Got a tip for us?
Let us know
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
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Please don't use personal insults on this forum. It's against the forum rules.
"It will be DECADES before physical media is fully replaced by digital downloads."
Just like it took DECADES for CD's to replace Floppy Disks when Apple decided to get rid of Floppy Drives in their machines...
Some people are just so scared of change its unbelievable...
CD-ROM drives had already been in computers for how long by that time? Not to mention the fact that external Zip drives were available at that time, as well as CD-RW drives.
People aren't scared of change. It's just the fact that downloadable content at this time and for the foreseeable future does NOT match the quality of optical disc content. Again, Apple TV HD video is encoded at roughly 4.5Mbps H.264 video with a resolution of 720p, and AC-3 (Dolby Digital) audio encoded at a bitrate that is typically lower than whats found on DVD. Blu-ray uses H.264 encoding up to 45Mbps with a resolution of 1080p, and the audio is either uncompressed multi-channel PCM or the same audio using lossless encoding in the form of Dolby TrueHD or DTS Master HD. Thanks to that, you actually get BETTER audio from Blu-Ray than you do in movie theaters.
And like I said before, Apple TV's HD content is plagued with compression artifacting thanks to the low bitrate. Despite the higher native resolution compared to DVD, an upscaled DVD on a good upscaler like a high quality blu-ray player or an Oppo DVD player will look better than Apple TV HD thanks to the lack of compression artifacting and it will sound better too thanks to the higher bitrate audio as well as the option for higher quality audio formats, like uncompressed PCM (stereo only, good for concert/music discs) and DTS.
And finally, other things still hinder downloads. The even more restrictive DRM compared to blu-ray. If I get a movie from iTunes and don't have an Apple TV, I'm stuck with lower than DVD quality video, MUCH lower than DVD quality audio, and it takes a MESS of cables and adapters to connect my Mac to my HDTV. Plus, thanks to the DRM, I can't burn that movie to a disc and play it anywhere. I'm stuck with it on the computer, iPod, or iPhone. I'm certainly not going to connect my iPhone to my HDTV, my 80GB 5.5G iPod can't play movie rentals thanks to Apple's policy of not updating software features. That leaves only my 8GB 3G iPod nano that can play movie rentals on my HDTV. But guess what? I have to buy a $50 component cable made by Apple to do it! So not only do I have to wait a somewhat long time to download the film, I have to transfer it to my iPod and buy a ridiculously expensive cable set. When I do that I don't get any surround sound, other than old VHS style Pro-Logic surround sound, and I don't have any control with my Harmony remote. If I want to connect the MacBook I need a boatload of cables and adapters. And even if Apple rented/sold HD movies on iTunes, the SPDIF standard still can't handle the new HD audio formats so I'm still stuck with sub-DVD quality audio on picture that is only comparable to upscaled DVD and leagues behind blu-ray.
Just like it took DECADES for CD's to replace Floppy Disks when Apple decided to get rid of Floppy Drives in their machines...
Some people are just so scared of change its unbelievable...
No, not like that at all. Comparing going from one physical medium to another is not the same as going from physical media to purely digital 'virtual' distribution. Putting CDs or Floppy Discs in a box then makes them pretty identical in terms of how they are delivered, and the CD is, in most respects, superior to the floppy disk. Apple helped aid the decline of floppy disks, sure, but it didn't kill them on its own. And the relevant analogy here would be Blu-ray replacing DVD drives anyway.
Going from music CDs to music downloads has worked so far as it has because it's something even people on dial-up can do, to a point. But without huge investment in the internet in a very short space of time, it's just not credible in my view to say that Blu-ray doesn't have the time to have a perfectly nice life as a major format.
And I don't think anyone here is indicating they are scared of change, rather we are all simply pointing out the reality of the situation now as we see it, and then differing on what we think is going to happen in the next few years - decades. I think in ten years' time we'll still have Blu-ray around, and digital downloads will have taken off a lot more, but possibly not even as the majority format. In the next two or three years, Blu-ray will make solid gains, especially when stuff like Lord of the Rings and Star Wars hits the format.
Please don't use personal insults on this forum. It's against the forum rules.
"It will be DECADES before physical media is fully replaced by digital downloads."
