Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Blu-ray Licensing to Get Easier and Cheaper

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,441
30,644


AlleyInsider speculates that licensing changes to Blu-Ray could pave the way to Mac support for the High Definition drives.
A new licence will be established by mid-2009 as a "one-stop shop" for device makers. The licence will include all necessary Blu-ray, DVD and CD patents for selling Blu-ray players. The licensing programme will be handled by a new licensing company to be led by Gerald Rosenthal, former head of intellectual property at IBM. It will be based in the US, but will have local branches in Asia, Europe and Latin America.
Click to expand...
The new streamlined process will reportedly cut the total cost of royalty payments by 40 percent. Apple's Steve Jobs specifically cited complicated licensing issues as one of the hurdles to adopting Blu-Ray in Apple's own computers.

Of interest, Apple's recent inclusion of HDCP copy protection in their newest laptops could also help pave the way for support of the HD disc format.

Article Link: Blu-ray Licensing to Get Easier and Cheaper
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2009/02/27/blu-ray-licensing-to-get-easier-and-cheaper/
themoonisdown09

themoonisdown09

macrumors 601
Nov 19, 2007
4,319
18
Georgia, USA
I'm starting to care about having a Blu Ray drive in my Mac now because I finally got an HDTV a month ago. Now that I'm buying my movies on Blu Ray instead of DVD, I have no way of ripping them to my iPod.
 
5

50548

Guest
Apr 17, 2005
5,039
2
Currently in Switzerland
Blu-Ray is a borndead standard and this move just proves it. They are desperate to sell DRM-ridden discs to people that could not care less about a marginal increase in image quality.
 
kastenbrust

kastenbrust

macrumors 68030
Dec 26, 2008
2,890
0
North Korea
The only useful use for blu-ray is for data backup, and macs can do that already using an external blu-ray drive or one of these which you can build into your Macbook Pro:
http://store.fastmac.com/product_info.php?products_id=338

ok so we cant watch blu-ray movies, but id rather buy them in the iTunes store anyway. I think Apples trying to move away from disc media as it goes away from their whole iPod digital media philosophy.

To be honest there isn't much point watching blu-ray on a screen smaller than 30 inches anyway.
 
C

champ01

Guest
kastenbrust said:
The only useful use for blu-ray is for data backup, and macs can do that already, ok so we cant watch movies, but id rather buy them in the iTunes store anyway. I think Apples trying to move away from disc media as it goes away from their whole iPod digital media philosophy.
Click to expand...

not only movies how about programs

I have Logic Studio and Final Cut Studio and both are 8 dvd's

and you don't mention one word about gaming..

because games and movies are gonna be sold on one blu ray
 
P

PlaceofDis

macrumors Core
Jan 6, 2004
19,241
6
next excuse: the drives aren't slim enough in the slot loading variety or something along those lines.

i don't really care either way personally. but its about time for the data retention purposes at least.
 
guzhogi

guzhogi

macrumors 68040
Aug 31, 2003
3,733
1,824
Wherever my feet take me…
Sounds good. While I know Apple probably won't do this any time soon since it would cut into its iTunes sales, I hope they eventually put Blu-Ray drives in their computers. Blu-Ray movies (as well as DVDs) have special features (and are of a higher resolution) than the movies you can get from iTunes. That's one thing I don't like about the iTunes store (although, I can see how downloading a 1080p movie + special features would take a long time).

Ragardless of movies, Blu-Ray discs can be a good backup measure/data storage device since it holds so much more than DVDs.
 
E

Evan_11

macrumors regular
Feb 21, 2004
168
0
For all those saying that Blu-ray is not needed please let it go. You're probably not interested in the extra storage capabilities nor are interested in a authoring HD media.
 
0

081440

macrumors regular
Mar 14, 2006
161
33
New Jersey
champ01 said:
not only movies how about programs

I have Logic Studio and Final Cut Studio and both are 8 dvd's

and you don't mention one word about gaming..

because games and movies are gonna be sold on one blu ray
Click to expand...


