob

Sep 21, 2008, 01:54 AM

The biggest thing is a true HD 1080p compressed rip is around 10 gigs, I know this because I use torrent sites bit. However I may add that it is NOT illegal to download content over the internet in Canada. It was ruled in Paris in 2005 that anything on the internet was not considered intectual property and thus copyrights do not apply to it. I do this mainly because apple offers nothing that can compare to this. I would gladdy buy Blu Ray movies, but the option is not there. Apple claims to have full res HD, however its watered down compared to full res stuff. Blu Ray is still very important 10 gigs is a big amount to download and takes days. For the next few years I believe that HD optical media must remain present due to the lack of bandwidth generally seen by isps.

Lord Zedd

Sep 21, 2008, 04:14 AM

PS: New ACDs would mostly included iSight camera, IR receiver, adnd DisplayPort, not HDMI or DVI.

DisplayPort is junk. It can't drive screen resolutions any higher than DVI/HDMI, it isn't more secure, its non-standard and its no better than DVI in general.

aygie

Sep 21, 2008, 04:39 AM

i care if their expensive. i dont know where your family background lies but my family isnt that rich, BluRay discs are very expensive, let alone for the player to play them with.

Do you own a Blu-ray player? You make discs sound as if their 5 times the price.

Iron Man DVD $22.95 (http://www.amazon.com/Iron-Man-Two-Disc-Special-Collectors/dp/B00005JPS8/ref=pd_ts_d_4?ie=UTF8&s=dvd)

Iron Mna Blu-ray $27.95 (http://www.amazon.com/Iron-Man-Ultimate-Two-Disc-Blu-ray/dp/B001GAPC1K/ref=sr_tr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1221989639&sr=1-1)

The biggest thing is a true HD 1080p compressed rip is around 10 gigs, I know this because I use torrent sites bit. However I may add that it is NOT illegal to download content over the internet in Canada. It was ruled in Paris in 2005 that anything on the internet was not considered intectual property and thus copyrights do not apply to it. I do this mainly because apple offers nothing that can compare to this. I would gladdy buy Blu Ray movies, but the option is not there. Apple claims to have full res HD, however its watered down compared to full res stuff. Blu Ray is still very important 10 gigs is a big amount to download and takes days. For the next few years I believe that HD optical media must remain present due to the lack of bandwidth generally seen by isps.

When you say True HD do mean the audio codec or a "full" Blu-ray rip? Cause if you want a full BD rip its more like 40-50GBs.

DoFoT9

Sep 21, 2008, 05:20 AM

Do you own a Blu-ray player? You make discs sound as if their 5 times the price.

Iron Man DVD $22.95 (http://www.amazon.com/Iron-Man-Two-Disc-Special-Collectors/dp/B00005JPS8/ref=pd_ts_d_4?ie=UTF8&s=dvd)

Iron Mna Blu-ray $27.95 (http://www.amazon.com/Iron-Man-Ultimate-Two-Disc-Blu-ray/dp/B001GAPC1K/ref=sr_tr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1221989639&sr=1-1)

yes well you clearly dont live in australia do you!

Casino Royale DVD-wow its only $17!!- http://www.quikshop.com.au/casino-royale-p-13581.html

Casino Royale BR-wow its $54!!!- http://www.quikshop.com.au/casino-royale-p-15639.html

getting close to 5 times the price.

blank BR discs are pretty much 5-10x the price of a DVD

and no i dont have a BR Player, i am saving up for an external to fit in a lacie FW400 DVD burner case. :)

aygie

Sep 21, 2008, 05:29 AM

yes well you clearly dont live in australia do you!

Casino Royale DVD-wow its only $17!!- http://www.quikshop.com.au/casino-royale-p-13581.html

Casino Royale BR-wow its $54!!!- http://www.quikshop.com.au/casino-royale-p-15639.html

getting close to 5 times the price.

blank BR discs are pretty much 5-10x the price of a DVD

and no i dont have a BR Player, i am saving up for an external to fit in a lacie FW400 DVD burner case. :)

ahhh!! good point. Australia is the worst place for being a Blu-ray owner!!!!

This has been talked about a lot over at Blu-ray.com. But if you want to enjoy Blu-ray import them! Thats what i do (i live in the UK).

Heres a list of region free titles:

http://bluray.liesinc.net/

I just bought the amazing Proposition for £6! http://www.amazon.com/Proposition-Blu-ray-Guy-Pearce/dp/B0017PI4Y6/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1221992872&sr=8-1

Practically all of my BDs are imported. :)

richard.mac

Sep 21, 2008, 05:44 AM

^ worst place for anything tech :rolleyes:

DoFoT9

Sep 21, 2008, 06:18 AM

^ worst place for anything tech :rolleyes:

oi cmon slack off it was a quick google search man.

however, i did get a bit skeptical when it said "was 54.87, now 54.22" hahahahahahahaha.

ahhh!! good point. Australia is the worst place for being a Blu-ray owner!!!!

This has been talked about a lot over at Blu-ray.com. But if you want to enjoy Blu-ray import them! Thats what i do (i live in the UK).

Heres a list of region free titles:

http://bluray.liesinc.net/

I just bought the amazing Proposition for £6! http://www.amazon.com/Proposition-Blu-ray-Guy-Pearce/dp/B0017PI4Y6/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1221992872&sr=8-1

Practically all of my BDs are imported. :)

it really is the pits for anything technological isnt it!

6 pounds is like.. what.. $15buck AU?? that is FRIGGEN AWSOME!!!!

that so much for that link man :) the site is pretty trustworthy??

aygie

Sep 21, 2008, 06:28 AM

it really is the pits for anything technological isnt it!

6 pounds is like.. what.. $15buck AU?? that is FRIGGEN AWSOME!!!!

that so much for that link man :) the site is pretty trustworthy??

Which site? The region site? Yeah totally trustworthy, they test all the BDs for the regions, never been wrong yet.

I use either Amazon.com or http://www.axelmusic.com/ (<they also tell you if their region free) to order my BDs. Love it. :)

bananas

Sep 21, 2008, 06:31 AM

At the moment I don't care too much for the Blu-ray myself, but it would be nice if Blu-ray was used to differentiate the consumer and pro devices. So, if this means DVD+-RW drives for low end MacBooks, then it's good news for every body.

DoFoT9

Sep 21, 2008, 07:11 AM

Which site? The region site? Yeah totally trustworthy, they test all the BDs for the regions, never been wrong yet.

I use either Amazon.com or http://www.axelmusic.com/ (<they also tell you if their region free) to order my BDs. Love it. :)

wow ok thanks very much for that :)

not that fond of amazon, hopefully everything works ok if i order from australia!! haha

thanks again

ma2ha3

Sep 21, 2008, 08:30 AM

It's about time, but the blank discs still too expensive to make it worthwhile.

50gig blu-ray disc needs to cost no more than $10 in order to make sense. I rather back it up on multiple hard discs that today run pretty cheap.

Plus I agree that Apple is focusing on downloads rather than physical discs. So it seems they are in no hurry to provide BR-R to consumers.

As for Blu-ray player only, it would be welcome.

already did in japan.
i recently bought lots of 50GB R and RE, R below 10 and RE slightly above 10. japan have dual layer burner and their region is same as USA.

awesome. if japan price fall so much. slowly the rest of the world will follow.
it depend on HD blu-ray recorder for TV, HDTV on your local tv station, soon the price will fall.

Cave Man

Sep 21, 2008, 08:55 AM

When you say True HD do mean the audio codec or a "full" Blu-ray rip? Cause if you want a full BD rip its more like 40-50GBs.

The largest Blu-Ray movie I have (I only own 5) is 35 gb (The Fifth Element), while the smallest is 17 gb (Meet the Robinsons). I managed to get VisualHub to transcode TFE to MP4/H.264 at 10 mbps/AAC/AC3/1080p it it cam in at just under 10 gb. Not quite as good as the straight m2ts file during high movement scenes, though.

Habusho

Sep 21, 2008, 02:15 PM

Looks like ACDs are about to be updated as well. The DVI connections on them are getting kind of old.

.Chris

Sep 21, 2008, 02:28 PM

1. im sorry but the day when apple starts selling any mac with microsoft OS's is the day that i start to loose trust in them. that just makes me shiver.

no, i w3as talking about the fact that they can run windows if you wish.......

aygie

Sep 21, 2008, 04:57 PM

The largest Blu-Ray movie I have (I only own 5) is 35 gb (The Fifth Element), while the smallest is 17 gb (Meet the Robinsons). I managed to get VisualHub to transcode TFE to MP4/H.264 at 10 mbps/AAC/AC3/1080p it it cam in at just under 10 gb. Not quite as good as the straight m2ts file during high movement scenes, though.

a 10GB file will not be "true HD", no where near if you ask me. You can't compress 15GB worth of data and think its going to look anything as good as the original 35GB disc.

Can i ask how you got VisualHub to work with M2TS files? Has it been included in a recent update? I have never been able to get it to work.

Jak3

Sep 21, 2008, 06:31 PM

they should at least have blu-ray avaible in the Mac Pro considering it has the space and the people who need blu-ray the most are the pros who need that space and work with HD video.

after that, an external drive should be available for anyone who wants to hook it up to a macbook for example.

at first I thought, why would a macbook need a BR writer? It doesn't even have 1080p capable screen, but then you have to realise, it's not just video, it's storage size as well, and 3 BR discs can back up a bit less than an average MB HDD, or expand one by 1/3 while the disc is in the drive...pretty usefull in some surcumstances.

anyway, it doesn't matter if you won't buy it, what matters are the people who WILL buy it and bring in more revenues for apple.

Cave Man

Sep 21, 2008, 07:10 PM

a 10GB file will not be "true HD", no where near if you ask me.

Well, then by that definition neither is what's on the Blu-Ray disc, since it's compressed as well (h.264, MPEG-2 or VC-1).

You can't compress 15GB worth of data and think its going to look anything as good as the original 35GB disc.

But that's just it. How much is lost when going from a 25 gb m2ts file at 25 mbps to a 10 gb file at 10 mbps? There is some loss, as I pointed out in my post. However, it is only noticeable in scenes where there's a lot of movement (i.e., where compression algorithms are their weakest). Each individual needs to decide what is more important for such content - precisely as it is on the disc (which ranges from 18 gb to 35 gb for the BR rips that I have), or 10 to 12 gb files that have some image compromise? If money is no object, then keep the m2ts rips on the hard drive. But you're talking about 500 gb drives for 20 movies. If you transcode to MP4/h.264 with AAC/AC3 or DTS audio, you can probably put 60 movies on that drive.

Can i ask how you got VisualHub to work with M2TS files? Has it been included in a recent update? I have never been able to get it to work.

VisualHub can deal with some (but not all) m2ts files that are encoded in DD. The latest Handbrake svn can also deal with some (but not all) m2ts files as well. In both cases, the m2ts files need their encryption removed.

they should at least have blu-ray avaible in the Mac Pro considering it has the space and the people who need blu-ray the most are the pros who need that space and work with HD video.

I think most people who would want a Blu-Ray drive (ROM) are those who would want to watch BR movies on their Macs. BR authors would be in a substantial minority.

at first I thought, why would a macbook need a BR writer? It doesn't even have 1080p capable screen

But it can drive a 1080p HD TV or projector at its native resolution.

philb7777

Sep 21, 2008, 08:10 PM

Well, I for one would love a Blu-Ray drive with Apple supported software in a new mac. I've been waiting for a new Mac Pro with Blu-Ray for over two years now and keep holding out for it.

