Blu-ray Support in Mac OS X 10.5.6?

[DoFoT9]

I wasn't aware anything like this was to happen. But there's the possibilty of some benefits though, assuming they've designed the system that way (and will follow through). Uniformity and hopefully increased bandwidth come to mind, and hopefully, an end to the caps.

Can you ellaborate?

im not sure on your understanding of the whole "rollout" as they call it. from what i know, it will be FTTH. original estimates have reported $43billion Aus for the upgrade (australia is a large country lol). the rollout is already a good 4months behind schedule, testing only started within the last few weeks when it was supposed to start around october. the testing is available to home users in particular streets in sydney and melbourne, its a 30Mb/s up 1Mb/s down line. hardly an improvement over my 20/1 line. i hope for everybodies sake that the speeds increase later on.

(basic overview here)

an external source has estimated the costs the rollout and the cost to home users, he already thinks that it will cost well over $80billion (Aus of course) and a good $200 Aus per month for the basic plans - once 80% of current ADSL users change over. i hate to think what the initial costs of it will be. (couldnt find article providing exact figures, sorry)

I'd think any system in any country would as they exist now. Infrastructure growth is notoriously slow in most parts of the world.

for good reason too, its not exactly cheap or easy to do. you have to keep the old system going for many years whilst you wait for users to swap over to the new one. kind of like analogue tv -> digital tv in our country. (wont be turned off until 2013).

Even with compression, 1080p would bring 80Gb/s to it's knees in a hurry and scream for mercy in the form of buffering. Then there's the possibility of data caps and the related issues/fees for users willing to attempt it.

not true IMO. an uncompressed 1080p movie is around 40Mb/s, which can quite easily be played on an 80mb/s line (im assuming you meant mb/s). compressed 1080p movies would need more like 12mb/s (going off the rips i have).

Not desparate, smart.

The free player can help generate HDTV sales. That combination would also help movie studios by giving them a larger potential market to make sales (remember, studios are on the BR specification board along with hardware makers). Lowering the cost of BR movies will help this, as does the DVD+BR combo packs (genius for the "switcher"). As it happens, the BR media has come down in price to near parity with DVD media. So the excuse that the media is more expensive doesn't fly anymore.

All involved will end up with more sales as a result. So it's actually quite brilliant.

good call lol i completely agree. the retailers have a lot to answer to WRT BD prices.

I figured it might still be the older, expensive models. They cost more to produce (given the components used on the boards), and the prices can only go down so far without a loss. If I had to guess, the new players won't be available until the current stocks dwindle to nearly nothing remaining. No one wants to eat the loss at selling them under wholesale, let alone manufacturing costs. So it may be awhile before less expensive players show up there.

there have been many sales on BD players, they have come down quite considerably ($300Aus for a BD is cheap, you can easily see >$500). but yes once the new "versions" come in hopefully they will sell nicely and come down even more in price

It would have depended on what their position was at the time the product was designed (= NO BluRay support due to licensing at the time).

true! sales of BR has been quite slow in aust, thus the high prices still. people still have analogue TVs for crying out loud!

Parts (electronic components = capacitors, resistors, chips,...) are ordered in advance once the design has obtained RTM status (supplies are scheduled over time known as Just In Time Scheduling). It's possible that they could change a non-HDCP part out for one that is, but there's a strong chance that you'd lose money on the component part contract with the supplier of the orginal component used. Unless that contract is completed. This isn't impossible, but it's not that common with semiconductors (chips) as it would be with resistors for example. Designs tend to revolve around the semi's used, not the passives (resistors, capacitors).

dont forget the premium that is most likely to be in place for these parts that would play a big role. however, the positives of going to HDCP compliant are most likely to outweigh the negatives (more sales!)

That's part of it IMO. Apple doesn't like not having control either, and Sony controls BluRay.

they most definitely do not! apple will eventually keel over.

I assume that you mean $300 AUD... Profile 2 players are far below that in US$.

yup aussie dollar

 

[DoFoT9]

$300AUD ~= $267USD at the moment (using Xe.com for the conversion). So they're still pricey in Australia compared to the US. What I don't know, is the specific models to find out if they're Profile 2 or not. But I'm guessing they're Profile 1 units that haven't sold, and have been warehoused somewhere (could be Australia or Asia).

here is an example of some common BD players that are on the market. cheapest is $276 Aus.

