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How soon will Blu Ray drives be available for Mac Mini?
- Thread starter maddnomad
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To play under OSx, you need changes in the kernel - blu-ray requires that some of the decoding be done in ring 0 to prevent illegal copying. Unfortunately, adding code in ring 0 can destabilize the system - a crash there is very bad news.
Im about to watch a blu-ray. Role models! I just have to boot into Vista, click on powerdvd and sit back and relax! If you really want BD get an external drive. I bought an internal sony Optrica, off ebay and it fits in my mini nicely! 
One day macs will support all forms of blu-ray. Otherwise they will put alot of normal, computer purchasers off , switchers and professionals.
If sony can now have a blu-ray add on for £35, then surely the prices have fallen enough. They just need to get their act together and support playback. F**k downloads ! They are S**T!
One day macs will support all forms of blu-ray. Otherwise they will put alot of normal, computer purchasers off , switchers and professionals.If sony can now have a blu-ray add on for £35, then surely the prices have fallen enough. They just need to get their act together and support playback. F**k downloads ! They are S**T!
You can buy one now. Just get a slot-load, internal Blu-ray drive and put it in.
Note: you can't watch movies in OS X at all, and to do so in Windows, you need to buy AnyDVD HD because your hardware does not support playing Blu-ray.
Note: you can't watch movies in OS X at all, and to do so in Windows, you need to buy AnyDVD HD because your hardware does not support playing Blu-ray.
Sometime after the Mac Pro? Probably when the new 30" display comes out but before the Powerbook G5. Basically no one knows, most would have said yesterday...
I'm not saying you're wrong, but can you provide any more info on this?
a.) how exactly would decoding in ring 0 be any more secure? You still have to spit the results back out to userland where they can be easily captured. Theres several tools in the windows domain that do this.
b.) Bluray works fine on Win XP which does not have any native "bluray" code built into the kernel.
Right now, the consensus of opinion about what Apple will do disagrees with you on this. While Macs may support Blu-Ray eventually, it is far from a certainty. In addition, the supremacy of Blu-Ray is not a foregone conclusion.
As far as the 'normal' computer purchaser, I don't think Blu-Ray is a deal breaker. While I would take it if it was on my MBP, I certainly would not buy a Windows machine instead just to get it. To me Blu-Ray is a non-issue. I understand it is for others... but for those others to claim it is an absolute necessity is ludicrous in my opinion. One person's wants/needs ≠ all person's wants/needs. I may watch a movie on my MBP occasionally, but it is not primarily a movie machine for me, and I don't need Blu-Ray to do the other things I do.
Woof, Woof - Dawg
Amen to that. I wouldn't really care if a MBP or iMac had blu-ray. If I wanted to watch blu-ray I'd get a stand-alone player and use it on a big screen TV.
It and the lack of a quad core CPU is all thats stopping me from going out and buying the top-end imac right now.
Welcome to Apple world. Apple doesn't care about peoples opinions or what they would like to have.
IIRC if you run in ring 0 you can't be interrupted, so a monitoring program couldn't break the code. While I worked for many years in operating system kernels, I don't know how they want it implemented in osx. I read it a few months ago, but don't remember where.
Win XP supports HDCP, which is really what it's all about. It would be interesting to look up how it actually works. I remember reading about the osx part because I know how smart programmers don't like to put unnecessary code in ring 0. For one thing, if something goes wrong in ring 0 you can bring down the whole machine in a messy crash, with hard disks melting down, the monitor displaying a large middle finger, and the audio screaming in pain. well, maybe not that bad.
Ring 0 is not a fun place to add code; it's a pain to debug.
I could have misread something also. Maybe i'll do some searching.
Exactly. Funny thing is - I have a few computers and I don't know when the last time I used a drive was. It is all online or I use my SanDisk usb drive.
Your time calculation is way off with FIOS and U-verse already being deployed. Then there's the streaming HD boxes . . . so it won't be long (certainly in less time than the life cycle of a disc format) before we're all living in Ren & Stimpy's House of next Tuesday