Just like it took DECADES for CD's to replace Floppy Disks when Apple decided to get rid of Floppy Drives in their machines...
Some people are just so scared of change its unbelievable...
Exactly! people are scared of buying Blu Ray! Its better picture, more storage! If you didn't know what Blu Ray was then I'm guessing you didn't have a computer to do your research AND/OR didn't get out of the house much.
It's very off-topic. There is no hinting as to Blu-ray or anything related to Blu-ray.
Blueray
Yeah, sorry, I just got excited and thought I would let folks know about breaking news.
It's very off-topic. There is no hinting as to Blu-ray or anything related to Blu-ray.
Yeah, sorry, I just got excited and thought I would let folks know about breaking news
.
I don't need blu-ray because I've got broadband internet connection
How long does it take you to download a movie? Does your Internet provider have caps/overage on usage? And if you want to archive that movie or share it w/ someone, how does that go? And that's only in the movie sense. If you want to back up data, what do you do?
I hate to be pointlessly picky (not really...), especially to someone that's made lots of good arguments on this thread, but blu-ray isn't always full bitrate h264 (if only the hd-dvd crew had done what sony did...) - there's tonnes of releases in mpeg2. (I'm not comparing any streamed service to optical obviously)
It still looks good, but seems pointless as these discs have such strict formats - simply, why bother with mpeg2 when there's h264 and vc1? Judging by lots of releases on hd discs, and tonnes of old dvds, I don't think the media companies really know/care what they're doing. A video is only as good as the packaged product, and the source/encoding/format/bitrate/etc all play a part. It's a shame with the current tech that there's still poor releases, and multiple revisions/editions - do the job properly first time please.
The majority of discs look good, but previous experience always makes you wonder if they could have done better. Still using regions, phone-home, and high a/v bit-rates as drm doesn't make me a motivated consumer of these (pointlessly expensive) discs.
Mentioning the sound on an apple forum is a bit silly - dolby digital passthrough is an art on their new machines (excl atv), let alone the software/hardware required for hd audio!
You make me LOL.. Just because the speed goes up does not mean the cap will to... Internet speed is to download large files faster but you are still download the same file you where at a slower speed.. Bandwidth is based on how much you download not how fast.. Download 1 GB on a 10MB is the same as downloading 1 Gb on 50MB.. You still downloading that 1 GB but the only difference is one does it faster then the other but yet both are using up the same bandwidth.. Do not assume nothing intel it happens as for now there is a cap on bandwidth...
It not just Comcast is doing in the USA and just because it has not happen yet does not mean it will not.. Optic broadband is not as big as Cable broadband is right now and when it does take over Cable then you meant see a change to putting caps on it too or plain on paying way more for it if there is no cap..
I am with you... if Apple doesn't start offering Blu-Ray in the new line of desktops that come out. I think it is hard time for Apple consumers interested in Blu-Ray to revolt.
it would be time to launch a website, Petition and boycott.
Doesn't really help your argument. Bluray and other physical media will be around for a while regardless of what you think.
No, it is simply alot of people don't see the value in spending more to get blue ray content when they are quite happy with the standard dvd version, yes there is quite a difference, but not every needs or wants it. Overtime I expect to be more common and more in demand, but when the format you are traying to replace (DVD) has been pretty good since the start it makes it harder to replace.
As much as DVD saw a good jump in picture quality places like Blockbuster could only see benefits, no tape rewinding, no tapes getting messed up, so long as the dvd is handled properly it will last many times longer, it takes up less shelf space which all retailers like. etc etc. But for Blue Ray you only get the benefits of picture quality when you at least move up to a 720i screen, so if you want someone to buy a BR player or a PS3 then they also need to consider whether or not they are also going to have to replace their tv as well. The cost of the player/PS3 is "only" but there is also the cost of a replacement tv which is "only" another few hundred dollars etc etc.
I certainly don't see donwloadable content winning for quite some time, you need faster speeds and fewer bandwidth restrictions to really see things starting to kick off, also you really need to get high speed internet to more parts of the world as will be the case with the US, there are so many towns where to cost to provide the service exceeds the revenue stream for probably a decade or so such that TV + player + physical disc will be the only way to get HD content.
So is trolling...
If that were true, people like MosX would have been banned a LONG time ago.
You can't buy LPs at Best Buy. You fail admit you are wrong.