I think movies with BD are great, but I think people do underestimate the large number of consumers out there with HD camcorders that would jump at the chance to film their home movies in HD and burn them in 1080p on a Blu-Ray disc. With Blu-Ray players under $300, this format will increasingly be getting more marketshare.

DoFoT9

Sep 21, 2008, 08:17 PM

no, i w3as talking about the fact that they can run windows if you wish.......

ok then that makes sense then, mybad :)

a 10GB file will not be "true HD", no where near if you ask me. You can't compress 15GB worth of data and think its going to look anything as good as the original 35GB disc.

Can i ask how you got VisualHub to work with M2TS files? Has it been included in a recent update? I have never been able to get it to work.

you can compress it down to that size. you have to remember that the BR disc just isnt 1 whole movie. it has extras, subtiles and everything else that goes with it!

i would also know how to concert/compress with VH. :)

Cave Man

Sep 21, 2008, 09:02 PM

i would also know how to concert/compress with VH. :)

VH can (in most circumstances) deal with MPEG-2, H.264 video and AC3 movies. It cannot handle any movie in VC-1 or DTS. If either of these are used, you have to transcode them to a format that VH can handle first. These apps are only available on the Windows side.

Handbrake is still a work in progress for BR disc support, but it's getting there. I hope it makes it to True-HD and DTS-HD transcoding to AC3. Not sure if it'll ever get VC-1 support, though. Either way, it will not have decrypting abilities, so until something like AnyDVD HD arrives for OS X, it has to be done on Windows.

My process was:

1. Rip BD with AnyDVD HD (my trial has expired, so I don't do this anymore - not at the cost of the app).

2. Drop into VH or open in HB svn for the transcode. Leave video at 1080p and drop the bit rate down to 10 mbps. Preserve AC3 passthrough.

These work very well in Plex and Xbmc, and even VLC. Quicktime has some issues with them, though.

Shivetya

Sep 22, 2008, 06:47 AM

mmmn I wouldn't mind going off to college with a new iMac with a blu-ray drive next year.

Supporting a Blu-Ray drive doesn't necessarily mean we will be able to watch Blu-Ray movies on it. Just supporting the media would be a big jump for them. DVDs are too small for long term storage. External HDDs while not as portable are great back up options because you can load them up and store them easily. I never look forward to doing backups to DvD, my iTunes collection eats over ten of the things now and it takes forever.

TuffLuffJimmy

Sep 22, 2008, 08:48 AM

Supporting a Blu-Ray drive doesn't necessarily mean we will be able to watch Blu-Ray movies on it. Just supporting the media would be a big jump for them. DVDs are too small for long term storage. External HDDs while not as portable are great back up options because you can load them up and store them easily. I never look forward to doing backups to DvD, my iTunes collection eats over ten of the things now and it takes forever.

Did I ever say that I would be watching blu-ray movies on it? No, I just said I wanted an iMac with a blu-ray drive.

julohan

Sep 23, 2008, 08:18 AM

ahhh!! good point. Australia is the worst place for being a Blu-ray owner!!!!

This has been talked about a lot over at Blu-ray.com. But if you want to enjoy Blu-ray import them! Thats what i do (i live in the UK).

Heres a list of region free titles:

http://bluray.liesinc.net/

I just bought the amazing Proposition for £6! http://www.amazon.com/Proposition-Blu-ray-Guy-Pearce/dp/B0017PI4Y6/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1221992872&sr=8-1

Practically all of my BDs are imported. :)

On amazon you can get for 19.95 on bluray and 14.99 on dvd

CWallace

Sep 23, 2008, 12:29 PM

aygie

Sep 23, 2008, 04:05 PM

DigiTimes this morning ran an article noting many top-tier Wintel manufacturers (including HP) are reducing the number of models they offer with Blu-ray optical drives due to the "high" prices from the OEMs and consequently slower customer adoption due to higher prices for machines with Blu-ray drives compared to those that are not.

This piece? I don't really see what you said being in there.....

With the average selling price (ASP) of Blu-ray notebooks remaining at the high-end of the market, several notebook vendors have started to lower their proportion of Blu-ray models as global economic worries increase, according to sources at notebook vendors.

Asustek Computer originally planned to feature a Blu-ray drive in its upcoming N80 and N50 notebooks. However, due to shifts in market demand, the company recently noted that only the N50 will feature a Blu-ray drive.

However, Asustek also said that the company is still optimistic about the Blu-ray notebook market and will launch two new Blu-ray notebooks with panel sizes of 18- and 19-inch in December this year, and will focus its Blu-ray offerings on large size notebooks in 2009.

On the other hand, Acer is not planning to launch any new Blu-ray notebooks in the second half of this year.

aygie

Sep 23, 2008, 04:06 PM

ahh you meant this one ;)

The proportion of new desktop and notebook PCs launched in the third quarter of 2008 equipped with Blu-ray Disc (BD) optical drives, BD-ROM or BD Combo or BD burner was lower than originally expected due to ODM/OEM makers being unwilling to lower their quotes for BD drives to levels acceptable for PC vendors, according to industry sources in Taiwan.

International PC vendors, including Hewlett-Packard, Acer and Asustek Computer, have asked global ODM/OEM makers, mainly Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDS), Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology (TSST), Pioneer and Taiwan-based Lite-On IT, to decrease quotes to less than US$100 for a BD Combo drive and US$70-80 for a BD-ROM drive as the main condition for their adopting the devices in large volumes, the sources pointed out.

However, the ODM/OEM makers are looking to maintain profits in the BD segment and are looking to avoid competition through price-cuts, the sources indicated.

Cave Man

Sep 24, 2008, 12:38 PM

Well, been playing around with the latest Handbrake SVN. Seems if you have the appropriate Blu-Ray video rip (MPEG-2 or H.264 with AC3) you can transcode at 1080p with AC3 passthrough and 14 mbps bit rate for no loss of video quality. This plays very nicely with Plex and cuts the file size in half (about 12 gb from 25 gb m2ts source). Plex keeps getting better and better. Now all we need is the ability to deal with VC-1 and DTS (and HD audio) and life would be good.

aygie

Sep 24, 2008, 03:52 PM

VoR

Sep 24, 2008, 04:55 PM

If I've got nice tvs I want archive and play all my media in as high quality as I can from my discs and don't really appreciate the offers of itunes and atv. These and frontrow leave me deeply unsatisfied when compared to what I can achieve with a free app from xbmc and a cupboard full of HDDs.

While not what you meant, I havn't seen enough screenshots showing off what all our macs should be doing!

xbmc has a load of nice skins, I tend to cycle between these two:

http://aeonproject.com/gallery.html
http://www.teamrazorfish.co.uk/mediastream.html

Cave Man

Sep 24, 2008, 05:48 PM

Could you post some screen shots? (1080 if possible).

Yes, later tonight after I get home and get the kids in bed.

xbmc has a load of nice skins...

Have you tried Plex yet? XMBC Atlantis is a nice improvement, but I find Plex to be more Mac-friendly.

DoFoT9

Sep 24, 2008, 06:29 PM

VoR

Sep 24, 2008, 07:32 PM

Have you tried Plex yet? XMBC Atlantis is a nice improvement, but I find Plex to be more Mac-friendly.

Yeah I tried (and am following) them both and couldn't really see too much difference. Figured it would be better to go with the actual xbmc devs rather than a fork though.

DoFoT9

Sep 24, 2008, 07:40 PM

Yeah I tried (and am following) them both and couldn't really see too much difference. Figured it would be better to go with the actual xbmc devs rather than a fork though.

i found xmbc very hard to use, and it hardly even worked properly the videos kept skipping!!!

thus why i use plex :)

VoR

Sep 24, 2008, 07:46 PM

When did you last try it?
They're both alpha/beta software, sharing virtually all of their code and improving rapidly.

DoFoT9

Sep 24, 2008, 08:45 PM

When did you last try it?
They're both alpha/beta software, sharing virtually all of their code and improving rapidly.

about a week ago haha. hardly worked for me at all even the interface was freezing

Cave Man

Sep 24, 2008, 08:45 PM

Could you post some screen shots? (1080 if possible).

Here you go. The png screen capture is 1.5 mb, well over the MR limit, so I've posted a crop of it.

Cave Man

Sep 24, 2008, 08:50 PM

an these rips still be played with your mini??

Yes, with Plex or XBMC the m2ts rips play perfectly well on my Mini. The files have all the extras that come with them - subtitles, alternate audio tracks, etc. But they are much larger because of that.

XBMC has been better than Plex for smooth playback, but the the 0.5.19 release of Plex two days ago seems to have caught up with XBMC. The only reason, in my mind, to use XBMC now is if you are still on OS X 10.4 (on which Plex will not run) or want to replace the software on the Apple TV (but only at 720p, not 1080p).

DoFoT9

Sep 24, 2008, 08:50 PM

Here you go. The png screen capture is 1.5 mb, well over the MR limit, so I've posted a crop of it.

that is incredible!! you can really see the difference between say a 7mbps rip and your 14mbps rip!

DoFoT9

Sep 24, 2008, 08:59 PM

Yes, with Plex or XBMC the m2ts rips play perfectly well on my Mini. The files have all the extras that come with them - subtitles, alternate audio tracks, etc. But they are much larger because of that.

XBMC has been better than Plex for smooth playback, but the the 0.5.19 release of Plex two days ago seems to have caught up with XBMC. The only reason, in my mind, to use XBMC now is if you are still on OS X 10.4 (on which Plex will not run) or want to replace the software on the Apple TV (but only at 720p, not 1080p).

ok that is awsome!! i cannot wait to get my hands on a mini and a bluray drive to start ripping these puppies for myself!! thanks for showing us the incredible picture and setup you have :)

Cave Man

Sep 24, 2008, 09:11 PM

ok that is awsome!! i cannot wait to get my hands on a mini and a bluray drive to start ripping these puppies for myself!! thanks for showing us the incredible picture and setup you have :)

You understand that you need to buy AnyDVD HD which only runs under Windows, right? You cannot rip Blu-Ray discs using OS X.

I'd like to get AnyDVD HD, but it's too expensive for me (after buying the Sanyo z2000 1080p projector, I'm dirt poor at the moment...). I'm also waiting for the discs to come down in price - $20 to $30 each is a bit much. I only bought 5 and my AnyDVD HD trial period expired a couple of weeks ago, so I'm done with the ripping (and buying of Blu-Ray discs).

DoFoT9

Sep 24, 2008, 09:17 PM

You understand that you need to buy AnyDVD HD which only runs under Windows, right? You cannot rip Blu-Ray discs using OS X.