(posted in another post because its separate from previous post)

 

[nanofrog]

here is an example of some common BD players that are on the market. cheapest is $276 Aus.

(posted in another post because its separate from previous post)

That's the LG BD370, which is Profile 2 compatible. It's not the most basic model available by any means, but that price must sting a little.

It can be had here for ~$180USD (eBay, otherwise $200USD). That's quite a bit of additional markup, extra shipping costs or not from China to Australia.

 

[AidenShaw]

not true IMO. an uncompressed 1080p movie is around 40Mb/s, which can quite easily be played on an 80mb/s line (im assuming you meant mb/s). compressed 1080p movies would need more like 12mb/s (going off the rips i have).

If encoded in RGB, an uncompressed 1080p24 movie would be 1.2 Gbps (1920*1080*24bitsperpixel*24framespersecond). BD discs use advanced compression (H.264/VC-1/MPEG-2) to fit in the 40 Mbps or so envelope. (In non-RGB colorspaces, I don't know if there's an equivalent conversion of frame rate to uncompressed bandwidth.)

Calling BD bitrates "uncompressed" isn't reasonable - they're highly compressed, but good enough so that the quality is high enough to make any compression artifacts unnoticeable to most anyone.

If you try to compress by another factor of four, you lose a lot - especially if you're re-compressing an already compressed H.264 stream - if you actually had the uncompressed 1.2 Gbps stream you could do better at your 12 Mbps rip. They'll still be OK, but if you compare them to the original BD it'll be very obvious which is the rip.

 

[DoFoT9]

That's the LG BD370, which is Profile 2 compatible. It's not the most basic model available by any means, but that price must sting a little.

It can be had here for ~$180USD (eBay, otherwise $200USD). That's quite a bit of additional markup, extra shipping costs or not from China to Australia.

doesnt surprise me one bit. we have the latest (ish) technology, but not the most reasonable of prices.

If encoded in RGB, an uncompressed 1080p24 movie would be 1.2 Gbps (1920*1080*24bitsperpixel*24framespersecond). BD discs use advanced compression (H.264/VC-1/MPEG-2) to fit in the 40 Mbps or so envelope. (In non-RGB colorspaces, I don't know if there's an equivalent conversion of frame rate to uncompressed bandwidth.)

Calling BD bitrates "uncompressed" isn't reasonable - they're highly compressed, but good enough so that the quality is high. If you try to compress by another factor of four, you lose a lot - especially if you're re-compressing an already compressed H.264 stream - if you actually had the uncompressed 1.2 Gbps stream you could do better at your 12 Mbps rip.

yes i understand all of that, and forgive me for my poor choice of words. i used the term uncompressed referring to a BD copy. compressed referred to a BD disc that had been ripped to a computer, then compressed using HB or the like.

If you try to compress by another factor of four, you lose a lot - especially if you're re-compressing an already compressed H.264 stream - if you actually had the uncompressed 1.2 Gbps stream you could do better at your 12 Mbps rip. They'll still be OK, but if you compare them to the original BD it'll be very obvious which is the rip.

if you read a few posts back i referred to the fact that apple has a higher quality source for their HD movies.

 

[nanofrog]

If encoded in RGB, an uncompressed 1080p24 movie would be 1.2 Gbps (1920*1080*24bitsperpixel*24framespersecond). BD discs use advanced compression (H.264/VC-1/MPEG-2) to fit in the 40 Mbps or so envelope. (In non-RGB colorspaces, I don't know if there's an equivalent conversion of frame rate to uncompressed bandwidth.)

Keep in mind though, the actual bandwidth is affected by the slowest link in the chain established during the connection negotiation, and things like switching too.

So the bandwidth (compressed) would need to be a bit higher. 1.5Gb/s feeds would likely suffice, but even then, if there's a fault or slow piece of equipment in the chain, you're not going to be able to stream it. So buffering won't disappear totally for that reason alone.

It's not realistic IMO to expect uncompressed feeds though. So we'll be stuck with compression. Since the hardware currently produced can easily uncompress the stream in real time, it's not a problem. We just need enough bandwidth to consistently provide a 40Mb/s sustained data rate. ~60Mb/s ADSL should do. Cable based pipes will depend on a traffic analysis.