Every format will always retain a specially niche market in some capacity. We're talking about mainstream. CDs will be mainstream for a long while.
Not that I care very much, but I did see Metallica's new album on LP for sale at Best Buy the other day so what you say isn't exactly true either. Best Buy will sell anything they think they can make money from.
I like renting Apple 720P HD movies from my AppleTV. Despite the ramblings of trolls, it looks better than any HD on cable or satellite and that's therefore not too shabby at all. My projector is currently only 720P so 1080P would only be a marginal improvement on it anyway (in the form of less compression). The human brain is incapable of detecting certain threshold levels of sound differences and so most of the hype over Dolby True HD sound, etc. is just that...HYPE. They're trying to sell new features on ignorance.
OTOH, they have room to burn on the BD format. The same is not true for streaming downloads. But like most things, there are points of diminishing returns and just because one troll claims he won't settle for "less" than Blu-Ray, that surely doesn't speak for the MASSES of people (probably 90%+ of the world population) that are 100% OK with 128kbit rate MP3s. Do you seriously think those same peole are going to CARE ONE BIT if a future 1080P streaming Apple HD video format on the iTunes store isn't QUITE BD quality in terms of compression? No, they won't care. They will ALWAYS choose convenience over substance. Therefore, the idea that Apple cannot somehow compete with BD is pure nonsense. These are probably the same people that said MP3s couldn't compete with CDs because they are inferior (and they definitely are). It didn't matter. The buying public didn't embrace laserdisc and they were definitely a big step up from VHS (digital sound, 425 lines of quality resolution and a format that didn't degrade from playing it over and over, laser rot issues aside). So I don't find anything intelligent about such arguments as the reasoning simply doesn't apply to the masses and such people should know better. They can speak for themselves, but don't speak for others.
Even so, Apple is stupid to ignore Blu-Ray any longer. The licensing cost issue doesn't hold water (pass it on to the consumer who will gladly pay the extra $40 to get it or at least offer it as a build option). If nothing else, it's a great storgage medium for backing up things like iTunes libraries to keep off site. But like other areas, Apple is just plain falling behind the rest of the computer world. They used to be cutting edge in some areas, but now they are looking worse and worse in terms of value and features offered. The only thing they have going for them is OS X itself (minus some weak areas like gaming and Quicktime's limitations for multi-channel sound, etc. and the lack of standards in other areas) and they better pray that Windows 7 doesn't catch up in that area too.
Well, when blu-ray was first launched, Sony and Disney did use MPEG-2 in some of their releases. Sony's reasoning was that they were forced to the market before they were ready and not all of the tools they wanted to use were available.
But nearly every release since the beginning of 2007 and on has been H.264/VC-1.
Plus movie studios learned one lesson during the DVD days.. its that people actually BUY double dipped movies. They learned that a good amount of people will actually buy the movie at first, and then a second edition that has more extra features and such.
So you really can't blame the studios for doing it because the market has shown that people will go for it.
I don't like regions either, so I'll agree with you on that.
But I don't know what you mean by high bitrates as DRM?
And there is no phoning home either. It clearly states in the user manual of my Profile 2.0 player that an internet connection is completely optional. The entire unit is plug and play.
You just don't like the fact that I can, have, and will prove you wrong
Thats technically not possible. Cable is generally 1080i 20Mbps MPEG-2. DirecTV and Dish Network both run 1080i (or 720p if the station broadcasts as such) 15-20Mbps H.264. Verizon FiOS doesn't recompress the signal at all, and sends through a raw feed directly from the content provider. OTA is also not recompressed.
Huh? 720p = 921,600 pixels. 1080p = 2,073,600 pixels. Thats not marginal, thats more than double the resolution. Not only that but you're upgrading the bitrate from 4.5Mbps to, in some cases, well over 40Mbps.
Ah that made me laugh out loud. That is truly spoken like someone who does not have a good surround sound setup.
Let me break it down for you real quick. Apple TV HD generally uses Dolby Digital encoded at 384Kbps. That's 384Kbps for 5 channels and a subwoofer. And Dolby Digital has a variable bitrate that dedicates more bits to the more active channels. You're already talking about an average of 64Kbps per channel. But if something is going on in the center, with light activity in the front left and rights, your rears and subwoofer could get even less than 64kbps.
