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Blu-ray Support in Mac OS X 10.5.6?
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DoFoT9
macrumors P6
im not up for an arguement, just a debate. 🙂
1. i dont know about you, but the reason why downloading instead of buying BR/HD rips seems reasonable to me mainly because for one BR movie costs half of what i pay per month for broadband ($50 average for BR, internet costs $100). so i would much rather download the movie for $15-$20 instead of buying it...
i didnt screw over my argument i was just showing you that your infrastructure would allow for BETTER downloading of movies over ours.
2. you were the one that brought the whole speed debate into the topic so i thought i would just expand on that a little bit. maybe the infrastructure in asian countries could old out for this type of idea?? 😉
3. i think that the market for downloading would be quite large. looking at itunes movie sales for last year (5.7million, which is a large number within itself). having a look on ONE torrent side (note 1), and two torrents i found this::
The Incredible Hulk: added 11 days ago, has been downloaded 368,688 times,
Iron Man: added 14 days ago, has been downloaded 273,571 times.
now if you think that these movies have only been on for two weeks, have been downloaded many many times and are only from ONE torrent site (of which the world has thousands upon thousands), then isnt impacting on the market??...your crazy if you dont think it is. imagine if there were a *legal* website set up for doing this with all movies.. i think it would impact quite a lot with the DVD/BluRay sales market.
4. already answered half of that question...
Usually most torrent sites just shares same torrents than the others.
Most of web services that has turned from free to charged keeps about 1% of users. So if a movie is downloaded .5 million times when it's free, it might get 5000 downloads when you have to pay for it. So it isn't self-evident that it would be very profitable.
Lord Zedd
macrumors 6502a
Correct. Look at a torrent's tracker list and very few have only one tracker, some have up to 15.
Hey everyone. My first post here. I'm potentially going to switch to Mac next month if Apple offers Blu-ray on the new machines. I'll be new to Mac (used them often, never owned) but have long been involved in Blu-ray. Anyway, a couple of points...
The FastMac drives are rebadged Panasonic UJ-225 (slot load) and UJ-220 (tray) drives that are 12.5mm in height, not 9.5mm. That's why they only offer them for the iMac and 17" MBP, as opposed to the 9.5mm drives needed for the current 15" MBP or 13" MB. (It's also notable that the OEM pricing on those drives is less than half what FastMac is charging.)
As for 9.5mm drives, the one Panasonic was sampling last December never went into production. The good news (for those wanting Blu-ray MBPs) is that the first shipping 9.5mm drive has been announced in Sony's upcoming Vaio TT series notebook. The drive should be an Optiarc (Sony/NEC), but the model number isn't yet known. The new TT series with the drive is due to ship on October 15, interestingly.
Although I don't work for Apple and I'm not under any kind of NDA from Apple, I shouldn't say too much (everything I've heard is just rumors anyway)... but it would be very odd for Optiarc to spend the considerable resources to create a 9.5mm BD drive if the only customer is Sony, and they're only using it in a single $4500 machine. Take that however you want, but I think it at least indicates that they're at least preparing drives for Apple, whether they get used as soon as next month or not.
The FastMac drives are rebadged Panasonic UJ-225 (slot load) and UJ-220 (tray) drives that are 12.5mm in height, not 9.5mm. That's why they only offer them for the iMac and 17" MBP, as opposed to the 9.5mm drives needed for the current 15" MBP or 13" MB. (It's also notable that the OEM pricing on those drives is less than half what FastMac is charging.)
As for 9.5mm drives, the one Panasonic was sampling last December never went into production. The good news (for those wanting Blu-ray MBPs) is that the first shipping 9.5mm drive has been announced in Sony's upcoming Vaio TT series notebook. The drive should be an Optiarc (Sony/NEC), but the model number isn't yet known. The new TT series with the drive is due to ship on October 15, interestingly.
Although I don't work for Apple and I'm not under any kind of NDA from Apple, I shouldn't say too much (everything I've heard is just rumors anyway)... but it would be very odd for Optiarc to spend the considerable resources to create a 9.5mm BD drive if the only customer is Sony, and they're only using it in a single $4500 machine. Take that however you want, but I think it at least indicates that they're at least preparing drives for Apple, whether they get used as soon as next month or not.