 

[xIGmanIx]

Yes please, next question

With the release of Mac OS X 10.5.5 earlier this week, Apple should begin work on Mac OS X 10.5.6. Built-in Blu-ray support into Mac OS X would open the door for Apple to finally incorporate Blu-ray drives into their Macs as well as Blu-ray support into their suite of iLife applications. The 10.5.6 update will not come before the rumored notebook revisions in October, but could conceivably be ready by Macworld San Francisco 2009.

Article Link

 

[Nermal]

the rollout is already a good 4months behind schedule, testing only started within the last few weeks when it was supposed to start around october.

That doesn't surprise me, systems like that seem to always run behind schedule. My street was supposed to get fibre in September but it doesn't look like it's even going to be within the next six months now...

When it does, it'll make a huge difference though! I'm currently on a long copper loop and only get about 3.5 Mb/s; that's slower than my cellphone!

 

[nanofrog]

...(basic overview here)

Thanks for the link.

an external source has estimated the costs the rollout and the cost to home users, he already thinks that it will cost well over $80billion (Aus of course) and a good $200 Aus per month for the basic plans - once 80% of current ADSL users change over. i hate to think what the initial costs of it will be. (couldnt find article providing exact figures, sorry)

More info is needed here. If they go with fibre to the dwelling (home, business,...) it would be a solid infrastructure that can grow IMO. No need to re-run cables for each update. Copper is less certain, as I'd presume they'd use existing wire, of which the bandwidth capability is unknown.

for good reason too, its not exactly cheap or easy to do. you have to keep the old system going for many years whilst you wait for users to swap over to the new one. kind of like analogue tv -> digital tv in our country. (wont be turned off until 2013).

Of course it's slow, and the cost of such upgrades is the primary reason (it's the omission about the lack of investment that irks me = greed). Here in the US, the ISP, HD satellite,... communications infrastructure is owned by private companies, not government.

The trick is, they control how much they set aside for infrastructure upgrades, and the balance (after all expenses have been covered of course), can be distributed to stockholders. But when the board decides to put all of the profits (or the vast majority of it) into dividends, not much is available for upgrades. It just keeps getting drug out, and the existing system is left unattended/neglected which shows it's limitations as time goes on

If unaddressed long enough, it will "break". AT&T's issues in NYC and San Francisco's wireless data service to smart phones is a good example. They didn't predict the growth rate properly = make adequate upgrades/set aside a budget to do so, and have been caught with thier proverbial pants down.

not true IMO. an uncompressed 1080p movie is around 40Mb/s, which can quite easily be played on an 80mb/s line (im assuming you meant mb/s). compressed 1080p movies would need more like 12mb/s (going off the rips i have).

Sorry about that. I stated a compressed stream, but was thinking of an uncompressed stream.

But even with a 40Mb/s sustained requirement, it's going to mean the paid service will need to be capable of more (slowest link in the chain so to speak, and you also have to deal with other issues such as switches). Over distance, and connection points, the data rate will slow from the available bandwidth to some extent. Worse if it's copper vs. fibre. And in the instance of ADSL vs. Cable, cable will also need more given the shared pipe structure (a traffic analysis would be needed for each area/market).

there have been many sales on BD players, they have come down quite considerably ($300Aus for a BD is cheap, you can easily see >$500). but yes once the new "versions" come in hopefully they will sell nicely and come down even more in price

Face it Australia sucks.

At least in terms of electronics retail prices there. Then the GST and tech taxes on top. It's definitely on the awful side it seems.

true! sales of BR has been quite slow in aust, thus the high prices still. people still have analogue TVs for crying out loud!

Analog sets will slow the adoption rate as well, as it's a waste to attach a BRDP to such a set. And I presume that the upconverter DVD players are still substantially less expensive there (DVD resolution for the analog set, and use the upconversion when they're finally capable of getting an HD set).

That's the way it went here. You've not hit the right balance of availablity & pricing to shift the market share enough to reach the tipping point. And the lack of HD source material will also serve to slow you down as well.

 

[Nermal]

That's the LG BD370, which is Profile 2 compatible. It's not the most basic model available by any means, but that price must sting a little.

It can be had here for ~$180USD (eBay, otherwise $200USD). That's quite a bit of additional markup, extra shipping costs or not from China to Australia.

Hmm, the cheapest Profile 2 player I can find in NZ is NZ$265/AU$212/US$189 (excluding tax in all cases, since it varies between countries). It's a Philips BDP3000. The LG BD370 is significantly more expensive here.

 

[DakotaGuy]

Blu-ray is a failure.

