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Apple in Talks with Sony about Blu-ray Drives

bytethese said:
AppleTV with a Bluray drive. Now that's one HELL of a great idea. :)
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Yeah.. I, um, thought that for a second too. Then I realized that the :apple:tv would likely melt any blu-ray disc that was unfortunate enough to come near it. Best to put it in the mac mini with an HDMI out, and offer HD movies on iTunes not limited to the :apple:tv.

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

And also what the heck is with this "war" that was "raging" between HD and blu ray? Sounds like a bunch of geeks with nothing better to do but to argue over a disc format (but thats mostly the kind of people you run into on here). Insults being thrown back and fourth on message boards about it, amazing.
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My position is I don't want the movie studios to get the DIVX idea up and running. The thing that is scary is the digital downloads of movies will basically allow the studio's to reach the DIVX idea and it is looking like a lot of people here are happy with that.
 
MarsUltor said:
I think all of you Bluray naysayers should realize, at the moment, that the majority of the computer using public either has a dial-up connection, or a slow connection, making downloading huge movie file impractical. Sure this can and will change in the (near) future, but it is not there yet for the masses. I don't want to have to buy new hard drives every time I fill one up with movies; it seems like a ridiculous proposition. And if i am storing everything only, where is the security? There is no network on this planet that is hacker proof/safe, while the CD/DVD/BD in it's case is relatively safe, be it from computer intruders, as well as, magnetism and other destructive forces. Why would I want to waste 50 gigs of hard drive space, when i can put it all on a disc and throw it into my desk, especially when hard drive space is more expensive than plastic media?

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

Sorry for the wall of text (I could probably go on for hours here), but I feel that some of the ignorance (no offense), and short-sightedness of some of these folks is a little ridiculous; it's like saying I need a heart transplant now or I'll die, but I might as well wait until the technology is better (not that extreme, but I hope you get the point). Also, I would like to pose a question to the naysayers: How could the integration of new technology be a bad thing for Apple?
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First, anyone who BR is aimed at more often than not already has cable. If they have cable, then they most likely already have VOD. For my non-techie friends the quality they get from VOD or downloading to their xbox/AppleTV/whatever device is 'good enough'.

BR is a fine technology, but people have already started the switch to not using disks of any type. I think that for most people the quality of BR will not sway them back to having to either wait to watch a movie or go somewhere to get it.
 
diamond.g said:
My position is I don't want the movie studios to get the DIVX idea up and running. The thing that is scary is the digital downloads of movies will basically allow the studio's to reach the DIVX idea and it is looking like a lot of people here are happy with that.
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What is scary? There is no conclusion to your point of "scary" in your sentence.
What are people happy with?


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

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

Still prefer to have the physical disc as backup. Don't have enough faith to lose them just yet.
 
Schmoe0013 said:
What is scary? There is no conclusion to your point of "scary" in your sentence.
What are people happy with?
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The idea that physical media is going away. It will become a digital version of DIVX (the original one that I linked to). It is, more or less, same idea that lost due to the Internet the first time around, more or less sounds like it will win in the end. That was suppoed to be my conclusion. Sorry if that was unclear.


See this Penny Arcade comic for a funny comment on the situation.
 
Schmoe0013 said:
Sony does not own Blu-Ray.
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Yes, but they manufacture Blu-Ray drives and played a huge role in the production of the technology. Hence why Apple would contact them about getting a slot-loading Blu-Ray drive developed, yes?
 
takeabyteoutta said:
What you need is a blu-ray player, such as a PS3, not a blu-ray player in your mac.
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Actually, BR in the Mac is quickly becoming a necessity.

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

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

And that doesn't even get into the vast number of people who would never download a movie because they just don't have the skills. I know a number of people who still can't even forward an email.
 
Kilamite said:
Yes, but they manufacture Blu-Ray drives and played a huge role in the production of the technology. Hence why Apple would contact them about getting a slot-loading Blu-Ray drive developed, yes?
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It was a general statement about Sony and Blu-ray. There are confusing posts, or rather posts that imply Sony is the end-all-be-all when it comes to Blu-ray decisions on format and advancements. As you can see, I did not reference the communication with Apple and Sony in my one sentence.