Sounds very interesting, thanks for the info.
PS. Recognize you from a certain somewhere. 😀😉
My point is that even in the UK, the infrastructure could not support the kind of sales you are referring to. 300,000 downloads of a film, is small in comparison to the world wide sales which reach off into the millions for each film.
http://www.the-numbers.com/dvd/charts/annual/2008.php
And like I said, you are comparing what you do as the norm for everyone else. In the uk you can pick up Blu-Ray films for the same price as new release dvd's... what I am trying to get at is the world wide picture.
In order for Blu-Ray to die users need to have readily available cheap abundant internet access at speeds over 20Mb. And when I say speeds over 20Mb I mean sustained not these false "up to" speeds. This isn;t the case worldwide. Blu-Ray will probably be the last of the physical media, since it will probably be around as long as DVD has. By that time, 4-7 years, connection speeds will increase, the penetration of internet into previously unconnected areas will have also increased, and hopefully the internet will have received an overhaul so that e-tailers can server at sustained high speed to the masses.
On a side note, downloading films also reduces quality. There is a reason the Blu-Ray disks can hold over 20GB of data. And also with regards to your torrent argument. How many of those people would have copied movies from their friends, or bought them from the local pub, if the torrents weren't about?
I don't want to argue either. I just get a little aggravated when it seems people think you could stop selling physical media tomorrow, move to online downloads and think the world will be a happy place. The net would die in its current state. The best easy to place example I can think of is look at what happened when Microsoft offered Longhorn for download. As I recall they got so many downloads that they needed to restrict it to prevent the internet from stalling? Not the best example, but it shows what would happen if everyone starting downloading continuously.
Crazy small interwebs, huh? How's it going?
BTW, I don't know how everybody puts up with this Apple secrecy with each new product launch. It's driving me crazy (although mostly because I really needed a new notebook about a month ago) and this is the first time I've really paid any attention. It's killing me to keep waiting for the actual release of new notebooks that may or may not have the features I need in a new notebook, when there's dozens of Wintel models I could get today that I know meet my needs -- likely don't look as cool, not officially "supposed" to run OS X, etc, but still available, and quite well spec'd.
Oh, well. Patience is a virtue I suppose.
DoFoT9
macrumors P6
ok thats a fair point, that issue would be based around the fact that you have to pay for things rather than the issue of bandwidth.....
yes it is quite small, but it would still be a fair chunk (5%ish based on the top DVD listed on your site). if 5% isnt a fair chunk then i dont know what is. osx is around that mark, when compared to all PC sales worldwide...mac users are a massive market!!
mind you the downloaded links i provided from one site, the torrents are links to around 4 other torrent sites. there are thousands of other torrent sites, so it would be fair to say that the film would have been downloaded more than 300,000 times. (much much more).
world wide picture wake up call: BluRay discs cost double if not tripple a DVD in my country. in many other countries this is the same issue.
thats a fair point, id estimate that only 1%-2% of the worlds population could get speeds faster than that. i get 17mbps sustained.
however i still stand by my claim that you will get users willing to wait a couple of hours for a movie. BR movies can be compressed to smaller file sizes (10gb) and still retain a lot of their original quality.
the downloading of files doesnt reduce the quality!!!!!
it is the compressing of the files that reduces the quality, you can get full quality DVD rips, BR rips etcetc off the internet no problems.
heeeeeeps of people would have borrowed from friends, or gotten them from another source, if it werent for torrents. thus complimenting my arguement that the torrent society is large and has a big impact on sales.
sorry to aggravate you.
ill admit you have shown me a bit of light, the current internet cannot support anything. its struggling enough as is. i know that physical media is still going to be around for a while, it serves great for the movie sector, backup sector and many other areas. its just a waiting game for the moment.
maybe WWW2 will be a bit better for data transfer 😛
whatever you do, DONT BUY NOW!!!!
you know what i did, i finally gave in to my gut feeling and bought my CD MBP, only to have the new C2D MBP's be released 5 days later 🙂 smart aye...
just wait hahaha. take it from me!
Ouch... that had to hurt a bit. But, I'm definitely NOT buying now (even I can hold out 9 days... though barely). The only question is whether Apple puts out a machine on the 14th that meets my specific requirements. If not, I have several other options to choose from but I would like to get one of the MacBook Pros. As much as I like OS X and Apple's design ability, at the end of the day if a machine doesn't do what you need it to, then it just wasn't meant to be I guess.