Blu-ray is great! Apparently you do not own a large flat panel HDTV. If you did you would see how much better Blu-ray looks.

 

[cmaier]

Blu-ray is great! Apparently you do not own a large flat panel HDTV. If you did you would see how much better Blu-ray looks.

Ditto. Or, even better, a Sim2 front projector with a 92" screen.

 

[DarkMCS]

Blu-ray is great! Apparently you do not own a large flat panel HDTV. If you did you would see how much better Blu-ray looks.

Blu-Ray movies take life when used on a nice 1080p HDTV.

Forget about what you get from a 720p/1080i! It's not even close to the potential of Blu-Ray!

 

[DoFoT9]

sorry for late replies, im a very busy guy

Thanks for the link.


More info is needed here. If they go with fibre to the dwelling (home, business,...) it would be a solid infrastructure that can grow IMO. No need to re-run cables for each update. Copper is less certain, as I'd presume they'd use existing wire, of which the bandwidth capability is unknown.

struggling to find articles that are more in-depth.. it is definitely fibre direct to the home, so there is plenty of potential for the future.

Of course it's slow, and the cost of such upgrades is the primary reason (it's the omission about the lack of investment that irks me = greed). Here in the US, the ISP, HD satellite,... communications infrastructure is owned by private companies, not government.

up until this announcement, all ISPs have their own lines, provide their own upgrades etc. the government has announced this, and will always own it (but will sell off large portions to other private companies). i think its good that the government will always own the majority, that means that funding will always (hopefully) be available and that upgrades are for the interests of the citisens and not the share holders.

Sorry about that. I stated a compressed stream, but was thinking of an uncompressed stream.

haha thats all good

But even with a 40Mb/s sustained requirement, it's going to mean the paid service will need to be capable of more (slowest link in the chain so to speak, and you also have to deal with other issues such as switches). Over distance, and connection points, the data rate will slow from the available bandwidth to some extent. Worse if it's copper vs. fibre. And in the instance of ADSL vs. Cable, cable will also need more given the shared pipe structure (a traffic analysis would be needed for each area/market).

im disgusted at cable, it seems to primitive for our technological age. sharing internet speeds with others? no thanks. is FTTH a "shared" connection also? or direct to the local exchange?

Face it Australia sucks.

no objection!

Analog sets will slow the adoption rate as well, as it's a waste to attach a BRDP to such a set. And I presume that the upconverter DVD players are still substantially less expensive there (DVD resolution for the analog set, and use the upconversion when they're finally capable of getting an HD set).

there is a large percentage of DVD player units sold here in aust are capable of scaling up. the price differences are negligible.

That's the way it went here. You've not hit the right balance of availablity & pricing to shift the market share enough to reach the tipping point. And the lack of HD source material will also serve to slow you down as well.

spot on. we are ONLY just seeing large amounts of BR material being sold. up until the christmas competition started being sold, there were hardly any BR movies being sold around my area. each store would have one type of BR player, etc. now there are competitve prices of DVD vs BR disc.

another thing i have noticed is that most DVD players are those PVR things, so the price differences between DVD players and BR players isnt all that much.

Blu-Ray movies take life when used on a nice 1080p HDTV.

Forget about what you get from a 720p/1080i! It's not even close to the potential of Blu-Ray!

totally agree there. watching those resolutions is quite sad, makes me cringe haha.

 

[rhett7660]

Blu-ray is a failure.

What planet are you on? Not even close to a failure..

 

[lPHONE]

Blu-ray is a failure.

i agree.
the success or failure of Blu-Ray sales is irrelevant to the fact that all disks are are prone to scratch. the media format is a failure.

mac users aren't really the sharpest tools in the shed. they equate high sales numbers with success. i equate high failure rates as just that: high failure. of course your going to buy more. they keep breaking.

 

[MorphingDragon]

i agree.
the success or failure of Blu-Ray sales is irrelevant to the fact that all disks are are prone to scratch. the media format is a failure.

mac users aren't really the sharpest tools in the shed. they equate high sales numbers with success. i equate high failure rates as just that: high failure. of course your going to buy more. they keep breaking.

Smug self indited users arent exactly the most humble tool in the shed.

 

[djellison]

i agree.
the success or failure of Blu-Ray sales is irrelevant to the fact that all disks are are prone to scratch. the media format is a failure..

The fact that downloads are prone to bandwidth or data usage limits, THAT format is a failure.