I'd like to get AnyDVD HD, but it's too expensive for me (after buying the Sanyo z2000 1080p projector, I'm dirt poor at the moment...). I'm also waiting for the discs to come down in price - $20 to $30 each is a bit much. I only bought 5 and my AnyDVD HD trial period expired a couple of weeks ago, so I'm done with the ripping (and buying of Blu-Ray discs).

lol i have been watching what you have been saying for a good month now and i think ive got the gist of the whole 'process'. besides, who says im going to "buy" AnyDVD HD? i have my hackintosh/xp computer ready to rip at the drop of a hat!! just gotta get that mini/blu ray reader.

one major problem about living in australia is that a bluray player costs around $200 at least (for a good one anyway), thats not even with a writer. the BR discs cost around $40-$50 each, so don't you complain about prices :p ;) .

aygie

Sep 25, 2008, 02:51 AM

Here you go. The png screen capture is 1.5 mb, well over the MR limit, so I've posted a crop of it.

Thanks, so are you using ANYDVD? Do you TSMuxer at all?

ccuk

Sep 25, 2008, 03:30 AM

lol ever heard of Mr. Sarcasm?

1. well i dont know about you, but i see 13 hours as a pretty quick download time. it will only be an overnight download, nothing wrong about that (from where i see it anyways). ok i have ADLS2+, its the fastest we can get around here unless we move to the city, it is blisteringly fast. even when i upped to 8mbits p/s that was fast.

i know that i'd be willing to wait a little while for a movie, as opposed to driving around looking for the movie in HD (DVD = nono these days) or waiting a week for it to torrent!

2. you think your ISP's need an overall?? man please come to australia and check it out, our system is terrible.

if you have solid numbers about the "slowing of the ISP's" and whatnot, come and share please. i'd love to know the actual impact P2P and all the other types of shows have on everything.

3. there are two main points i am making with that statement.

a) people are downloading more, thus keeping things on their hard drives more, thus using less DVD's and optical media (this is also people of the whole "computer home theatre" systems. e.g. connecting your macmini into a HD screen and using that as your media server. (i am doing this in a coupla months, just gotta get the mini :) ).

b) legal or illegal, people are downloading a hell of a lot more than they used to, optical media (especially in the movie sector) has taken a pretty nasty hit. just look at the iTunes stores numbers, they have many titles available for you to download yada yada yada and they are pretty darn cheap. so yea. it all counts.

4. i am COMPLETELY confused as to why people want to use "old" technology. its wayyy outdated, it sounds pathetic, and its overall just crap. who are you going to see carrying around a record player and a few records.. i just completely miss the point of using outdated technology (except for when it cant be afforded of course).

You think 13 hours is quick? I dont know about you but I can get to a few major towns and back in about in under 2 hours. 2hours vs 13 hours ?

I am tired of people always saying on these forums " provide me with a dissertation" with regards to citing things. If you can use this forum you can go and use google. Links wise I don't have any to hand, I however do have some handy maths. UK example...

A 622Mb pipe for an isp based on ADSL connection costs etc costs about £100,000 a month (in reality a per annum cost of more like £1.5million) . So if every user on the connection had 8Mb, and used bittorrent for example, saturating their connection, the ISP could serve only 77 users before taking a hit on their available bandwidth. Now ISPs may have 2 or 3 of these at most due to the cost and time it takes to set them up, some do have many more though. This now brings me back to how p2p will slow ISPs and also how annoying and ignorant it is to assume otherwise. Many ISPs are carrying thousands of users, so the pipes are an essential tool in providing their users with the appropriate amount of bandwitdh. Traffic shaping and capping are there to make people download responsibly, and to deter mass downloading which will impact on other users on the ISP. The introduction of 4oD and the BBC iplayer in the UK, both of which which use the kontiki p2p platform silently download in the background and are being use by more people each day... Those who weren't downloading via p2p before are now doing so, many of whom are unaware this is the case.

Whilst this is a very over simplified example, it shows that life on the ISP front isn't as rosey as people would like to think.

This all means added stress on already strained ISPs who have to keep paying incredible sums of money in order to keep users connected. Don't forget, ISPs are signing up new previously unconnected customers as well each day.

Your computer home theatre systems make up a tiny proportion of the market. I don't know any joe average who has gone out and made a HTPC, with a NAS and streamed films and music round their house. For many it is overcomplictated and expensive. In a few years time more people may go this route as the whole process is refined and simplified, but I am afraid we have a classic case of "I do it so everyone must do it" syndrome.

I came to this forum from another, after being let down by its staff and user base who were incredibly selfish and childish. Not thinking of the other possible users when making posts or even bothering to try and do their own research on the subject matter at hand. It is sad so see the same such problems here :(

DoFoT9

Sep 25, 2008, 07:47 AM

1. You think 13 hours is quick? I dont know about you but I can get to a few major towns and back in about in under 2 hours. 2hours vs 13 hours ?

2. I am tired of people always saying on these forums " provide me with a dissertation" with regards to citing things. If you can use this forum you can go and use google. Links wise I don't have any to hand, I however do have some handy maths. UK example...

3. A 622Mb pipe for an isp based on ADSL connection costs etc costs about £100,000 a month (in reality a per annum cost of more like £1.5million) . So if every user on the connection had 8Mb, and used bittorrent for example, saturating their connection, the ISP could serve only 77 users before taking a hit on their available bandwidth. Now ISPs may have 2 or 3 of these at most due to the cost and time it takes to set them up, some do have many more though. This now brings me back to how p2p will slow ISPs and also how annoying and ignorant it is to assume otherwise. Many ISPs are carrying thousands of users, so the pipes are an essential tool in providing their users with the appropriate amount of bandwitdh. Traffic shaping and capping are there to make people download responsibly, and to deter mass downloading which will impact on other users on the ISP. The introduction of 4oD and the BBC iplayer in the UK, both of which which use the kontiki p2p platform silently download in the background and are being use by more people each day... Those who weren't downloading via p2p before are now doing so, many of whom are unaware this is the case.

Whilst this is a very over simplified example, it shows that life on the ISP front isn't as rosey as people would like to think.

This all means added stress on already strained ISPs who have to keep paying incredible sums of money in order to keep users connected. Don't forget, ISPs are signing up new previously unconnected customers as well each day.

4. Your computer home theatre systems make up a tiny proportion of the market. I don't know any joe average who has gone out and made a HTPC, with a NAS and streamed films and music round their house. For many it is overcomplictated and expensive. In a few years time more people may go this route as the whole process is refined and simplified, but I am afraid we have a classic case of "I do it so everyone must do it" syndrome.

5. I came to this forum from another, after being let down by its staff and user base who were incredibly selfish and childish. Not thinking of the other possible users when making posts or even bothering to try and do their own research on the subject matter at hand. It is sad so see the same such problems here :(

1. well, comming from a nation where our average download speed (according to speedtest.net) is 4868kbps and below, compared to the UK's with 7486kbps.. i think its fair to say that our connections speeds are much lower than yours. our land is much larger and the population dwindles 200km's out of a city. if i were to travel 20km down the road i wouldnt even be able to download faster than 3kbps (i have a friend who will vouch for me). for him, and many others in towns like his, 13 hours would be amazingly fast. i have ADSL2+ which is good (yay for me), but this time last year i was still on dialup. most of our country is VERY far behind your paces, probably mainly because your country is smaller and everything is more 'compact'. so if you were to put yourself in my shoes you would see that, from my perspective, that is why i am arguing my point :p

2. goodluck arguing in court with that :)

3. i have no idea about what size pipelines we use, yada yada yada, so i will just say that if there were to be some sort of movie database (based off my "we dont care if it takes 13hours to download" thing) then i dont see a problem with it. (no idea on pipelines so my arguement probably isnt very valid haha).

4. well if everyone is "i do it so everyone else must do it" then wouldnt it be quite a popular thing to do?? (you contradict yourself here). there is no possible way to know how many people are doing this, but i reckon that there would be quite a few!! sure there wont be 40%, but im guessing there is somewhere around mac's marketshare, which is pretty massive :eek: :p :)

5. nawww im sorry to hear that you had a bad experience on other forums. im also sorry to hear that youve had a sad experience here, but the forums doesnt revolve around you. i dont see myself as childish, i see myself as a bad arguer (when it comes to making my points clear) but by no means childish or selfish. i am quite offended that you have said that as i feel you were aiming that at me. im afraid you cannot talk about doing research because you hardly provided anything based around vaild points (yours seemed somewhat speculative). meh

have a good day/night :)

ccuk

Sep 25, 2008, 08:52 AM

1. well, comming from a nation where our average download speed (according to speedtest.net) is 4868kbps and below, compared to the UK's with 7486kbps.. i think its fair to say that our connections speeds are much lower than yours. our land is much larger and the population dwindles 200km's out of a city. if i were to travel 20km down the road i wouldnt even be able to download faster than 3kbps (i have a friend who will vouch for me). for him, and many others in towns like his, 13 hours would be amazingly fast. i have ADSL2+ which is good (yay for me), but this time last year i was still on dialup. most of our country is VERY far behind your paces, probably mainly because your country is smaller and everything is more 'compact'. so if you were to put yourself in my shoes you would see that, from my perspective, that is why i am arguing my point :p

2. goodluck arguing in court with that :)

3. i have no idea about what size pipelines we use, yada yada yada, so i will just say that if there were to be some sort of movie database (based off my "we dont care if it takes 13hours to download" thing) then i dont see a problem with it. (no idea on pipelines so my arguement probably isnt very valid haha).

4. well if everyone is "i do it so everyone else must do it" then wouldnt it be quite a popular thing to do?? (you contradict yourself here). there is no possible way to know how many people are doing this, but i reckon that there would be quite a few!! sure there wont be 40%, but im guessing there is somewhere around mac's marketshare, which is pretty massive :eek: :p :)

5. nawww im sorry to hear that you had a bad experience on other forums. im also sorry to hear that youve had a sad experience here, but the forums doesnt revolve around you. i dont see myself as childish, i see myself as a bad arguer (when it comes to making my points clear) but by no means childish or selfish. i am quite offended that you have said that as i feel you were aiming that at me. im afraid you cannot talk about doing research because you hardly provided anything based around vaild points (yours seemed somewhat speculative). meh

have a good day/night :)

I am the one contradicting myself?

Wow... ok.

My whole point was that at the moment Blu-Ray will easily survive since internet connections are so slow people will continue to go out and buy the DVD/Blu-Ray physical media. Not only that but not everyone who watches films are connected to the internet. You completely screwed over your own argument by saying people are downloading at 3kbps... my exact point. You cannot download a film in any reasonable timeframe on a 512kb connection or less.

Why this has become a speed debate I have no idea. You asked for figures I gave you them. The cost for the pipes isps use and what happens when you suddenly make everyone download their films online "tomorrow". It wouldn't work. It is going to take years before the infrastructure of ISPs, and the backbone of the internet is such as it can support the amount of data which would be passed about if there were no physical media anymore and everyone was downloading their films music etc online.

My point with regards to the "I do it so everyone else must do it" statement was referring to you. It feels as though because you download films and are making an HTPC, that you think everyone else does, or a large proportion do. This is not the case, and is why I am attempting to point out your flawed argument.

Speculitive points? Hardly... please cite me HTPC sales for the last quarter. In fact cite me numbers of people that illegally download films, or legally for that matter. Show me a comparison to "decline in sales of physical media".

Feels as though you are trying to cause an argument instead of add to the discussion in my opinion.

Cave Man

Sep 25, 2008, 12:17 PM

Thanks, so are you using ANYDVD? Do you TSMuxer at all?

