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Blu-ray Licensing to Get Easier and Cheaper
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Thats against European business competition laws so it wont happen here, some companies are currently doing it (Such as Orange and BT) but they got hit with big fines so we're seeing it less and less know. Guess its only going to stick in the US where you have IT comms lobbyists laughing in the face of your 'democracy'. My broadband is 52MB and its got no bandwidth usage limit and it costs me in dollars about $30 per month, and so thats why i think digital media is the future. Its also got no bottlenecks on torrent ports which rules
But once you are outside of London it's not so easy to get uncapped 50Mbps is it? Good luck to you, but not everyone has access to that kind of speed, especially uncapped, and that's why Blu-ray has a healthy future. I live in the UK too, not very far from a major city, but the best speed I can get is 1.5Mbps. Even uncapped, I am simply not interested in downloading HD movies at that speed, especially when they're not as good as the video on a typical Blu-ray Disc. Yes, digital media is the future, maybe sooner for you than I, but there's plenty of 'present' before that future.
The fact is that people without access to super-fast broadband (which is still quite a lot) are still going to continue to buy HD TVs. Some of them will care about movies, and that is why Blu-ray will do ok.
I totally agree that you shouldn't have to. It is YOUR movie now, to do with as YOU wish, for PRIVATE usage.
However, on your point of the CDs and iTunes... Well, if the RIAA had their way, yes, you would have to. I think at one point they said that copying a song file onto your iPod is technically breaking copyright law. In other words: DRM is really only there to keep the honest citizen from enjoying the product that they are supposed to be enjoying...
By 2020 we will have something like Super Hi-Vision (4320p) and even if connection speed are that fast by then, they will STILL be too slow, in all likelihood.
It would be presumed that if the connection speeds got that fast across the board that the caps would be removed/raised, seeing as that increased speed will likely come with higher capacity. But yes, for many people, physical media is the only way to go, since it would take multiple hourse to DAYS to DL even a 1080p movie, not to mention something like 4320p, whereas it would still only take a trip to the video store to get your shiny new 4320p purple-ray holographic storage unit video
Well Apple should hurry up and get on board. Blu-ray writers are now available for Windows PCs for a little over US$200.
The difference in video quality between Blu-ray and DVD is startling too. If you're not into films, then there are plenty of other benefits to Blu-ray - mostly due to its capacity.
The difference in video quality between Blu-ray and DVD is startling too. If you're not into films, then there are plenty of other benefits to Blu-ray - mostly due to its capacity.
And that's really the point. It's market saturation or (if you like) prevalence of media in the market place. DVD will be overtaken by Blu-ray before digital distribution takes hold of the market. Right now Hi-Def movies is a niche market and an even smaller niche within is digital media only users. They'll both grow, but to hamstring growth within a market (Apple users) by not providing the ability to use the media would be detrimental to growth, IMO.
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I don't get the whole "apple won't include blueray since it conflicts with iTunes" argument. Apple includes standard def DVD players, and they sell standard def movies. Doesn't that conflict? Apple will put BR players in their macs when they can reliably and affordably support all their functions. This licensing hurdle was one of the issues. Hdcp suuport is another. Slowly but surely it will come, and they will support it completely. They'll just make itunes downloads so much better that no on will care!
I don't get the whole "apple won't include blueray since it conflicts with iTunes" argument. Apple includes standard def DVD players, and they sell standard def movies. Doesn't that conflict? Apple will put BR players in their macs when they can reliably and affordably support all their functions. This licensing hurdle was one of the issues. Hdcp suuport is another. Slowly but surely it will come, and they will support it completely. They'll just make itunes downloads so much better that no on will care!
Thats against European business competition laws so it wont happen here, some companies are currently doing it (Such as Orange and BT) but they got hit with big fines so we're seeing it less and less know. Guess its only going to stick in the US where you have IT comms lobbyists laughing in the face of your 'democracy'. My broadband is 52MB and its got no bandwidth usage limit and it costs me in dollars about $30 per month, and so thats why i think digital media is the future. Its also got no bottlenecks on torrent ports which rules
Let's not turn a discussion about Blu-Ray on Macs into an old, tiresome "my country/c*** is much better/bigger than yours" fest. Mmmkay? Thanks.
The increase in image quality is only one feature of Blu-Ray. The really, really important thing about Blu-Ray is the incredible amount of space on it, allowing producers, directors, et all, place a lot more content on one DVD.
Hardly a bonedead standard. Early adopters love Blu-Ray and a year from now, we won't see much other than Blu-Ray.
Except that about 60% of the general public either doesn't know what Blu-ray is, doesn't care what Blu-ray is, or doesn't understand the difference between these $25 dollar Blu-ray movies and these <$10 DVD movies other than they know which one they're going to buy.
Fry's has some of the readers + HD-DVD for under $99 from time to time. I remember buying my first DVD burner for about that much.
Bull. If Sony, Toshiba, Dell, HP/Compaq, Lenovo, et al can handle Blu-ray's "bag of hurt", so can Apple's lawyers. They don't seem to have any problems when it comes to Psystar.
Apple just didn't want blu-ray competing with iTunes, plain and simple.
Uh.. the DVD predates iTunes by about 6 years.
J
jmadlena
Guest
You're right, they do have Blue-ray drives in their computers, but what's the margin on their machines? Apple has always insisted on higher margins, and I don't think that is going to change anytime soon. So, until all of the royalties and everything drop down to within their margins, I doubt we'll see it.
Plus, the iTunes/Blu-ray competition doesn't help the situation either.