With Blu-Ray you get uncompressed PCM, 16-bit 48KHz, or losslessly compressed. That means you're getting the same raw uncompressed feed for audio that the engineers had when they mixed and cut the track.
And honestly, if you think the difference isn't that great, then you're just proving you don't have a blu-ray player OR a good audio setup. So far I've watched quite a few blu-rays that I also had DVD versions of, a couple of those with DTS audio tracks on the DVD.
Perfect example: The Dark Knight. Beginning of the movie when the Tumbler plows through the concrete wall and crushes those cars. On the blu-ray disc with the Dolby TrueHD track you can hear the concrete being torn apart and and feel it as well if you have a good subwoofer. You can hear every piece hit the ground and all of the metal and glass in the cars being bent or broken under the weight. On the DVD its just a loud and dull boom. Later in the movie when the Joker blows up the hospital. If you have a good subwoofer and good speaker and receiver setup, you hear every little detail and you feel it. It literally moved my couch, even though I was sitting on it. The DVD? Loud booms, all coming from the front.
Another good DVD and blu-ray comparison: U-571. The DTS track on the DVD is one of the better DVD audio tracks out there. But it has nothing on the DTS Master HD track on the blu-ray. On the DVD, during the various depth charging scenes, you can hear it all around you and the bass is reasonably good. But on the blu-ray you hear every little sound in the boats being blown apart, and the depth charges just ripping through the water. Plus the bass isn't boomy at all, it sounds as good as an explosion can on current technology.
Look at the Gone in 60 Second remake. Crap movie, but one hell of a demo disc. On the DVD, when Eleanor is fired up for the first time, it sounds good. The engine has a nice rumble. But the uncompressed PCM track on the blu-ray makes it sound like you're right there with the hood open listening to that engine being started.
I mean honestly, you're comparing 64kbps average audio per channel to uncompressed audio. The difference there will be noticeable on anything other than a Bose system or some $150 Walmart system.
Funny you say that because nobody ever sold 128Kbps MP3s. It's always been AAC or WMA, higher quality formats than MP3 at those low bitrates
And like I explained before, which you have chosen to ignore, people who are listening to music are generally doing so in their car, on their stock iPod earbuds, or some cheap boom box.
The difference between DVD (325,000 pixels) and blu-ray (2+million pixels) is a lot easier to spot on even a $400 Vizio set than the difference between CD quality and 128Kbps AAC on iPod earbuds.
Convenience? What convenience? It's a lot more convenient for the average person to go to their local grocery store and swipe their card on a Red Box unit or go to the local video store than it is to wait potentially hours to download a movie from iTunes or Apple TV.
And, again, what about the restrictions? If I don't have an Apple TV, I'm stuck with sub-DVD quality video. If its a rental I can't play it on my 80GB 5.5G iPod that cost more than $100 more than my blu-ray player did, just because Apple refuses to release a software update enabling the feature. I have to go through the hassle of hooking up my iPhone to my HDTV, which can only output 480i video when connected to a $50 component cable, or I have to hook up roughly $50 worth of cables and adapters to use my UniBody MacBook, plus I have to fight with OS X to properly disable the built-in display without sleeping the system and using an external keyboard and mouse.
First of all, basically saying downloadable video and audio are equal is just flat out stupid.
As I said, the average consumer is listening to music on devices, like iPod earbuds, car audio systems, Bose audio equipment, where the difference between 128kbps AAC and CD audio would next to impossible to hear. And, again, the VISUAL difference between 325,000 pixels, 900,000 pixels, and over 2,000,000 pixels is obvious to anyone with functioning eyes. Especially when you bring bitrates into the equation and you look at how iTunes HD video is plagued with compression artifacting.
And, again, lets look at the restrictions. This is what brings down your entire argument. Even in the DRM days, people could benefit from downloadable music. If I bought a song from iTunes, I didn't need an iPod to be able to play the song on my surround sound system, car, or anything. I did not need specific hardware to play that song on devices other than my computer. I could legally burn that song to CD and it would play on almost anything. It would play on anything from my PS2, to my car CD player, to a very old portable CD player that surprisingly still works. I could even legally rip that CD back to the computer in another format and play it on a different MP3 player.