No, I don't use AnyDVD HD anymore because my 21 day trial expired. I did use it on the 5 discs I own, though, and it handled all of them fine. I did use tsmuxer GUI to build m2ts files that have the video track, audio track and English subtitles. That helps make the files a bit smaller, especially those that have 8 or 9 DTS or AC3 audio languages. A 35 gig file might become 30 gigs in size. Not much savings, but a bit.

Mostly what we need is the ability to transcode VC-1 video and DTS audio to H.264 and AC3. A lot of discs use these formats. Then all the BR discs would be covered. I'm sure it'll happen, but it might be months away.

PacoBell

Sep 26, 2008, 09:15 AM

Not slot load, but according to engadget they do exist at 9.5mm. That was almost a year ago, so maybe Apple will introduce the very first 9.5mm slot loaders?

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/27/panasonic-whittles-thinnest-blu-ray-drive-for-laptops-down-to-9/Nope, not even. FastMac (http://store.fastmac.com/product_info.php?products_id=338) already has that honor...for $999.95! :eek:

DoFoT9

Sep 26, 2008, 07:56 PM

I am the one contradicting myself?

Wow... ok.

1. My whole point was that at the moment Blu-Ray will easily survive since internet connections are so slow people will continue to go out and buy the DVD/Blu-Ray physical media. Not only that but not everyone who watches films are connected to the internet. You completely screwed over your own argument by saying people are downloading at 3kbps... my exact point. You cannot download a film in any reasonable timeframe on a 512kb connection or less.

2. Why this has become a speed debate I have no idea. You asked for figures I gave you them. The cost for the pipes isps use and what happens when you suddenly make everyone download their films online "tomorrow". It wouldn't work. It is going to take years before the infrastructure of ISPs, and the backbone of the internet is such as it can support the amount of data which would be passed about if there were no physical media anymore and everyone was downloading their films music etc online.

3. My point with regards to the "I do it so everyone else must do it" statement was referring to you. It feels as though because you download films and are making an HTPC, that you think everyone else does, or a large proportion do. This is not the case, and is why I am attempting to point out your flawed argument.

4. Speculitive points? Hardly... please cite me HTPC sales for the last quarter. In fact cite me numbers of people that illegally download films, or legally for that matter. Show me a comparison to "decline in sales of physical media".

Feels as though you are trying to cause an argument instead of add to the discussion in my opinion.

im not up for an arguement, just a debate. :)

1. i dont know about you, but the reason why downloading instead of buying BR/HD rips seems reasonable to me mainly because for one BR movie costs half of what i pay per month for broadband ($50 average for BR, internet costs $100). so i would much rather download the movie for $15-$20 instead of buying it...

i didnt screw over my argument i was just showing you that your infrastructure would allow for BETTER downloading of movies over ours.

2. you were the one that brought the whole speed debate into the topic so i thought i would just expand on that a little bit. maybe the infrastructure in asian countries could old out for this type of idea?? ;)

3. i think that the market for downloading would be quite large. looking at itunes movie sales for last year (5.7million, which is a large number within itself). having a look on ONE torrent side (note 1), and two torrents i found this::

• The Incredible Hulk: added 11 days ago, has been downloaded 368,688 times,

• Iron Man: added 14 days ago, has been downloaded 273,571 times.

now if you think that these movies have only been on for two weeks, have been downloaded many many times and are only from ONE torrent site (of which the world has thousands upon thousands), then isnt impacting on the market??...your crazy if you dont think it is. imagine if there were a *legal* website set up for doing this with all movies.. i think it would impact quite a lot with the DVD/BluRay sales market.

4. already answered half of that question...

toke lahti

Sep 27, 2008, 11:37 AM

• The Incredible Hulk: added 11 days ago, has been downloaded 368,688 times,
• Iron Man: added 14 days ago, has been downloaded 273,571 times.
now if you think that these movies have only been on for two weeks, have been downloaded many many times and are only from ONE torrent site (of which the world has thousands upon thousands), then isnt impacting on the market??...your crazy if you dont think it is. imagine if there were a *legal* website set up for doing this with all movies.. i think it would impact quite a lot with the DVD/BluRay sales market.
Usually most torrent sites just shares same torrents than the others.
Most of web services that has turned from free to charged keeps about 1% of users. So if a movie is downloaded .5 million times when it's free, it might get 5000 downloads when you have to pay for it. So it isn't self-evident that it would be very profitable.

Lord Zedd

Sep 27, 2008, 12:37 PM

Usually most torrent sites just shares same torrents than the others.

Correct. Look at a torrent's tracker list and very few have only one tracker, some have up to 15.

JadedRaverLA

Sep 27, 2008, 04:47 PM

Hey everyone. My first post here. I'm potentially going to switch to Mac next month if Apple offers Blu-ray on the new machines. I'll be new to Mac (used them often, never owned) but have long been involved in Blu-ray. Anyway, a couple of points...

Nope, not even. FastMac (http://store.fastmac.com/product_info.php?products_id=338) already has that honor...for $999.95! :eek:

The FastMac drives are rebadged Panasonic UJ-225 (slot load) and UJ-220 (tray) drives that are 12.5mm in height, not 9.5mm. That's why they only offer them for the iMac and 17" MBP, as opposed to the 9.5mm drives needed for the current 15" MBP or 13" MB. (It's also notable that the OEM pricing on those drives is less than half what FastMac is charging.)

As for 9.5mm drives, the one Panasonic was sampling last December never went into production. The good news (for those wanting Blu-ray MBPs) is that the first shipping 9.5mm drive has been announced in Sony's upcoming Vaio TT series notebook. The drive should be an Optiarc (Sony/NEC), but the model number isn't yet known. The new TT series with the drive is due to ship on October 15, interestingly.

Although I don't work for Apple and I'm not under any kind of NDA from Apple, I shouldn't say too much (everything I've heard is just rumors anyway)... but it would be very odd for Optiarc to spend the considerable resources to create a 9.5mm BD drive if the only customer is Sony, and they're only using it in a single $4500 machine. Take that however you want, but I think it at least indicates that they're at least preparing drives for Apple, whether they get used as soon as next month or not.

aygie

Sep 28, 2008, 05:05 AM

Hey everyone. My first post here. I'm potentially going to switch to Mac next month if Apple offers Blu-ray on the new machines. I'll be new to Mac (used them often, never owned) but have long been involved in Blu-ray. Anyway, a couple of points...

The FastMac drives are rebadged Panasonic UJ-225 (slot load) and UJ-220 (tray) drives that are 12.5mm in height, not 9.5mm. That's why they only offer them for the iMac and 17" MBP, as opposed to the 9.5mm drives needed for the current 15" MBP or 13" MB. (It's also notable that the OEM pricing on those drives is less than half what FastMac is charging.)

As for 9.5mm drives, the one Panasonic was sampling last December never went into production. The good news (for those wanting Blu-ray MBPs) is that the first shipping 9.5mm drive has been announced in Sony's upcoming Vaio TT series notebook. The drive should be an Optiarc (Sony/NEC), but the model number isn't yet known. The new TT series with the drive is due to ship on October 15, interestingly.

Although I don't work for Apple and I'm not under any kind of NDA from Apple, I shouldn't say too much (everything I've heard is just rumors anyway)... but it would be very odd for Optiarc to spend the considerable resources to create a 9.5mm BD drive if the only customer is Sony, and they're only using it in a single $4500 machine. Take that however you want, but I think it at least indicates that they're at least preparing drives for Apple, whether they get used as soon as next month or not.

Sounds very interesting, thanks for the info.

PS. Recognize you from a certain somewhere. :D;)

ccuk

Sep 28, 2008, 06:23 AM

im not up for an arguement, just a debate. :)

1. i dont know about you, but the reason why downloading instead of buying BR/HD rips seems reasonable to me mainly because for one BR movie costs half of what i pay per month for broadband ($50 average for BR, internet costs $100). so i would much rather download the movie for $15-$20 instead of buying it...

i didnt screw over my argument i was just showing you that your infrastructure would allow for BETTER downloading of movies over ours.

2. you were the one that brought the whole speed debate into the topic so i thought i would just expand on that a little bit. maybe the infrastructure in asian countries could old out for this type of idea?? ;)

3. i think that the market for downloading would be quite large. looking at itunes movie sales for last year (5.7million, which is a large number within itself). having a look on ONE torrent side (note 1), and two torrents i found this::

• The Incredible Hulk: added 11 days ago, has been downloaded 368,688 times,

• Iron Man: added 14 days ago, has been downloaded 273,571 times.

now if you think that these movies have only been on for two weeks, have been downloaded many many times and are only from ONE torrent site (of which the world has thousands upon thousands), then isnt impacting on the market??...your crazy if you dont think it is. imagine if there were a *legal* website set up for doing this with all movies.. i think it would impact quite a lot with the DVD/BluRay sales market.

4. already answered half of that question...

My point is that even in the UK, the infrastructure could not support the kind of sales you are referring to. 300,000 downloads of a film, is small in comparison to the world wide sales which reach off into the millions for each film.

http://www.the-numbers.com/dvd/charts/annual/2008.php

And like I said, you are comparing what you do as the norm for everyone else. In the uk you can pick up Blu-Ray films for the same price as new release dvd's... what I am trying to get at is the world wide picture.

In order for Blu-Ray to die users need to have readily available cheap abundant internet access at speeds over 20Mb. And when I say speeds over 20Mb I mean sustained not these false "up to" speeds. This isn;t the case worldwide. Blu-Ray will probably be the last of the physical media, since it will probably be around as long as DVD has. By that time, 4-7 years, connection speeds will increase, the penetration of internet into previously unconnected areas will have also increased, and hopefully the internet will have received an overhaul so that e-tailers can server at sustained high speed to the masses.

On a side note, downloading films also reduces quality. There is a reason the Blu-Ray disks can hold over 20GB of data. And also with regards to your torrent argument. How many of those people would have copied movies from their friends, or bought them from the local pub, if the torrents weren't about?

I don't want to argue either. I just get a little aggravated when it seems people think you could stop selling physical media tomorrow, move to online downloads and think the world will be a happy place. The net would die in its current state. The best easy to place example I can think of is look at what happened when Microsoft offered Longhorn for download. As I recall they got so many downloads that they needed to restrict it to prevent the internet from stalling? Not the best example, but it shows what would happen if everyone starting downloading continuously.

JadedRaverLA

Sep 28, 2008, 10:28 AM

Sounds very interesting, thanks for the info.

PS. Recognize you from a certain somewhere. :D;)

Crazy small interwebs, huh? How's it going?

BTW, I don't know how everybody puts up with this Apple secrecy with each new product launch. It's driving me crazy (although mostly because I really needed a new notebook about a month ago) and this is the first time I've really paid any attention. It's killing me to keep waiting for the actual release of new notebooks that may or may not have the features I need in a new notebook, when there's dozens of Wintel models I could get today that I know meet my needs -- likely don't look as cool, not officially "supposed" to run OS X, etc, but still available, and quite well spec'd.

Oh, well. Patience is a virtue I suppose.

DoFoT9

Oct 3, 2008, 07:08 AM

Usually most torrent sites just shares same torrents than the others.
Most of web services that has turned from free to charged keeps about 1% of users. So if a movie is downloaded .5 million times when it's free, it might get 5000 downloads when you have to pay for it. So it isn't self-evident that it would be very profitable.

ok thats a fair point, that issue would be based around the fact that you have to pay for things rather than the issue of bandwidth.....