And I suppose since less people use BR than DVD that's even less plastic = lower carbon footprint? This is ridiculous!
While I agree with you, I don't think that Sony would have had a problem getting BRD on their computers considering that it is Sony technology!
AlleyInsider speculates that licensing changes to Blu-Ray could pave the way to Mac support for the High Definition drives.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
This is bad news, yet another 10 years of the worse media reproduction technology that will slower the take over of flash memory as the standard for this kind of things. Haven't [they] (sony, etc) that playing a high definition movie (usually the audio system accompanied a nice HDTV set worth a few hundred dollars to a few thousands) with an optic drive moving at ~10K rpm is not the best experience?
I just hope that with all this SSD "revolution" manufacturers will realize the mistake they have been doing, and stop listening to Sony which despite being one of my favorite brands for many years, I've been disappointed with their late business practices, and keep "pushing" their "proprietary products" such as memory stick, and do not refuse to let it go once they are proven they are making a mistake....
Anyway this is likely to happen since so many people are easily convinced to buy a $5k++ home entertainment system to watch a movie with a secondary "not original" soundtrack [the noise of the disk spinning, and the fans (in many sophisticated equipment that get hot)]
A nice dream but far from reality, there are a lot more things higher on the priority list of a majority of the people right now than buying a $200+ BR player. Maybe in 4-5 years after the current economic mess is over, and we are starting to boom again then the frivilous spending will increase, maybe. Right now if my DVD player dies then a $50 replacement from walmart or something will do just fine.
Not forgetting that although seeing movies and tv shows in HD is very nice, there is an awful lot of movie content out there for which BR is just a way to charge more without providing (this is the key) meaningful benefit. Things like Planet Earth are truely stunning in HD, my goodness the WOW factor is great, but tell me what is the benefit of getting the latest High School Musical movie on Blue Ray?
Because film and some digital video formats are higher resolution than Blu-ray. If High School Musical 3 is your favourite film, why wouldn't you want it in high definition, bringing the home video version closer to the original theatrical release?
I don't think thats accurate to say, people (at least AMERICAN) love to buy stuff, I KNOW people that are facing foreclosure, lost their home (which they had paid 100K++ already) and even in the face of losing their crappy jobs still HAVE to buy the last G1 (for ~$399) or a 72inch LCD ~$3K or even a knew car.... People (at least american) will spend the money they have, or even the one they don't (assuming they can get credit) even if they shouldn't. That what's got us in this mess in the first time? why would you think it is likely the opposite now????
Why would you say that? The internet it just gets faster and faster and no caps. Do you think FiOS are going to tell me I can only watch one movie a week some time soon? If the past is any predictor of the future we will laugh about current speeds in a few years ... remember 56kb/s being fast?
Thats against European business competition laws so it wont happen here, some companies are currently doing it (Such as Orange and BT) but they got hit with big fines so we're seeing it less and less know. Guess its only going to stick in the US where you have IT comms lobbyists laughing in the face of your 'democracy'. My broadband is 52MB and its got no bandwidth usage limit and it costs me in dollars about $30 per month, and so thats why i think digital media is the future. Its also got no bottlenecks on torrent ports which rules
Complete and utter rubbish?
Name an isp that doesn't cap or throttle anything (apart from [the american...] sky) or have a hugely complicated and ambiguous 'fair use' policy.
You don't mean 52MB obviously, your 50mbit connection is virgin right? I doubt you're using cash back/retention deals after you previous comment about dial-up being cheaper (if you can find someone with it, I bet they're paying through the nose for their ignorance), are you exaggerating the price too?
Do you actually get 50Mb down (I do)? - or like 95% of internet users, just assume you get what you pay for. Have you read the virgin fair use policy? Have you watched your speed drop as it hits the cap? Have you seen an 'average' adsl connection (or a good one...)? Most people are stuck with awful internet, and despite bt's promise with fibre to cabinet, I think we have an awful infrastructure, an awful company in charge of our telecoms network, an awful watchdog and an awful lot of incompetent experts and politicians helping/watching...
On topic, it's not great to see excuses being made for bluray delays before it appears, it's stupidly late now. As a customer, who cares about business models etc. Blu ray is the current standard for hd media on discs and there isn't an alternative unless your willing to pirate (consumer feedback). It's a good solution for data backup, drm'd playback or not - it should be and should have been an option for a long time.
There's lots of interesting information floating about relevant to hd media, little on this thread - the blu ray, itunes, licensing debates are just frustrating and this arrogant teaser is all I'm posting. (I blame the other guy...wot?)
ps. Out of the video wars, it's a shame hd-dvd didn't become 'standard', I think the situation (and quality?...) of average media consumption would be better/higher than it is now.
pps. Highly amusing posts and responses brlawyer. You deserve to be singled out as an example and as an excuse to keep reading these forums.
You can only rent or buy SD movies through iTunes unless you have an Apple TV. Blu-ray won't have a long life, but physical media isn't going anywhere.
56k was on copper telephone wires like lots of people's internet still is now though. They've got about as far as they can with that. If everyone had cable/fibre connections of course things would be very different, but getting everyone that is a little different than going from dial-up to broadband DSL on the same old telephone lines.
All the what ifs are silly though. I have 60 Blu-rays, and 0 HD movie downloads from iTunes. That's why I want a mac that plays Blu-ray movies, it's not really complicated... Apple not supporting Blu-ray doesn't make me buy a non-existent product from iTunes (even if I could, if it it existed!), it just annoys me.