Simple fact is Sony licenses Blu-ray from the Blu-ray Association and (to address the topic of the post) Apple in in talks with them because, I would imagine, Sony would be most willing(perhaps?) to manufacture custom hardware that Apple demands in their products.
 
Konstanty said:
Same here. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that any BR superdrives could be retrofitted to existing MBPs.
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There is a way, but it would be expensive. As of now, even the reader is $250 and the reader writer for BR is $500+ Getting a drive that can read and write all forms of optical media is pushing around $800 or more. But that was a few months ago the last time I checked.... so I could be wrong.

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

And would it be a SuperDuperDrive?
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Same here. There really isn't much of a need for myself unless there is an HDMI port on my next MBP and every hotel I go to has an HDTV in it.... if they don't it's really a rather useless expense to outfit my portable with BR and other HD equipment.
 
I just want HD disk burning in iDVD, ideally by this summer when I plan to get a HD camcorder. I don't need bluray burning, just the ability to burn HD movies to DL DVD (my holiday movies are generally around 30mins long, so a DL DVD should be fine).
 
luminosity said:
Ultimately, I think blu-ray is an updated version of the last horse-drawn carriage. Optical drives aren't going to last forever, and I think they'll start getting phased out en masse within a few years (whereas DVDs have been around almost a decade now).
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Exactly. Its already begun with the MBA. Even if Blu-ray makes it into Macs, it probably won't be seen as even an option in MB's, iMacs, and mini's. It will be at least an option at first in Mac Pro's with it eventually becoming standard. I can't see Apple excluding their professional consumer segment that has been asking for this for a while now. The MBP is the only gray area for me. I think we may see a Blu-ray reader, but not a writer in it. The hardware constraints of a laptop would make it rather difficult to burn a Blu-ray disk.
 
hvfsl said:
I just want HD disk burning in iDVD, ideally by this summer when I plan to get a HD camcorder. I don't need bluray burning, just the ability to burn HD movies to DL DVD (my holiday movies are generally around 30mins long, so a DL DVD should be fine).
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You lost that ability when HD DVD died. From my understanding BR doesn't support burning HD movies to DVD-9 only BD-9.


EDIT: Nevermind. You can use DVD9 and DVD5 with red laser to burn BD movies.
 
We're at least ten years away from a physical media free world. At least. The MBA is a crippled computer because of it's lack of one: Want to watch/rip a DVD? CD? Install software? Burn a disc for a friend?

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

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

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

HD-DVD sucks... I'm for Blueray
 
Blu-ray is not just for pre-recorded movies, games or data backup

A lot of people are missing a point. Apple is going to include blu-ray burners in their computers because the competition is doing it already. Dell, HP, Acer and of course Sony are all offering this as an option. It is the missing link in the HD chain. People are buying HD TVs, HD camcorders and many are capable of editing in HD. What do you do if you want to distribute your home made video to relatives and friends?. What about those Event and Wedding Videographers whose clients are willing to pay a premium in order to be able to enjoy their video memories in full HD quality?. My guess is that Apple is going to offer BR as a built to order option in the Mac Pro and Macbook Pro at least, and they are going to do it once DVD Studio Pro and iDVD become blu-ray compatible. That way people who need it now can have it and those who don't care or think is to expensive wont be forced.
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

I was wondering when Apple was going to get the ball rolling on getting Blu-ray into computers since HD DVD has surrendered. Maybe we will see drives in desktops come WWDC. Here's to hoping.
 
Hooka said:
how long does it take to burn one of these disc?
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Forever..... it's at about 1x or 2x. It's going to get faster, but for right now it's agonizingly slow.

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

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

In ten years, when the internet is lightning fast and storage is dirt cheap, I can see optical media being redundant. But not any time soon.
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I agree, but I would say more like 5 years or less. The with "N" and WiMax/EVDO/4G (things AT&T aren't doing) the internet is becoming much faster. Not fast enough to download an HD movie in a mater of minutes, but fast enough to know that we will be doing that in 5 years or so.

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

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

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