My point is that even in the UK, the infrastructure could not support the kind of sales you are referring to. 300,000 downloads of a film, is small in comparison to the world wide sales which reach off into the millions for each film.

http://www.the-numbers.com/dvd/charts/annual/2008.php

yes it is quite small, but it would still be a fair chunk (5%ish based on the top DVD listed on your site). if 5% isnt a fair chunk then i dont know what is. osx is around that mark, when compared to all PC sales worldwide...mac users are a massive market!!

mind you the downloaded links i provided from one site, the torrents are links to around 4 other torrent sites. there are thousands of other torrent sites, so it would be fair to say that the film would have been downloaded more than 300,000 times. (much much more).

And like I said, you are comparing what you do as the norm for everyone else. In the uk you can pick up Blu-Ray films for the same price as new release dvd's... what I am trying to get at is the world wide picture.

world wide picture wake up call: BluRay discs cost double if not tripple a DVD in my country. in many other countries this is the same issue.

In order for Blu-Ray to die users need to have readily available cheap abundant internet access at speeds over 20Mb. And when I say speeds over 20Mb I mean sustained not these false "up to" speeds. This isn;t the case worldwide. Blu-Ray will probably be the last of the physical media, since it will probably be around as long as DVD has. By that time, 4-7 years, connection speeds will increase, the penetration of internet into previously unconnected areas will have also increased, and hopefully the internet will have received an overhaul so that e-tailers can server at sustained high speed to the masses.

thats a fair point, id estimate that only 1%-2% of the worlds population could get speeds faster than that. i get 17mbps sustained.

however i still stand by my claim that you will get users willing to wait a couple of hours for a movie. BR movies can be compressed to smaller file sizes (10gb) and still retain a lot of their original quality.

On a side note, downloading films also reduces quality. There is a reason the Blu-Ray disks can hold over 20GB of data. And also with regards to your torrent argument. How many of those people would have copied movies from their friends, or bought them from the local pub, if the torrents weren't about?

the downloading of files doesnt reduce the quality!!!!!

it is the compressing of the files that reduces the quality, you can get full quality DVD rips, BR rips etcetc off the internet no problems.

heeeeeeps of people would have borrowed from friends, or gotten them from another source, if it werent for torrents. thus complimenting my arguement that the torrent society is large and has a big impact on sales.

I don't want to argue either. I just get a little aggravated when it seems people think you could stop selling physical media tomorrow, move to online downloads and think the world will be a happy place. The net would die in its current state. The best easy to place example I can think of is look at what happened when Microsoft offered Longhorn for download. As I recall they got so many downloads that they needed to restrict it to prevent the internet from stalling? Not the best example, but it shows what would happen if everyone starting downloading continuously.

sorry to aggravate you.

ill admit you have shown me a bit of light, the current internet cannot support anything. its struggling enough as is. i know that physical media is still going to be around for a while, it serves great for the movie sector, backup sector and many other areas. its just a waiting game for the moment.

maybe WWW2 will be a bit better for data transfer :p

Crazy small interwebs, huh? How's it going?

BTW, I don't know how everybody puts up with this Apple secrecy with each new product launch. It's driving me crazy (although mostly because I really needed a new notebook about a month ago) and this is the first time I've really paid any attention. It's killing me to keep waiting for the actual release of new notebooks that may or may not have the features I need in a new notebook, when there's dozens of Wintel models I could get today that I know meet my needs -- likely don't look as cool, not officially "supposed" to run OS X, etc, but still available, and quite well spec'd.

Oh, well. Patience is a virtue I suppose.

whatever you do, DONT BUY NOW!!!!

you know what i did, i finally gave in to my gut feeling and bought my CD MBP, only to have the new C2D MBP's be released 5 days later :) smart aye...

just wait hahaha. take it from me!

JadedRaverLA

Oct 5, 2008, 09:27 PM

whatever you do, DONT BUY NOW!!!!

you know what i did, i finally gave in to my gut feeling and bought my CD MBP, only to have the new C2D MBP's be released 5 days later :) smart aye...

just wait hahaha. take it from me!

Ouch... that had to hurt a bit. But, I'm definitely NOT buying now (even I can hold out 9 days... though barely). The only question is whether Apple puts out a machine on the 14th that meets my specific requirements. If not, I have several other options to choose from but I would like to get one of the MacBook Pros. As much as I like OS X and Apple's design ability, at the end of the day if a machine doesn't do what you need it to, then it just wasn't meant to be I guess.

mickbab

Oct 5, 2008, 09:30 PM

Lord Zedd

Oct 5, 2008, 09:36 PM

you know what i did, i finally gave in to my gut feeling and bought my CD MBP, only to have the new C2D MBP's be released 5 days later :) smart aye...

FYI: http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/salespolicies.html

Prices

The Apple Store endeavors to offer you competitive prices on current Apple products, selected Sale and Apple Certified Reconditioned products, and third-party products. Your total order price will include the price of the product on the day of shipping plus any applicable sales tax and shipping charges. Apple reserves the right to change prices for products displayed at the Apple Store at any time and particularly to correct pricing errors that appear on the Store.

Should Apple reduce its price on any shipped product within 14 calendar days of shipment, you may contact Apple Sales Support at 1-800-676-2775 to request a refund or credit of the difference between the price you were charged and the current selling price. To receive the refund or credit you must contact Apple within 14 calendar days of the price change.

At 5 days all you had to do was bring it to an Apple store and request a refund/swap to get the C2D MBP.

Ironduke

Oct 5, 2008, 09:46 PM

This may seem like a stupid comment, but isn't Blu-Ray a hardware component, not software?

What i mean is, how could Blu-Ray be supported by a software update?

Or is it for the updated computers?

:confused:

You need both, imagine mac osx without the dvd player app?

You would have to hope someone else writes one or even though macosx could probably read the contents of the bluray disc, it wouldnt be able to play it.

DoFoT9

Oct 6, 2008, 01:14 AM

Ouch... that had to hurt a bit. But, I'm definitely NOT buying now (even I can hold out 9 days... though barely). The only question is whether Apple puts out a machine on the 14th that meets my specific requirements. If not, I have several other options to choose from but I would like to get one of the MacBook Pros. As much as I like OS X and Apple's design ability, at the end of the day if a machine doesn't do what you need it to, then it just wasn't meant to be I guess.

thats fair enough, and i back you on your decision that if it doesnt fit what you want you wont buy. care to tell us what your after? maybe we could help your decision a bit better.

This may seem like a stupid comment, but isn't Blu-Ray a hardware component, not software?

What i mean is, how could Blu-Ray be supported by a software update?

Or is it for the updated computers?

:confused:

your somewhat correct. BluRay requires a BluRay capable drive, either player or a burner for reading discs, just like a DVD and CD drive. if you have that there is no need for a software update. apples can currently read BluRay discs no problem. you can burn to them aswell using software such as Toast Titanium 9.

the only problem is that there are no BR player, meaning that you can't pop in a BR movie and watch it. a software update by apple on their DVD Player application would fix this (might have to change the name though).

FYI: http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/salespolicies.html

At 5 days all you had to do was bring it to an Apple store and request a refund/swap to get the C2D MBP.

yes i figured that out about 9 months ago, i wasnt aware of their policy!!! do they do that in australia??

i was sooo bummed when i found out that i could have swapped it, even more than when i found out newer machines were out haha. thanks for the link but :)

You need both, imagine mac osx without the dvd player app?

You would have to hope someone else writes one or even though macosx could probably read the contents of the bluray disc, it wouldnt be able to play it.

it already can read and burn the contents of BR media, just cant play the BR movies which compeltely sucks. we need someone to write a BR player application!!

millar876

Oct 6, 2008, 08:04 AM

ADSL2+? I wish!

BT can only supply me with 512kbps and have no plans to upgrade the service any time soon.

Until FTH (fiber to home) broadband is rolled out to most (if not all) homes I think optical will survive.

Another bug bear of mine at the moment is when 720p movies are touted as HD. Although it technicly counts as a HD resolution, I dont think anything in the UK Should be called HD unless its 1080p, i mean our DVD's over here are encoded at arround 1024x768 (anamorphic) so a 1280x720 download makes verry little diference, whereas the US (R1) DVDs I have are encoded at 720x480 at a maximum. I Have a FULL HD 1080 24p 100Hz TV, and if I'm going to watch a download, it better use all those darn pixels (with exception of the realy wide screen films with bars at the top and bottom still.

DoFoT9

Oct 6, 2008, 08:26 AM

Kilamite

Oct 6, 2008, 08:36 AM

Another bug bear of mine at the moment is when 720p movies are touted as HD. Although it technicly counts as a HD resolution, I dont think anything in the UK Should be called HD unless its 1080p, i mean our DVD's over here are encoded at arround 1024x768 (anamorphic) so a 1280x720 download makes verry little diference, whereas the US (R1) DVDs I have are encoded at 720x480 at a maximum. I Have a FULL HD 1080 24p 100Hz TV, and if I'm going to watch a download, it better use all those darn pixels (with exception of the realy wide screen films with bars at the top and bottom still.

The DVD's are encoded in anamorphic, however the actual native resolution of it in the UK for PAL format is 720x576. Compare that to 1280x720, you have an increase of 506,880 pixels - more than twice the native DVD resolution. And there is a big difference between DVD's and 720p stuff. Clarity is significantly different.

1080p does give yet another huge resolution boost over 720p, but to the human eye, the clarity difference between the two from the optimum viewing point isn't that drastic. It all depends how close you are to your TV and how big your TV is in relation to how close you are. fivepoint posted a chart somewhere, however I really don't want to end up going down the 720p versus 1080p road again..

Ironduke

Oct 6, 2008, 10:18 AM

The DVD's are encoded in anamorphic, however the actual native resolution of it in the UK for PAL format is 720x576. Compare that to 1280x720, you have an increase of 506,880 pixels - more than twice the native DVD resolution. And there is a big difference between DVD's and 720p stuff. Clarity is significantly different.

1080p does give yet another huge resolution boost over 720p, but to the human eye, the clarity difference between the two from the optimum viewing point isn't that drastic. It all depends how close you are to your TV and how big your TV is in relation to how close you are. fivepoint posted a chart somewhere, however I really don't want to end up going down the 720p versus 1080p road again..

This is true, HD is in its infancy. if you look at TV's 20 years ago and see where we are now, 20 years from now many people will be able to afford a 100" pulldown blind style TV, imagine an SD image on that monster

eviltobz

Oct 6, 2008, 10:32 AM

This is true, HD is in its infancy. if you look at TV's 20 years ago and see where we are now, 20 years from now many people will be able to afford a 100" pulldown blind style TV, imagine an SD image on that monster
my projector is wide vga, so about 480 lines like ntsc. set up with an approximately 6 foot widescreen it looked ok, not as sharp as hd would be obviously, but utterly watchable. It wouldn't be great for poor quality image sources where the small size can hide problems, i'm thinking especially older games systems and the like here, but a dvd isn't bad. and that big is always a good thing, i'm smiling thinking about it now :) i enjoy my new hd kit, but big sd isn't all that bad if you can't get an hd source.