So I say again, even in the DRM days, anyone with a CD burner could benefit from buying music online. They didn't need to own an iPod, or any type of special device connected to their audio systems. They could buy music to their hearts content and play it on ANYTHING.
But online video? Not at all. If I buy a video from iTunes I can only play it on the computer, a certain number of iPods or an iPhone, or an Apple TV. Unlike music, I can't burn it to a disc and play it on any hardware capable of playing a DVD Video or BD. If I want to play it on my HDTV I have to have an Apple TV. If I don't have one when I need 2 separate video adapters plus a video cable, as well as an audio adapter and audio cable to hook my MacBook up to my TV. You figure $30 for the mini-display port to DVI cable, then the DVI to HDMI adapter for about $10, then the HDMI cable itself for $10. Then you need the mini-TOSLink adapter, which can run about $10 themselves, as well as the TOSLink (optical) cable itself, which also runs about $10.
But what if you can't hook your MacBook up to your TV? Oh, then we have to deal with the iPods.
Movie rentals only play on select video capable iPods, not all of them. So you better hope you have the right one!
The iPod classic and 3rd and 4th generation nanos output 480p video, but only over Apple's $50 component cable set. The iPhone and iPod touch only do 480i, over the same $50 cable set.
Again, lets go back to restrictions. If I buy a movie online, I can't burn it to disc. Unlike a CD burned from music bought from iTunes during the DRM days which could be played anywhere on anything, I can't burn video purchased from any online retailer to a disc that is playable on any device. Let's see how that affects real world situations.
Let's say I just bought the latest hit movie. I'm telling a friend about it. They say "oh bring it tonight when we all get together!". Now, theres millions upon millions more blu-ray players out there than Apple TV units. If I have the blu-ray disc or DVD, I can just grab the disc and go with me.
But let's say I bought that movie on iTunes. Okay that means I have to take my iPod plus all of the cables with me and hook it all up there. Or that means I have to take my Apple TV with me and hook it up there and make everyone weight while its set up, connected, configured, etc. Same goes if I take my MacBook.
Sure, if they own an Apple TV I can take my MacBook and stream it. But that assumes a number of things. First, a reliable WiFi connection with enough bandwidth to stream high quality video. Second, it assumes that OS X won't crash in the middle of the movie or that my computer won't go to sleep in the middle of it (could always forget to change those power preferences). That also assumes that the connecting and media sharing portion will go flawlessly. It also assumes that it will be okay to bring along an entire device along with related cables and set up everything there.
Now, you want to talk convenience? Whats more convenient here? Grabbing a disc and taking it thats guaranteed to play or lugging around devices and all of the cables required to connect the device, as well as on the spot setting up and configuration?
And what if I want to lend the movie to a friend? Can't do that since its not on a disc!
Let's look at other scenarios. Let's say you have a group of friends over and everyone wants to watch a movie! You have an Apple TV! Great! Let's download a movie. Oh the selection sucks so they don't have what you want. But oh! They do! Okay, let's download it. What? I have a 10Mbps connection, why is it going to take 3 hours to download and an hour and a half to be ready to play!? Oh okay, it was just a hiccup and now its going full speed. 5 minutes into the movie the connection fails and the movie stops playing. You get up and check the router and modem. Modem has lost the signal. Great, your internet connection is down. You reset everything, telling everyone to be patient. Keep waiting.. nothing happens. Call the cable or phone company. After being on hold for 10 minutes they tell you theres an outage in your area and they have no ETA for service restoration.
You could do all of that or you could have just piled everyone into the car and gone to the video store and picked out the fail safe optical discs. Not only would that work immediately and take less time than the download would have even if it had worked, but you have the fun and social experience of actually spending more time with your friends.
So not only do blu-ray and DVD offer much much higher quality all around than the HD and SD downloads from iTunes/Apple TV, but they just work. You don't have to worry about speed and other connectivity issues, you don't have to worry about asinine limitations that require you to have very specific and very expensive playback hardware and cables, and you don't have to worry about connecting devices with said expensive cables if you don't own the other specific hardware. Later this year I can go buy Transformers 2 on blu-ray and be 100% confident it will play on any blu-ray player. But with downloaded video I have to worry about whether or not the devices I own will play it.. and if they don't, will Apple release an update to allow playback? Most likely not, because their new lineup of iPods will play the video so why not just buy a new iPod and not worry about that one you bought a few months ago that is now a "previous generation product".. Which is basically what happened to all of the 5.5G iPod owners when iTunes Rentals debuted.