Furthermore - neither broadcast HDTV via Satellite, nor Downloaded iTunes HD can match the quality of Blu-Ray. To claim otherwise is simply demonstrating that you've not seen them all.

 

[rhett7660]

i agree.
the success or failure of Blu-Ray sales is irrelevant to the fact that all disks are are prone to scratch. the media format is a failure.

mac users aren't really the sharpest tools in the shed. they equate high sales numbers with success. i equate high failure rates as just that: high failure. of course your going to buy more. they keep breaking.

Of course, what do you equate to success? You are telling me high sales numbers does not equate to success? If not then please enlighten us as to what does?

What high failure rates are you referrening to? Blu-Ray high failure rates? Please once again enlighten us on these high failure rates.

 

[rhett7660]

The fact that downloads are prone to bandwidth or data usage limits, THAT format is a failure.

Furthermore - neither broadcast HDTV via Satellite, nor Downloaded iTunes HD can match the quality of Blu-Ray. To claim otherwise is simply demonstrating that you've not seen them all.

And of course lets not forget the people who are still on dial up....

 

[DoFoT9]

And of course lets not forget the people who are still on dial up....

i know a few people on dial up. pretty common in my area.

 

[nanofrog]

...all ISPs have their own lines, provide their own upgrades etc.

That's how the structure is here in the US. There are some government owned lines, but they're not shared with the public (i.e. Dept. of Defense).

im disgusted at cable, it seems to primitive for our technological age. sharing internet speeds with others? no thanks.
I don't like cable for an ISP either.

is FTTH a "shared" connection also? or direct to the local exchange?

It could be either (DOCSIS or DSL), as FTTH is the physical aspect of the system only.

 

[Nermal]

The current Telstra HFC network in NZ is shared (DOCSIS3, I believe) but I'm pretty sure that the new fibre network will provide dedicated bandwidth to each customer. I'd be very surprised if Australia goes in a different direction.

The biggest problem we have at the moment is the connection into the country; the Southern Cross Cable is currently limited to 780 Gb/s, which isn't enough. Most Internet connections in this country are over 10 Mb/s, so you only need 78000 people running their connections at "full speed" and you've saturated our biggest international link. When fibre becomes available, the plan is for 100 Mb/s or more at launch, and the international connectivity is going to grind to a halt.

 

[Cave Man]

i agree. the success or failure of Blu-Ray sales is irrelevant to the fact that all disks are are prone to scratch. the media format is a failure.

I've had half a dozen hard drives fail. I've never had an optical disc fail. There's a reason why all of my critical documents are on three Blu-ray discs in my bank's vault.

mac users aren't really the sharpest tools in the shed. they equate high sales numbers with success.

It that were the case, then Mac users would all switch to Windoze since it has a higher sale number. Your logic is what's failed here.

i equate high failure rates as just that: high failure. of course your going to buy more. they keep breaking.

That would be "you're". Who's not be the sharpest tool in the shed here?

 

[nanofrog]

The current Telstra HFC network in NZ is shared (DOCSIS3, I believe) but I'm pretty sure that the new fibre network will provide dedicated bandwidth to each customer. I'd be very surprised if Australia goes in a different direction.

The biggest problem we have at the moment is the connection into the country; the Southern Cross Cable is currently limited to 780 Gb/s, which isn't enough. Most Internet connections in this country are over 10 Mb/s, so you only need 78000 people running their connections at "full speed" and you've saturated our biggest international link. When fibre becomes available, the plan is for 100 Mb/s or more at launch, and the international connectivity is going to grind to a halt.

I'm assuming they'd go with DSL rather than DOCSIS, but it's not actually stated in the information I've located.

Most over 10Mb/s? Sweet! Now I'm jealous. Oh... wait. That's cable... Nevermind.

DSL in this area (AT&T) is sold at 6.0Mb/s max, but *can* do ~8Mb/s if you're in the right location in respect to the Exchange (distance = infrastructure you're tied to; i.e. copper only from the curb to the dwelling). Unfortunately, the system's still on the old side, as there's a lot of copper still in use. Fibre's been run to the newer areas (FTTC), but the older ones may have a few copper runs before hitting fibre. So not everyone can even get the max band service if they want it. But it's the bottom of the food chain here in terms of upgrade planning and resources. (A, B, and C, with A being the highest priority; I'm in a C area). Go figure.