Ironduke

Oct 6, 2008, 10:40 AM

my projector is wide vga, so about 480 lines like ntsc. set up with an approximately 6 foot widescreen it looked ok, not as sharp as hd would be obviously, but utterly watchable. It wouldn't be great for poor quality image sources where the small size can hide problems, i'm thinking especially older games systems and the like here, but a dvd isn't bad. and that big is always a good thing, i'm smiling thinking about it now :) i enjoy my new hd kit, but big sd isn't all that bad if you can't get an hd source.

DVD is high bitrate with optimisations, you want to see SD sports on UK cable/Sat:(

Superman07

Oct 13, 2008, 08:35 AM

The FastMac drives are rebadged Panasonic UJ-225 (slot load) and UJ-220 (tray) drives that are 12.5mm in height, not 9.5mm. That's why they only offer them for the iMac and 17" MBP, as opposed to the 9.5mm drives needed for the current 15" MBP or 13" MB. (It's also notable that the OEM pricing on those drives is less than half what FastMac is charging.)

Do the height of these drives include the faceplate (which I assume is to fill the bay? Or is it just the actual part of the drive (silver enclosure)?

http://www.panasonic.com/industrial/computer/storage/optical/models/uj225b.asp

In the past building computers - tray or slot - the front of the drive was the same size as the part that went into the bay.

BJWanlund

Oct 13, 2008, 09:24 AM

solipsism

Oct 13, 2008, 09:32 AM

As far as Blu-Ray goes in terms of the new MacBooks, I think there will be Blu-Ray as either standard OR as a BTO option on ALL models, not just the MBPs.

I'd rather pay through the nose for a legit copy of a movie now than pay through the nose later because I leeched a movie off a torrent site. The movie industry has me as a paying (literally) customer.

Having Blu-Ray as an OPTION in these new MacBook models is very important to me.

BJ
By paying "through the nose" I guess that means you will be willing to pay $750 (medium price) for a Blu-ray player that plays at only 2x speed and burns at 1x speed, will increase the case size by several millimeters and make the sleek slot-loading optical drive into a tray-loading drive? Is that what you mean by paying through the nose, because 9.5mm BRD don't currently exist on the retail market and any slim-line sloat-loading drive is going to be considerably slower than any normal sized tray-loading drive.

Why can't you be happy with an external tray-loading drive, copy the BR media onto your HDD since the DRm has been hacked, or just go with with a BR appliance since that is where most of this niche market will be playing their BR videos.

JadedRaverLA

Oct 14, 2008, 01:03 AM

Do the height of these drives include the faceplate (which I assume is to fill the bay? Or is it just the actual part of the drive (silver enclosure)?

http://www.panasonic.com/industrial/computer/storage/optical/models/uj225b.asp

In the past building computers - tray or slot - the front of the drive was the same size as the part that went into the bay.

Faceplates on notebook drives vary depending on the requirements of the notebook manufacturer. On tray-load drives, the faceplate is a snap-on that is usually custom-made to fit the edge design of the notebook. For slot-load drives, the faceplate usually doesn't exist at all, as the slot will be "cut" out of the notebook. So, the height measured is just for the internal drive bay.

By paying "through the nose" I guess that means you will be willing to pay $750 (medium price) for a Blu-ray player that plays at only 2x speed and burns at 1x speed, will increase the case size by several millimeters and make the sleek slot-loading optical drive into a tray-loading drive? Is that what you mean by paying through the nose, because 9.5mm BRD don't currently exist on the retail market and any slim-line sloat-loading drive is going to be considerably slower than any normal sized tray-loading drive.

Why can't you be happy with an external tray-loading drive, copy the BR media onto your HDD since the DRm has been hacked, or just go with with a BR appliance since that is where most of this niche market will be playing their BR videos.

Before I get to your argument, thanks for at least spelling Blu-ray correctly. Though, it's BD (for Blu-ray Disc) not BR when abbreviated. ;)

Your comment wasn't directed at me, but OEM quantity pricing on notebook BD drives is nowhere close to $750. Combo drives are $125-140 and burners are about $215-230 or so (again, this is in quantity, not some single unit retail pricing that you are finding) for the latest Optiarc and LG drives. (Older drives still in production cost more due to being base don older and more expensive OPU technology.) Both slot-load and tray-load drives are readily available. And, as I mentioned previously, Optiarc has a 9.5mm tall drive now (being used in the Sony TT series)... 2x burner, not 1x, and won't effect the thickness of the machine at all. The fact that you can't buy the drive at retail has nothing to do with the fact that they are manufactured, available to OEMs, and cost substantially less than the figure you quoted. (BTW, you can custom configure a Dell Inspiron 1525 or 1420 with BD combo drive for under $700, so if you REALLY think that's the price of the drive, then Dell is paying you to take the rest of the system off their hands. Also, that pricing is before any discounts.)

And as to your point about an external drive -- why? If you already own Blu-ray discs and have other players, you likely want the ability to play the movies "on the go" -- and having an external drive certainly doesn't get you anywhere with that. We'll know soon enough what the plans are, but I beleive VERY strongly Blu-ray will be announced tomorrow. If not, then I'll be placing my order for an HP Elitebook 6930 at 1pm CST and giving up on Apple as a viable alternative to Microsoft.

DoFoT9

Oct 14, 2008, 03:29 AM

1. Before I get to your argument, thanks for at least spelling Blu-ray correctly. Though, it's BD (for Blu-ray Disc) not BR when abbreviated. ;)

....

2. And as to your point about an external drive -- why? If you already own Blu-ray discs and have other players, you likely want the ability to play the movies "on the go" -- and having an external drive certainly doesn't get you anywhere with that. We'll know soon enough what the plans are, but I beleive VERY strongly Blu-ray will be announced tomorrow. If not, then I'll be placing my order for an HP Elitebook 6930 at 1pm CST and giving up on Apple as a viable alternative to Microsoft.

1. everyone knows what BR means, everyone knows what BD means, nobody really gives a stuff there is no need to correct other people. just live with it.

2. seriously, if you want to play movies "on the go" then bluray isnt really the way to go, battery life is down the crapper. it would be best to rip the movies onto your computer and watch it that way. you would barely even have 2hrs battery life.

in any case where you have access to a power point, then you would use an external drive. the external drives are MUCH cheaper (if you build it yourself anyway).

will you seriously be watching bluray movies "on the go"? i dont see your point of being able to do it (unless your version of "on the go" is hooking up to massive TV's), the quality wont be able to be seen at all. it wuld be much more feasible to convert the movies into a smaller file size, so that you get longer battery life and a less hot CPU.

ajzman

Oct 14, 2008, 03:48 AM

Having Blu-Ray as an OPTION in these new MacBook models is very important to me.

BJ

+ 1

(there should at least be an option for Blu-ray drive in the different MBP models...)

solipsism

Oct 14, 2008, 05:31 AM

Before I get to your argument, thanks for at least spelling Blu-ray correctly. Though, it's BD (for Blu-ray Disc) not BR when abbreviated. ;)
I prefer BRD, because people tend to understand it better, but I'm well aware that "offically" you don't add the 'R' since 'ray' is part of the word 'Blu-ray'.

Your comment wasn't directed at me, but OEM quantity pricing on notebook BD drives is nowhere close to $750. Combo drives are $125-140 and burners are about $215-230 or so (again, this is in quantity, not some single unit retail pricing that you are finding) for the latest Optiarc and LG drives.
First of all, what you are looking at are large tray-loading notebook drives. Apple has been using slot-loading drives for many years now and I see no reason why they would stop now just to add an expensive optical feature that very few people care about.

Secondly, Only the 24" iMac and 17" MBP use a 12.7mm drive. These drives range in price from over $500 to $999. The use of slot-loading drives and this svelte size makes them considerably more expensive and slower than other optical drives. That is the technology, there is nothing we can do about that.

Lastly, there are no 9.5mm drives, slot- or tray-loading, that would fit in the MacBook or 15" MacBook Pro, so that point is nil. Panasonic announced they will be making one but nothing has come to market yet.

Unless it's an external option there is just no possible way that we're going to see BRDs in an Mac notebook as long as Apple is obsessed with slick-looking, slot-loading drives and ultra-thin case designs.

CWallace

Oct 14, 2008, 01:00 PM

From the notebook event today:

Question: "Blu-ray?"

Steve: "Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt. It's great to watch the movies, but the licensing of the tech is so complex, we're waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace."

So looks like after-market only for the time being.

Eidorian

Oct 14, 2008, 01:01 PM

From the notebook event today:

So looks like after-market only for the time being.At least it was touched upon.

CWallace

Oct 14, 2008, 01:06 PM

At least it was touched upon.

Agreed. So we can at least put that debate to rest until WWDC at the earliest (since this statement precludes a launch at MacWorld, IMO).

Would have been nice if someone had asked about the Mini so we could put that one to bed, as well. :p

DoFoT9

Oct 14, 2008, 03:27 PM

Agreed. So we can at least put that debate to rest until WWDC at the earliest (since this statement precludes a launch at MacWorld, IMO).

Would have been nice if someone had asked about the Mini so we could put that one to bed, as well. :p

dang im really peeved that there was NOTHING on the mini... all i wanted was a new mini so that it could play my movies for me when i plug it into the TV! dangit

skellener

Oct 14, 2008, 09:39 PM

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/10/14/steve-jobs-calls-blu-ray-a-bag-of-hurt/
Straight from El Jobso's mouth at today's notebook keynote:

"Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt. It's great to watch the movies, but the licensing of the tech is so complex, we're waiting till things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace."

dukebound85

Oct 14, 2008, 09:40 PM

all the more why a ps3 is a smart buy for a home theatre setup

Banacek

Oct 14, 2008, 10:44 PM

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/10/14/steve-jobs-calls-blu-ray-a-bag-of-hurt/

So I guess not.

skellener

Oct 14, 2008, 10:48 PM

So I guess not.
Yup. I wouldn't be holding my breath for Blu-ray in a Mac anytime soon.

Banacek

Oct 14, 2008, 10:50 PM

Yup. I wouldn't be holding my breath for Blu-ray in a Mac anytime soon.

It's a shame, because the movies are amazing to watch.

DoFoT9

Oct 15, 2008, 01:24 AM

Yup. I wouldn't be holding my breath for Blu-ray in a Mac anytime soon.

there are work arounds.... ;)

JadedRaverLA

Oct 15, 2008, 08:23 PM

1. everyone knows what BR means, everyone knows what BD means, nobody really gives a stuff there is no need to correct other people. just live with it.

No need to be snippy... I was just trying to point out the correct terminology. If people call DVDs "Video CDs" (as they did when they were new, despite that actually being its own completely unrelated format) you'd know what they meant... but still DVD is correct, just as BD is correct. Getting people to call things by their actual names or acronyms isn't meant to be rude... and Blu-ray aside, people around here would slander you to no end for calling Apple products by some incorrect name or acronym (eg. Mac-bookpro). If you want to sound intelligent on a subject, you should really know how to spell it... simple as that.

So... for anyone who actually cares, it's Blu-ray or Blu-ray Disc and BD for short.

2. seriously, if you want to play movies "on the go" then bluray isnt really the way to go, battery life is down the crapper. it would be best to rip the movies onto your computer and watch it that way. you would barely even have 2hrs battery life.

in any case where you have access to a power point, then you would use an external drive. the external drives are MUCH cheaper (if you build it yourself anyway).

will you seriously be watching bluray movies "on the go"? i dont see your point of being able to do it (unless your version of "on the go" is hooking up to massive TV's), the quality wont be able to be seen at all. it wuld be much more feasible to convert the movies into a smaller file size, so that you get longer battery life and a less hot CPU.