Well, when blu-ray was first launched, Sony and Disney did use MPEG-2 in some of their releases. Sony's reasoning was that they were forced to the market before they were ready and not all of the tools they wanted to use were available.
But nearly every release since the beginning of 2007 and on has been H.264/VC-1.
Plus movie studios learned one lesson during the DVD days.. its that people actually BUY double dipped movies. They learned that a good amount of people will actually buy the movie at first, and then a second edition that has more extra features and such.
So you really can't blame the studios for doing it because the market has shown that people will go for it.
I don't like regions either, so I'll agree with you on that.
But I don't know what you mean by high bitrates as DRM?
And there is no phoning home either. It clearly states in the user manual of my Profile 2.0 player that an internet connection is completely optional. The entire unit is plug and play.
You just don't like the fact that I can, have, and will prove you wrong
Thats technically not possible. Cable is generally 1080i 20Mbps MPEG-2. DirecTV and Dish Network both run 1080i (or 720p if the station broadcasts as such) 15-20Mbps H.264. Verizon FiOS doesn't recompress the signal at all, and sends through a raw feed directly from the content provider. OTA is also not recompressed.
Huh? 720p = 921,600 pixels. 1080p = 2,073,600 pixels. Thats not marginal, thats more than double the resolution. Not only that but you're upgrading the bitrate from 4.5Mbps to, in some cases, well over 40Mbps.
Ah that made me laugh out loud. That is truly spoken like someone who does not have a good surround sound setup.
Let me break it down for you real quick. Apple TV HD generally uses Dolby Digital encoded at 384Kbps. That's 384Kbps for 5 channels and a subwoofer. And Dolby Digital has a variable bitrate that dedicates more bits to the more active channels. You're already talking about an average of 64Kbps per channel. But if something is going on in the center, with light activity in the front left and rights, your rears and subwoofer could get even less than 64kbps.
With Blu-Ray you get uncompressed PCM, 16-bit 48KHz, or losslessly compressed. That means you're getting the same raw uncompressed feed for audio that the engineers had when they mixed and cut the track.
And honestly, if you think the difference isn't that great, then you're just proving you don't have a blu-ray player OR a good audio setup. So far I've watched quite a few blu-rays that I also had DVD versions of, a couple of those with DTS audio tracks on the DVD.
Perfect example: The Dark Knight. Beginning of the movie when the Tumbler plows through the concrete wall and crushes those cars. On the blu-ray disc with the Dolby TrueHD track you can hear the concrete being torn apart and and feel it as well if you have a good subwoofer. You can hear every piece hit the ground and all of the metal and glass in the cars being bent or broken under the weight. On the DVD its just a loud and dull boom. Later in the movie when the Joker blows up the hospital. If you have a good subwoofer and good speaker and receiver setup, you hear every little detail and you feel it. It literally moved my couch, even though I was sitting on it. The DVD? Loud booms, all coming from the front.
Another good DVD and blu-ray comparison: U-571. The DTS track on the DVD is one of the better DVD audio tracks out there. But it has nothing on the DTS Master HD track on the blu-ray. On the DVD, during the various depth charging scenes, you can hear it all around you and the bass is reasonably good. But on the blu-ray you hear every little sound in the boats being blown apart, and the depth charges just ripping through the water. Plus the bass isn't boomy at all, it sounds as good as an explosion can on current technology.
Look at the Gone in 60 Second remake. Crap movie, but one hell of a demo disc. On the DVD, when Eleanor is fired up for the first time, it sounds good. The engine has a nice rumble. But the uncompressed PCM track on the blu-ray makes it sound like you're right there with the hood open listening to that engine being started.
I mean honestly, you're comparing 64kbps average audio per channel to uncompressed audio. The difference there will be noticeable on anything other than a Bose system or some $150 Walmart system.
Funny you say that because nobody ever sold 128Kbps MP3s. It's always been AAC or WMA, higher quality formats than MP3 at those low bitrates
And like I explained before, which you have chosen to ignore, people who are listening to music are generally doing so in their car, on their stock iPod earbuds, or some cheap boom box.