Lord Zedd
macrumors 6502a
FYI: http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/salespolicies.html
At 5 days all you had to do was bring it to an Apple store and request a refund/swap to get the C2D MBP.
Ironduke
Suspended
You need both, imagine mac osx without the dvd player app?
You would have to hope someone else writes one or even though macosx could probably read the contents of the bluray disc, it wouldnt be able to play it.
DoFoT9
macrumors P6
thats fair enough, and i back you on your decision that if it doesnt fit what you want you wont buy. care to tell us what your after? maybe we could help your decision a bit better.
your somewhat correct. BluRay requires a BluRay capable drive, either player or a burner for reading discs, just like a DVD and CD drive. if you have that there is no need for a software update. apples can currently read BluRay discs no problem. you can burn to them aswell using software such as Toast Titanium 9.
the only problem is that there are no BR player, meaning that you can't pop in a BR movie and watch it. a software update by apple on their DVD Player application would fix this (might have to change the name though).
yes i figured that out about 9 months ago, i wasnt aware of their policy!!! do they do that in australia??
i was sooo bummed when i found out that i could have swapped it, even more than when i found out newer machines were out haha. thanks for the link but 🙂
it already can read and burn the contents of BR media, just cant play the BR movies which compeltely sucks. we need someone to write a BR player application!!
millar876
macrumors 6502a
ADSL2+? I wish!
BT can only supply me with 512kbps and have no plans to upgrade the service any time soon.
Until FTH (fiber to home) broadband is rolled out to most (if not all) homes I think optical will survive.
Another bug bear of mine at the moment is when 720p movies are touted as HD. Although it technicly counts as a HD resolution, I dont think anything in the UK Should be called HD unless its 1080p, i mean our DVD's over here are encoded at arround 1024x768 (anamorphic) so a 1280x720 download makes verry little diference, whereas the US (R1) DVDs I have are encoded at 720x480 at a maximum. I Have a FULL HD 1080 24p 100Hz TV, and if I'm going to watch a download, it better use all those darn pixels (with exception of the realy wide screen films with bars at the top and bottom still.
BT can only supply me with 512kbps and have no plans to upgrade the service any time soon.
Until FTH (fiber to home) broadband is rolled out to most (if not all) homes I think optical will survive.
Another bug bear of mine at the moment is when 720p movies are touted as HD. Although it technicly counts as a HD resolution, I dont think anything in the UK Should be called HD unless its 1080p, i mean our DVD's over here are encoded at arround 1024x768 (anamorphic) so a 1280x720 download makes verry little diference, whereas the US (R1) DVDs I have are encoded at 720x480 at a maximum. I Have a FULL HD 1080 24p 100Hz TV, and if I'm going to watch a download, it better use all those darn pixels (with exception of the realy wide screen films with bars at the top and bottom still.
DoFoT9
macrumors P6
The DVD's are encoded in anamorphic, however the actual native resolution of it in the UK for PAL format is 720x576. Compare that to 1280x720, you have an increase of 506,880 pixels - more than twice the native DVD resolution. And there is a big difference between DVD's and 720p stuff. Clarity is significantly different.
1080p does give yet another huge resolution boost over 720p, but to the human eye, the clarity difference between the two from the optimum viewing point isn't that drastic. It all depends how close you are to your TV and how big your TV is in relation to how close you are. fivepoint posted a chart somewhere, however I really don't want to end up going down the 720p versus 1080p road again..
Ironduke
Suspended
This is true, HD is in its infancy. if you look at TV's 20 years ago and see where we are now, 20 years from now many people will be able to afford a 100" pulldown blind style TV, imagine an SD image on that monster
my projector is wide vga, so about 480 lines like ntsc. set up with an approximately 6 foot widescreen it looked ok, not as sharp as hd would be obviously, but utterly watchable. It wouldn't be great for poor quality image sources where the small size can hide problems, i'm thinking especially older games systems and the like here, but a dvd isn't bad. and that big is always a good thing, i'm smiling thinking about it now 🙂 i enjoy my new hd kit, but big sd isn't all that bad if you can't get an hd source.