I will most definitely be watching Blu-ray movies using MY definition of "on the go," which is on airplanes (using the airlines power) and in hotel rooms (using the hotel's power). I don't care in the least about battery life, as in neither case will it be a factor. Portability, on the other hand, is a very large factor -- and ripping a couple dozen Blu-ray movies to the internal hard drive is impossible (at 20-50GB each). And why on earth would I want to waste even more time compressing those video files prior to a trip? On the other hand, picking out a couple dozen discs and throwing them in a mini case that I can throw in my laptop bag is incredibly easy and convenient.

Again... the issue isn't about the incredible quality of Blu-ray actual being perceptible on a 15.4" WXGA+ screen, but one of convenience. I ONLY buy movies on Blu-ray disc and have for going on two years now. When every major PC manufacturer (except Toshiba, who lost their own battle against Blu-ray) offers Blu-ray drives in their notebooks, there's no excuse for Apple not to. The fact that everyone else has for some time now should give you an idea that their most definitely are customers buying notebooks based on this feature.

Apple not including Blu-ray as a BTO option in their new notebooks is NOTHING but laziness (not getting programmers working on it early enough) and cheapness on Apple's part -- made even dumber by the fact that those who REALLY want Blu-ray in their new notebooks would pay the "Apple 2x actual part cost" tax to have it.

One last thing (not directed at anyone in particular), Job's excuse about "complex licensing" is complete BS. Aside from the fact that every other manufacturer can figure out the licensing terms, Apple is on the board of directors of the BDA... the organization that writes the licensing terms and determines the patent pool. Had he been honest and said "We're holding out until all the major studios are including iPod-compatible digital copies of movies on their Blu-ray releases... for which we'll charge them a licensing fee for use of our DRM" that would be fine -- an obnoxious demand, but at least honest. But making it sound like the BDA licensing is just too complicated for a company that sits on the board and is itself a member of the patent pool is ridiculous.

DoFoT9

Oct 15, 2008, 10:34 PM

No need to be snippy... I was just trying to point out the correct terminology. If people call DVDs "Video CDs" (as they did when they were new, despite that actually being its own completely unrelated format) you'd know what they meant... but still DVD is correct, just as BD is correct. Getting people to call things by their actual names or acronyms isn't meant to be rude... and Blu-ray aside, people around here would slander you to no end for calling Apple products by some incorrect name or acronym (eg. Mac-bookpro). If you want to sound intelligent on a subject, you should really know how to spell it... simple as that.

So... for anyone who actually cares, it's Blu-ray or Blu-ray Disc and BD for short.

sorry for the snappiness i just get a tad frustrated by people trying to correct everyone. i am of the opinion that people can make up their own mind how they want to talk as long as the other people know what they are talking about. the internets use of acronyms for bluray varies, if you use the internet enough i am sure that you will know all of the various versions of defining it.

I will most definitely be watching Blu-ray movies using MY definition of "on the go," which is on airplanes (using the airlines power) and in hotel rooms (using the hotel's power). I don't care in the least about battery life, as in neither case will it be a factor. Portability, on the other hand, is a very large factor -- and ripping a couple dozen Blu-ray movies to the internal hard drive is impossible (at 20-50GB each). And why on earth would I want to waste even more time compressing those video files prior to a trip? On the other hand, picking out a couple dozen discs and throwing them in a mini case that I can throw in my laptop bag is incredibly easy and convenient.

ok, so portability in the sense of battery life isnt as issue to you, fair enough that dismisses that issue.

i have to say i completely disagree with you on your compaint about ripping to the computer, space these days is not an issue really. i have a 500gb HD inside my MBP, you will soon see 1tb drives that can go into a laptop.

compressing the video's can be quite handy! if you have a nice home theatre set up you could buy a mini, rip all of your movies to external HD's (whilst still maintaining the quality) and use the mini to watch the movies digitally. these movies can be reduced to around 5gb-10gb depending on their length. all you need to do then is simply copy them onto your laptop when your ready to go away and wala!! no more discs and worrying about scratching them and keeping them organised!! (as you could probably tell i prefer digital media, its much easier to work with than media).

Again... the issue isn't about the incredible quality of Blu-ray actual being perceptible on a 15.4" WXGA+ screen, but one of convenience. I ONLY buy movies on Blu-ray disc and have for going on two years now. When every major PC manufacturer (except Toshiba, who lost their own battle against Blu-ray) offers Blu-ray drives in their notebooks, there's no excuse for Apple not to. The fact that everyone else has for some time now should give you an idea that their most definitely are customers buying notebooks based on this feature.

as i mentioned in the previous quote, having everything digital (to me) is a lot more convenient then having to worry about discs. apple has their reasons for not including BR, read down to find out.

Apple not including Blu-ray as a BTO option in their new notebooks is NOTHING but laziness (not getting programmers working on it early enough) and cheapness on Apple's part -- made even dumber by the fact that those who REALLY want Blu-ray in their new notebooks would pay the "Apple 2x actual part cost" tax to have it.

are you aware that there are actually NO slot loading 9.5mm bluray drives on the market?? :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

from your post i am guessing not, the 15" MBP's CANNOT have BR until the new drives is the smaller size come out, i think that is a valid reason. maybe the new revision on the 17" MBP will have it.

One last thing (not directed at anyone in particular), Job's excuse about "complex licensing" is complete BS. Aside from the fact that every other manufacturer can figure out the licensing terms, Apple is on the board of directors of the BDA... the organization that writes the licensing terms and determines the patent pool. Had he been honest and said "We're holding out until all the major studios are including iPod-compatible digital copies of movies on their Blu-ray releases... for which we'll charge them a licensing fee for use of our DRM" that would be fine -- an obnoxious demand, but at least honest. But making it sound like the BDA licensing is just too complicated for a company that sits on the board and is itself a member of the patent pool is ridiculous.

i have no idea what apple's reasons behind the licensing problems, but i see no reason for them to lie about it.

have a good one,
DoFoT9 :)

JadedRaverLA

Oct 16, 2008, 10:34 PM

i have to say i completely disagree with you on your compaint about ripping to the computer, space these days is not an issue really. i have a 500gb HD inside my MBP, you will soon see 1tb drives that can go into a laptop.

True enough. But at 50GB per title (granted that's the max), even a 1TB hard drive could only hold 20 titles, and that's without leaving room for anything else. And I REALLY have better things to do with my time. Ripping 50GBs of data to my hard drive (for each title) is hardly convenient. Tossing a disc in is.

compressing the video's can be quite handy! if you have a nice home theatre set up you could buy a mini, rip all of your movies to external HD's (whilst still maintaining the quality) and use the mini to watch the movies digitally. these movies can be reduced to around 5gb-10gb depending on their length. all you need to do then is simply copy them onto your laptop when your ready to go away and wala!! no more discs and worrying about scratching them and keeping them organised!! (as you could probably tell i prefer digital media, its much easier to work with than media).

Blasphemy.

I do a lot of compression work, and if you can't tell the difference between a 40Mbps AVC encode on Blu-ray and a re-compressed 10Mbps (or whatever) AVC encode that you've created then you're either blind or don't have your setup properly calibrated. A 5-10GB re-encode is nowhere near the quality of most Blu-ray discs (there are exceptions, in cases where grain is nearly non-existant). It's "good enough" for watching "on the go" but it's still time consuming and not remotely convenient.

as i mentioned in the previous quote, having everything digital (to me) is a lot more convenient then having to worry about discs. apple has their reasons for not including BR, read down to find out.

are you aware that there are actually NO slot loading 9.5mm bluray drives on the market?? :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

from your post i am guessing not, the 15" MBP's CANNOT have BR until the new drives is the smaller size come out, i think that is a valid reason. maybe the new revision on the 17" MBP will have it.

i have no idea what apple's reasons behind the licensing problems, but i see no reason for them to lie about it.

have a good one,
DoFoT9 :)

You are wrong on that point, as I pointed out before. It certainly would be a valid reason if it were still true, however the situation has changed. Optiarc (Sony/NEC joint venture) developed a 9.5mm drive primarily for use by Apple and offered them to Apple (as slot-loading drives) for use in the latest machines. The fact that you can't buy one at retail has nothing to do with what was made available to Apple. (Note that Matsushita did the same thing in time for the early 2008 refresh, and Apple turned them down as well.) A version of the Optiarc drive IS being used in the new Sony TT series that was just released, and I believe will be used in the upcoming Dell 13" Studio XPS refresh coming soon. The lack of drives used to be a very real issue for Apple (prior to this year), but it no longer is.

I can't say too much about the issue, but the reason Apple didn't end up including Blu-ray with this release has NOTHING to do with drive availability. There's a lot of corporate politics going on behind the scenes, and the main issue is with Jobs wanting (read: demanding) that ALL studios start including iPhone/iPod compatible copies of their movies on Blu-ray titles... which means licensing (and paying for) Apple's DRM implementation. Most studios have done as he requested (though on a limited number of titles) but some are very reluctant to start paying Apple for rights to DRM they really don't care to use, as they're internal studies have shown customers aren't willing to pay extra for digital copies of the movies they buy. The "digital copy" idea is VERY crucial to Apple, but studios are still fairly lukewarm to the concept. So, I suppose, "complex licensing" wasn't exactly lying... it's just not at all the whole story. It's not that Blu-ray's licensing is too complicated, it's that Jobs' demands are MAKING the negotiations complicated.

Personally, I don't like the idea of paying $2k for a machine that can't do things that a $900 PC notebook can easily do. I have over 200 BDs, have no interest in iTunes movie store, and have no interest at all in wasting my time "ripping" those titles, and definitely no interest in "re-encoding" those titles. When I travel (which is very frequently) I want to be able to grab a couple dozen titles off the shelf, throw them in the case, and go. No other solution accomplishes that goal... and none are going to anytime soon. I don't claim to be the "average consumer," nor do I have any desire to be. Apple has never geared itself toward "average consumers" anyway -- they've always gone after pro-sumers, graphics artists, and video professionals. Yet they don't have Blu-ray, they don't have matte screens, and they don't even have enough ports on alleged "pro" models do get actual work done. Who exactly do they think their customers are? If they think they can continue being successful just releasing refreshes and getting fanbois (apologies to those here who fit that description) to keep buying new "toys" then, I'm sorry, but their current success doesn't look likely to continue all that much longer -- particularly in the current economy.

Anyway, just my $.02.

solipsism

Oct 16, 2008, 10:48 PM

Personally, I don't like the idea of paying $2k for a machine that can't do things that a $900 PC notebook can easily do.
But that $900 PC notebook is 2" thick and uses a large tray-loading Blu-ray drive. It's not a >1" thick notebook using a 9.5mm optical drive for which their are absolutely no BDs available by any BD vendor. If you want a Mac notebook you have to be willing to accept that their slim design does add limitations in which physics can't be overlooked or ignored simply by saying "but it's a Mac!"