The difference between DVD (325,000 pixels) and blu-ray (2+million pixels) is a lot easier to spot on even a $400 Vizio set than the difference between CD quality and 128Kbps AAC on iPod earbuds.
Convenience? What convenience? It's a lot more convenient for the average person to go to their local grocery store and swipe their card on a Red Box unit or go to the local video store than it is to wait potentially hours to download a movie from iTunes or Apple TV.
And, again, what about the restrictions? If I don't have an Apple TV, I'm stuck with sub-DVD quality video. If its a rental I can't play it on my 80GB 5.5G iPod that cost more than $100 more than my blu-ray player did, just because Apple refuses to release a software update enabling the feature. I have to go through the hassle of hooking up my iPhone to my HDTV, which can only output 480i video when connected to a $50 component cable, or I have to hook up roughly $50 worth of cables and adapters to use my UniBody MacBook, plus I have to fight with OS X to properly disable the built-in display without sleeping the system and using an external keyboard and mouse.
First of all, basically saying downloadable video and audio are equal is just flat out stupid.
As I said, the average consumer is listening to music on devices, like iPod earbuds, car audio systems, Bose audio equipment, where the difference between 128kbps AAC and CD audio would next to impossible to hear. And, again, the VISUAL difference between 325,000 pixels, 900,000 pixels, and over 2,000,000 pixels is obvious to anyone with functioning eyes. Especially when you bring bitrates into the equation and you look at how iTunes HD video is plagued with compression artifacting.
And, again, lets look at the restrictions. This is what brings down your entire argument. Even in the DRM days, people could benefit from downloadable music. If I bought a song from iTunes, I didn't need an iPod to be able to play the song on my surround sound system, car, or anything. I did not need specific hardware to play that song on devices other than my computer. I could legally burn that song to CD and it would play on almost anything. It would play on anything from my PS2, to my car CD player, to a very old portable CD player that surprisingly still works. I could even legally rip that CD back to the computer in another format and play it on a different MP3 player.
So I say again, even in the DRM days, anyone with a CD burner could benefit from buying music online. They didn't need to own an iPod, or any type of special device connected to their audio systems. They could buy music to their hearts content and play it on ANYTHING.
But online video? Not at all. If I buy a video from iTunes I can only play it on the computer, a certain number of iPods or an iPhone, or an Apple TV. Unlike music, I can't burn it to a disc and play it on any hardware capable of playing a DVD Video or BD. If I want to play it on my HDTV I have to have an Apple TV. If I don't have one when I need 2 separate video adapters plus a video cable, as well as an audio adapter and audio cable to hook my MacBook up to my TV. You figure $30 for the mini-display port to DVI cable, then the DVI to HDMI adapter for about $10, then the HDMI cable itself for $10. Then you need the mini-TOSLink adapter, which can run about $10 themselves, as well as the TOSLink (optical) cable itself, which also runs about $10.
But what if you can't hook your MacBook up to your TV? Oh, then we have to deal with the iPods.
Movie rentals only play on select video capable iPods, not all of them. So you better hope you have the right one!
The iPod classic and 3rd and 4th generation nanos output 480p video, but only over Apple's $50 component cable set. The iPhone and iPod touch only do 480i, over the same $50 cable set.
Again, lets go back to restrictions. If I buy a movie online, I can't burn it to disc. Unlike a CD burned from music bought from iTunes during the DRM days which could be played anywhere on anything, I can't burn video purchased from any online retailer to a disc that is playable on any device. Let's see how that affects real world situations.
Let's say I just bought the latest hit movie. I'm telling a friend about it. They say "oh bring it tonight when we all get together!". Now, theres millions upon millions more blu-ray players out there than Apple TV units. If I have the blu-ray disc or DVD, I can just grab the disc and go with me.
But let's say I bought that movie on iTunes. Okay that means I have to take my iPod plus all of the cables with me and hook it all up there. Or that means I have to take my Apple TV with me and hook it up there and make everyone weight while its set up, connected, configured, etc. Same goes if I take my MacBook.