Ironduke
Suspended
Do the height of these drives include the faceplate (which I assume is to fill the bay? Or is it just the actual part of the drive (silver enclosure)?
http://www.panasonic.com/industrial/computer/storage/optical/models/uj225b.asp
In the past building computers - tray or slot - the front of the drive was the same size as the part that went into the bay.
As far as Blu-Ray goes in terms of the new MacBooks, I think there will be Blu-Ray as either standard OR as a BTO option on ALL models, not just the MBPs.
I'd rather pay through the nose for a legit copy of a movie now than pay through the nose later because I leeched a movie off a torrent site. The movie industry has me as a paying (literally) customer.
Having Blu-Ray as an OPTION in these new MacBook models is very important to me.
BJ
I'd rather pay through the nose for a legit copy of a movie now than pay through the nose later because I leeched a movie off a torrent site. The movie industry has me as a paying (literally) customer.
Having Blu-Ray as an OPTION in these new MacBook models is very important to me.
BJ
solipsism
macrumors 6502a
By paying "through the nose" I guess that means you will be willing to pay $750 (medium price) for a Blu-ray player that plays at only 2x speed and burns at 1x speed, will increase the case size by several millimeters and make the sleek slot-loading optical drive into a tray-loading drive? Is that what you mean by paying through the nose, because 9.5mm BRD don't currently exist on the retail market and any slim-line sloat-loading drive is going to be considerably slower than any normal sized tray-loading drive.
Why can't you be happy with an external tray-loading drive, copy the BR media onto your HDD since the DRm has been hacked, or just go with with a BR appliance since that is where most of this niche market will be playing their BR videos.
Faceplates on notebook drives vary depending on the requirements of the notebook manufacturer. On tray-load drives, the faceplate is a snap-on that is usually custom-made to fit the edge design of the notebook. For slot-load drives, the faceplate usually doesn't exist at all, as the slot will be "cut" out of the notebook. So, the height measured is just for the internal drive bay.
Before I get to your argument, thanks for at least spelling Blu-ray correctly. Though, it's BD (for Blu-ray Disc) not BR when abbreviated. 😉
Your comment wasn't directed at me, but OEM quantity pricing on notebook BD drives is nowhere close to $750. Combo drives are $125-140 and burners are about $215-230 or so (again, this is in quantity, not some single unit retail pricing that you are finding) for the latest Optiarc and LG drives. (Older drives still in production cost more due to being base don older and more expensive OPU technology.) Both slot-load and tray-load drives are readily available. And, as I mentioned previously, Optiarc has a 9.5mm tall drive now (being used in the Sony TT series)... 2x burner, not 1x, and won't effect the thickness of the machine at all. The fact that you can't buy the drive at retail has nothing to do with the fact that they are manufactured, available to OEMs, and cost substantially less than the figure you quoted. (BTW, you can custom configure a Dell Inspiron 1525 or 1420 with BD combo drive for under $700, so if you REALLY think that's the price of the drive, then Dell is paying you to take the rest of the system off their hands. Also, that pricing is before any discounts.)
And as to your point about an external drive -- why? If you already own Blu-ray discs and have other players, you likely want the ability to play the movies "on the go" -- and having an external drive certainly doesn't get you anywhere with that. We'll know soon enough what the plans are, but I beleive VERY strongly Blu-ray will be announced tomorrow. If not, then I'll be placing my order for an HP Elitebook 6930 at 1pm CST and giving up on Apple as a viable alternative to Microsoft.
DoFoT9
macrumors P6
1. everyone knows what BR means, everyone knows what BD means, nobody really gives a stuff there is no need to correct other people. just live with it.
2. seriously, if you want to play movies "on the go" then bluray isnt really the way to go, battery life is down the crapper. it would be best to rip the movies onto your computer and watch it that way. you would barely even have 2hrs battery life.
in any case where you have access to a power point, then you would use an external drive. the external drives are MUCH cheaper (if you build it yourself anyway).
will you seriously be watching bluray movies "on the go"? i dont see your point of being able to do it (unless your version of "on the go" is hooking up to massive TV's), the quality wont be able to be seen at all. it wuld be much more feasible to convert the movies into a smaller file size, so that you get longer battery life and a less hot CPU.