JadedRaverLA

Oct 16, 2008, 11:07 PM

But that $900 PC notebook is 2" thick and uses a large tray-loading Blu-ray drive. It's not a >1" thick notebook using a 9.5mm optical drive for which their are absolutely no BDs available by any BD vendor. If you want a Mac notebook you have to be willing to accept that their slim design does add limitations in which physics can't be overlooked or ignored simply by saying "but it's a Mac!"

You guys can keep telling yourselves that, but drive availability is NOT an issue and hasn't been for awhile now. Matsushita developed drives for Apple last winter (in time for the Feb refresh) and Optiarc did it at a lower cost in time for this refresh. You guys are basing your opinion on the fact that no such drives are available at retail... which is ONLY the case because no OEM has placed orders for either drive -- Apple being the only major OEM who would require such a drive. Notebook drives aren't like desktop drives... if no major OEM orders them, they don't go into production. That doesn't mean the physics have yet to be worked out or anything else is causing a delay in production. Engineering samples of both drives exist (and Cupertino has both), and the newer Optiarc drive is being used... though in its tray-load form, in the new Sony TT series. The upcoming Dell Studio XPS 13 will likely use the drive as well, though I don't know if they'll use the slot-load or tray-load variant.

BTW, Sony's TT series offers Blu-ray, 11.1" LED display, DUAL 64GB SSDs in a RAID configuration, and far more ports than the new MBP in a package considerably smaller than the MB or MBP (and at leass than 1" thick). Even in a VERY compact package, you can offer FAR more than Apple gives you -- engineering issues are just an excuse.

solipsism

Oct 16, 2008, 11:31 PM

You guys are basing your opinion on the fact that no such drives are available at retail
I stated a fact based on that fact.

which is ONLY the case because no OEM has placed orders for either drive -- Apple being the only major OEM who would require such a drive. Notebook drives aren't like desktop drives... if no major OEM orders them, they don't go into production.
So if Apple were the ONLY ONES buying these 9.5mm drives and the 12.7mm drives are already prohibitively expensive and the number of customers even wanting BD, can you image how much they would cost? Of course Apple didn'tgo with BD so I'm amazed, with that knowledge that you still wonder how a $900 notebook can have BD.

That doesn't mean the physics have yet to be worked out or anything else is causing a delay in production.
I didn't say it wasn't possible. I said the physics can't be overlooked. A 9.5mm slot-load BD will cost more and be slower than desktop-grade tray-loading BD. In computers, smaller usually equals more expensive. I think we can agree on that.

Apple just isn't going to go to a considerably thicker notebook with a tray-loading drive just to offer a cheaper BD option that is more i-line with the cheap BD options and that won't matter to most customers. It's just poor business all around.

bwbeta

Oct 17, 2008, 12:07 AM

DoFoT9

Oct 17, 2008, 01:27 AM

I need some clarification thank you. When you say the next major software release will offer Blu-ray support , what exactly does this mean ? And will the new MacBook Pro's be able to add this functionality with a software update. thanks in advance

bluray support as in it will be able to play them in a program such as "DVD Player" (except with a different name) and native burning support with programs such as disk utility (for backups of course).

DoFoT9

Oct 17, 2008, 05:18 AM

True enough. But at 50GB per title (granted that's the max), even a 1TB hard drive could only hold 20 titles, and that's without leaving room for anything else. And I REALLY have better things to do with my time. Ripping 50GBs of data to my hard drive (for each title) is hardly convenient. Tossing a disc in is.

at full quality, yes. there is only a limited number of bluray disks that it can hold. mind you that that at 50gb (at most) it would include the extras and a whole bunch more stuff. just the title i imagine it would be somewhere around 25gb-35gb, which is only 32 movies. it would be worth it though (for me anyway)! 1.5tb drives are out and aren't that expensive, 2tb will be out soon so its becomming more and more convenient to rip/convert.

Blasphemy.

I do a lot of compression work, and if you can't tell the difference between a 40Mbps AVC encode on Blu-ray and a re-compressed 10Mbps (or whatever) AVC encode that you've created then you're either blind or don't have your setup properly calibrated. A 5-10GB re-encode is nowhere near the quality of most Blu-ray discs (there are exceptions, in cases where grain is nearly non-existant). It's "good enough" for watching "on the go" but it's still time consuming and not remotely convenient.

i also do a lot of compression work (albeit basic) and if you think your going to see a massive increase between a 10mbps rip and a 40mb passthrough/bluray movie on a 15" 1440x900 (WXGA?) screen then you are wasting your time. a 5-10gb movie is nowhere near the quality, no, but at least it will allow me to do other work while i actually watch the movie rather than chewing up my CPU/RAM, and other things (yes i watch movies while working).

You are wrong on that point, as I pointed out before. It certainly would be a valid reason if it were still true, however the situation has changed. Optiarc (Sony/NEC joint venture) developed a 9.5mm drive primarily for use by Apple and offered them to Apple (as slot-loading drives) for use in the latest machines. The fact that you can't buy one at retail has nothing to do with what was made available to Apple. (Note that Matsushita did the same thing in time for the early 2008 refresh, and Apple turned them down as well.) A version of the Optiarc drive IS being used in the new Sony TT series that was just released, and I believe will be used in the upcoming Dell 13" Studio XPS refresh coming soon. The lack of drives used to be a very real issue for Apple (prior to this year), but it no longer is.

im not so sure that your correct. if apple had placed these orders as you say, then wouldnt they be in the computers now?

i dont think i understand enough about the ordering systems/happenings of it all to debate it though.

I can't say too much about the issue, but the reason Apple didn't end up including Blu-ray with this release has NOTHING to do with drive availability. There's a lot of corporate politics going on behind the scenes, and the main issue is with Jobs wanting (read: demanding) that ALL studios start including iPhone/iPod compatible copies of their movies on Blu-ray titles... which means licensing (and paying for) Apple's DRM implementation. Most studios have done as he requested (though on a limited number of titles) but some are very reluctant to start paying Apple for rights to DRM they really don't care to use, as they're internal studies have shown customers aren't willing to pay extra for digital copies of the movies they buy. The "digital copy" idea is VERY crucial to Apple, but studios are still fairly lukewarm to the concept. So, I suppose, "complex licensing" wasn't exactly lying... it's just not at all the whole story. It's not that Blu-ray's licensing is too complicated, it's that Jobs' demands are MAKING the negotiations complicated.

no opinion...

Personally, I don't like the idea of paying $2k for a machine that can't do things that a $900 PC notebook can easily do. I have over 200 BDs, have no interest in iTunes movie store, and have no interest at all in wasting my time "ripping" those titles, and definitely no interest in "re-encoding" those titles. When I travel (which is very frequently) I want to be able to grab a couple dozen titles off the shelf, throw them in the case, and go. No other solution accomplishes that goal... and none are going to anytime soon. I don't claim to be the "average consumer," nor do I have any desire to be.

if you feel happy going and buying a $900 asus/dell/HP laptop, good luck. but dont come crying back when it stops working after 6 months because the registry is so bogged with crap, it bluscreens every time you try to turn it on and when something breaks the so called help desk does nothing. oh not to mention that you will most certainly be running vista.. so goodluck with that :).

Apple has never geared itself toward "average consumers" anyway -- they've always gone after pro-sumers, graphics artists, and video professionals. Yet they don't have Blu-ray, they don't have matte screens, and they don't even have enough ports on alleged "pro" models do get actual work done. Who exactly do they think their customers are? If they think they can continue being successful just releasing refreshes and getting fanbois (apologizes to those here who fit that description) to keep buying new "toys" then, I'm sorry, but their current success doesn't look likely to continue all that much longer -- particularly in the current economy.

Anyway, just my $.02.

adding a bluray reader would hardly be an upgrade for a "pro" user, it would only be an upgrade for...well...people like you. and from the sounds of it you are hardly a pro user. adding a bluray writer would be one tiny (tiny tiny) step closer to this, at such a small size (9.5mm) the technology would only allow 1x or 2x write speeds, hardly efficient for pro users. i am sure that they would ideally do work away (whatever that may be) on their laptop, save it on their large HD, and take it home to their new 16x LG bluray writer! that would be much more efficient for a pro user.

ccuk

Oct 17, 2008, 05:34 AM

<SNIP>

adding a bluray reader would hardly be an upgrade for a "pro" user, it would only be an upgrade for...well...people like you. and from the sounds of it you are hardly a pro user. adding a bluray writer would be one tiny (tiny tiny) step closer to this, at such a small size (9.5mm) the technology would only allow 1x or 2x write speeds, hardly efficient for pro users. i am sure that they would ideally do work away (whatever that may be) on their laptop, save it on their large HD, and take it home to their new 16x LG bluray writer! that would be much more efficient for a pro user.

I have to say that as a Pro user myself Blu-Ray is quite essential in a laptop. It isn't all about just being able to create content on that medium, it is also about being able to view Blu-Ray material away from your chunky huge desktop. If you go to see a client, it makes it a lot easier.

Just my take on it though.

DoFoT9

Oct 17, 2008, 05:37 AM

I have to say that as a Pro user myself Blu-Ray is quite essential in a laptop. It isn't all about just being able to create content on that medium, it is also about being able to view Blu-Ray material away from your chunky huge desktop. If you go to see a client, it makes it a lot easier.

Just my take on it though.

thats a fair enough claim. good point, i didnt really address nor think about that issue.

i daresay there would be a TON of prosumers that want a writable BR burner as well though, and at the current technologies and speeds that just wouldnt be very feasible.

ccuk

Oct 17, 2008, 12:11 PM

thats a fair enough claim. good point, i didnt really address nor think about that issue.

i daresay there would be a TON of prosumers that want a writable BR burner as well though, and at the current technologies and speeds that just wouldnt be very feasible.

Yes, I would like a burnable Blu-Ray drive on the Macbook Pro as a BTO. More for a backup than anything else. But certainly a combo drive which has the abilities to burn DVDs and read Blu-Ray seemed like a logical step to me for the Pro end laptop, obviously not for Apple.

The whole proprietary "mini" Display Port connector and lack of Blu-Ray are forcing me to look elsewhere for a laptop. :(

DoFoT9

Oct 17, 2008, 06:09 PM

Yes, I would like a burnable Blu-Ray drive on the Macbook Pro as a BTO. More for a backup than anything else. But certainly a combo drive which has the abilities to burn DVDs and read Blu-Ray seemed like a logical step to me for the Pro end laptop, obviously not for Apple.

The whole proprietary "mini" Display Port connector and lack of Blu-Ray are forcing me to look elsewhere for a laptop. :(

don't get me wrong or anything, i would love to see the burnable bluray drive inside of the MBP as BTO, but for the price and lack of speed in the drive it would hardly be worth it. for just a 2x burnable drive, (probably not even RW capable) you are looking at $700 at least, from apple anyway, we all know what they are like. that drive would take way to long.

according to wiki...

For Blu-ray disks, 1x speed is defined as 36 megabits per second (Mbit/s), which is equal to 4.5 megabytes per second (MB/s).[4] However, as the minimum required data transfer rate for Blu-ray movie disks is 54 Mbit/s, the minimum writing speed for Blu-ray writers should be 2X.

if you are burning a full 50gb DL bluray disc, that is going to take around 5hours to burn. unless you are fine leaving it on overnight, there wont be much time in the day to just let it go. for backup purposes only wouldnt it be much easier (and cheaper) to have a nice big external HD to backup to while you are away on trips etcetc?

i donno thats just how im thinking..