Sure, if they own an Apple TV I can take my MacBook and stream it. But that assumes a number of things. First, a reliable WiFi connection with enough bandwidth to stream high quality video. Second, it assumes that OS X won't crash in the middle of the movie or that my computer won't go to sleep in the middle of it (could always forget to change those power preferences). That also assumes that the connecting and media sharing portion will go flawlessly. It also assumes that it will be okay to bring along an entire device along with related cables and set up everything there.
Now, you want to talk convenience? Whats more convenient here? Grabbing a disc and taking it thats guaranteed to play or lugging around devices and all of the cables required to connect the device, as well as on the spot setting up and configuration?
And what if I want to lend the movie to a friend? Can't do that since its not on a disc!
Let's look at other scenarios. Let's say you have a group of friends over and everyone wants to watch a movie! You have an Apple TV! Great! Let's download a movie. Oh the selection sucks so they don't have what you want. But oh! They do! Okay, let's download it. What? I have a 10Mbps connection, why is it going to take 3 hours to download and an hour and a half to be ready to play!? Oh okay, it was just a hiccup and now its going full speed. 5 minutes into the movie the connection fails and the movie stops playing. You get up and check the router and modem. Modem has lost the signal. Great, your internet connection is down. You reset everything, telling everyone to be patient. Keep waiting.. nothing happens. Call the cable or phone company. After being on hold for 10 minutes they tell you theres an outage in your area and they have no ETA for service restoration.
You could do all of that or you could have just piled everyone into the car and gone to the video store and picked out the fail safe optical discs. Not only would that work immediately and take less time than the download would have even if it had worked, but you have the fun and social experience of actually spending more time with your friends.
So not only do blu-ray and DVD offer much much higher quality all around than the HD and SD downloads from iTunes/Apple TV, but they just work. You don't have to worry about speed and other connectivity issues, you don't have to worry about asinine limitations that require you to have very specific and very expensive playback hardware and cables, and you don't have to worry about connecting devices with said expensive cables if you don't own the other specific hardware. Later this year I can go buy Transformers 2 on blu-ray and be 100% confident it will play on any blu-ray player. But with downloaded video I have to worry about whether or not the devices I own will play it.. and if they don't, will Apple release an update to allow playback? Most likely not, because their new lineup of iPods will play the video so why not just buy a new iPod and not worry about that one you bought a few months ago that is now a "previous generation product".. Which is basically what happened to all of the 5.5G iPod owners when iTunes Rentals debuted.
How anyone can say this guy is trolling is beyond me.
Well done sir, how refreshing to actually see fact and information in a reply in this thread rather than the tripe other people are trying to spread.
And to the guy talking about the lossless audio, mate you don't have a clue.
Yeah the market is just as much to blame as the studios, happily buying any old crap that comes out, multiple times and putting up with overpriced, substandard quality on whatever technology is advertised that day.
I didn't literally mean drm, but having high bit rates and file sizes is a simple, and relatively effective form of piracy protection (currently).
vc1/264 reencode and scale pretty well, but we've missed out on these codecs on retail dvds and downloading/playing rips is beyond average customers.
mosx: Thanks, but you're not going to break through with the Apple apologists. They don't understand criticizing helps make things better. They pick their team, defend everything they do, and attack anyone who isn't 100% uncritical of the team. You'll find similar people in politics and religion. If Apple announced Blu-Ray support tomorrow, they'll quickly change their tune and follow Apple's talking points about why it's good.
Anyway, for the rest of us in the real world who like having more choices and not having a computer with less features than friends with PCs, just keep the pressure on Apple. I'm fairly confident they'll cave soon, whether they want to or not.
Wanted to throw out a point that I didn't see mentioned yet. BR's region coding is less severe than DVD's and hasn't been widely used.
Anyway, for the rest of us in the real world who like having more choices and not having a computer with less features than friends with PCs, just keep the pressure on Apple. I'm fairly confident they'll cave soon, whether they want to or not.
Wanted to throw out a point that I didn't see mentioned yet. BR's region coding is less severe than DVD's and hasn't been widely used.
Doesn't really help your argument. Bluray and other physical media will be around for a while regardless of what you think.
because of people like you, who are scared of change and scared of the future.
You can just set your DVD player to region 0. Then it will play anything, all DVD players can do it, for servicing purposes.
You cannot do that with BD, that's the point of the discussion.
And there are many DVD players/recorders where it's not known how to make them recion free.