I agree! FCP installs are intense, not only for the computer but all that CD swapping and little paper envelope stuffing.

I never watch movies or the like on my Mac. But wouldn't mind the option... Apple will wait though... we know this.
 
4np

4np

macrumors 6502a
Feb 23, 2005
972
2
The Netherlands
Finally, I hope this may result in a new MacBook Pro in July with a Blu-Ray player/writer on board... The 50Gb backup possibilities are very interesting. I always photograph on RAW format, and I'd like to keep everything I shoot so a lot of storage on a single disc would be perfect :)
 
Jetson

Jetson

macrumors 6502a
Oct 5, 2003
596
50
I wish that HD-DVD had won the contest. Blu-ray may be a better technology, but none of the studios are actually using all that extra storage space. Blu-ray movies are bare bones. Few movies have alternate endings, profanity-free audio tracks, or any of the other carrots that Blu-ray promoters used to dangle.

HD-DVD didn't have the greed driven, annoying region coding that Blu-ray does. Certain movies have been available for years on Blu-ray overseas (Britain, France, Germany) but not in the U.S.A. We can't use those disks here in the U.S. because they are coded region 2.
 
J

jcb10

macrumors regular
May 14, 2008
132
21
kastenbrust said:
To be honest there isn't much point watching blu-ray on a screen smaller than 30 inches anyway.
Click to expand...

While that point is very much true, I'd have to agree with the earlier poster who was frustrated that he just bought a HDTV and all of his purchases are now on Blu-Ray, but now he can't put them on his Mac.

We shouldn't have to buy movies twice -- we don't have to buy songs on both CD and through iTunes, do we?
 
P

Pnut13

macrumors member
Feb 9, 2009
58
0
Some people actually prefer owning a physical copy of a movie, and if w3e want the "slightly better" image capibility of BR disks, us as apple owners should have the right to burn BR disks on our macs....without having to run bootcamp and burn BR on Windows. Sometimes people like to save things on more than a (external) hard drive.
No matter how much apple wants us to download, there are some people like me that want more than one option!
 
B

BJWanlund

macrumors regular
Jul 23, 2008
113
0
There's also an environmental impact if Apple puts Blu-Ray drives in their computers: Blu-ray movies use less plastic for its packaging and its actual media. Less plastic = lower carbon footprint.

BJ
 
kastenbrust

kastenbrust

macrumors 68030
Dec 26, 2008
2,890
0
North Korea
jcb10 said:
While that point is very much true, I'd have to agree with the earlier poster who was frustrated that he just bought a HDTV and all of his purchases are now on Blu-Ray, but now he can't put them on his Mac.

We shouldn't have to buy movies twice -- we don't have to buy songs on both CD and through iTunes, do we?
Click to expand...

I totally didn't think about that, but yeah thats right, not something that occurred to me before.

I do think with constantly increasing internet speeds (by 2020 the average speed will be 32MB) then people will be able to download blu-ray movies from the itunes store in about 15 mins and we wont bother with solid media. We will download it on our Macbooks, and then wirelessly stream it to the Apple TV connected to our 40" High Def TV's.

champ01 said:
because games and movies are gonna be sold on one blu ray
Click to expand...

Not with 32MB broadband, people will just download them legally from the iTunes store or Steam. Downloading and streaming are the future :)
 
pkoch1

pkoch1

macrumors 6502a
Oct 3, 2007
527
0
Boston
kastenbrust said:
The only useful use for blu-ray is for data backup, and macs can do that already using an external blu-ray drive or one of these which you can build into your Macbook Pro:
http://store.fastmac.com/product_info.php?products_id=338

ok so we cant watch blu-ray movies, but id rather buy them in the iTunes store anyway. I think Apples trying to move away from disc media as it goes away from their whole iPod digital media philosophy.

To be honest there isn't much point watching blu-ray on a screen smaller than 30 inches anyway.
Click to expand...

I've said this before, and so have others but it still needs to be said:

Compatibility.

I don't want to have to buy a Blu-Ray disk for my TV and a DVD for my iPhone/computer/appleTV
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom