I linked to and quoted from an excellent article that explains why Apple is not including BD. The point about BD not having achieved critical mass was taken from the article, but not quoted. It's really just a statement of fact. There aren't very many BD users, certainly not enough to justify the ridiculous cost of inclusion for Apple.
There aren't very many BD users? Like I said, earlier this year, blu-ray had 8% market share. Double that of DVD at the same point in its life. That translates into millions of people owning and watching blu-ray.
Again, when DVD was between 2.5 and 3 years old it only had 4% market share.
Do some googling. You'll find some interesting stats. For instance, The Matrix was the first DVD to pass 1 million sold. In its first week it sold 780k units. The Dark Knight sold 1.7M on blu-ray in the first week.
http://news.therecord.com/printArticle/469824 Theres a good article. 2.5 years after blu-ray launched, 10.7 million blu-ray players in the US. 3 years after DVD launched 5.4 million.
And what "ridiculous" cost for blu-ray licensing are we talking about? To get a DVD CCA licensing is $15,000 per category. Thats more than multiple blu-ray category licenses.
On top of that, Steve Jobs is quoted as saying "probably not" to future inclusion
Well, then Apple's market share will begin to reverse. Sales show that people want blu-ray. If Apple doesn't give people what they want then Apple computers will not sell.
I know BD users don't like the idea, but it is very likely that BD is going to be leap frogged by downloadable content in the future. It just makes so much more sense to move away from optical discs.
Hah! Downloadable content will leap frog blu-ray? In what universe?
First and most importantly is the issue of quality. Right now, iTunes "HD" is 720p video encoded at about 4.5Mbps with a 384Kbps Dolby Digital track tacked on. In most cases, iTunes HD video can't even compete with a good upscaling DVD player due to the very obvious compression artifacting. Higher resolution downloads on Xbox Live! Marketplace tend to only be about twice that bit-rate with no 5.1 audio.
Blu-ray video is encoded using the same H.264 and VC-1 codecs found in those products, but at bit-rates up to 45Mbps. On top of that, nearly all (but not all) audio tracks are lossless or uncompressed entirely.
The second issue is bandwidth. The average US connection is only about 5Mbps. So even if you cut the quality down dramatically to around 8-10Mbps, you're still looking at download times that are nearly double in length than the actual movie is. Who is going to wait 4 hours for a 2 hour movie to download when they walk or drive to a video store thats just a couple of minutes away and get the blu-ray disc? I live in an area with FiOS and 20Mbps cable, and even with those higher end services, it still takes longer to download the movie than it would for me to WALK to the video store a mile and a half away and pick up the blu-ray disc. Plus I'm still not getting anywhere near the quality of blu-ray with any downloadable service.
Another issue is capping. Outside of a small handful of countries, bandwidth capping is a pretty normal thing throughout the world. You're not going to find people who are going to download a movie and push that cap or pay overages when they could just get a higher quality disc instead.
So to make this short, you have 3 issues. First is actual quality. Why should people take a step back in quality? Any HDTV will show the visual difference, and even a $500 home theater in a box is enough to let people hear the difference between a sub-DVD quality audio track (iTunes HD) and lossless/uncompressed blu-ray audio. The second issue is actual bandwidth. Not everyone lives in Japan or South Korea, so the vast majority of the world will be waiting several times longer than the move is just to download it, and it won't even be close to blu-ray quality. Third issue is capping. Many countries have this as a regular practice (Australia being the largest first world country to have it as a regular practice), while ISPs in the US and EU would LOVE to institute capping with huge overage fees.
Theres also one more extremely important issue. Downloadable content has absolutely insane DRM. I can only watch it on my computer or a very specific device. In the case of iTunes, I can only watch it on an Apple TV or my computer. In the case of game console movie downloads, I can only watch it on that ONE console. I can't transfer it. With blu-ray, I buy the movie and I can watch it on ANY blu-ray capable device. That means I can go get some low-ball Walmart brand blu-ray player, or throw a blu-ray drive in my PC, or use a game console, or just about anything. Blu-ray gives people the same flexibility they have gotten used to with VHS and DVD. Downloads are locked down to the extreme and you can't do anything with them.
Because I watch Blu-Ray how it's meant to be viewed, on a large screen TV and Blu-Ray player
Blu-ray is meant to be watched wherever it can be watched. There are some people who only own computers but would like to watch blu-ray discs, especially since most PC displays are higher quality than any HDTV. Theres also people who travel a lot and would like to take blu-ray with them and watch them on their notebooks. Yes, the difference between DVD and blu-ray is still night and day on even a MacBook display.
