Get a Load of this Rhetoric...

[krye]

In Apple's defense, I don't think it makes sense to give the Mac system-wide Blu Ray support yet. Right now anyone can go out now and buy a drive and use it for backup. There's nothing stopping you. Drives are available. Software is available. That's great. I'd love to be able to throw my 40G Aperture library on one Blu Ray disk.

What's holding people up and why I think people want Blu Ray is for watching movies. But how does this make sense? Does anyone think that a Blu Ray movie on your 15" MacBook is going to somehow look better than a SD DVD? I don't think so. Blu Ray shines on a 40-50" LCD home theater with surround sound. Blue Ray on a laptop just seems silly. The only way I think Blu Ray would come close to giving you your money's worth would be on a Mac Pro with a 30" display, but honestly. That's a stretch.

Seriously, how many people out there would watch Blu Ray movies on their MacBook enough to make it worth while for Apple to invest in it? Not to mention they'd have to pass the royalty/licensing fees to the consumer. I wouldn't be happy about that.

As much as you videophile's hate to admit it, Blu Ray just isn't mainstream yet. The last time I was in Best Buy, they had isles and isles of DVDs, and maybe a 6 foot run of Blu Ray. Not that many people are ready to go through yet another transition. We've seen Beta to VHS, to Laserdisk to DVD, MiniDisk, Tape to CD, Vinyl to CD, yadda yadda yadda. I for one am not ready to abandon DVD yet and I am not ready to adopt yet another format that could just be replaced in 5 years.

 

[Logos327]

Sorry fellas, but I'm going to have to side with Wolfpup. I much prefer to own the things I pay for than to pay for something that isn't 100% mine.

You aren't getting the entire package when you buy off of iTunes. That's why it's "cheaper"

In short: Physical media is going no where. Blu-Ray is the newest format, and it's making inroads in the market, there's no questioning it. I was an early adopter of both HD-DVD and BD and I'll always choose buying an HD movie on BD over buying on iTunes. For many of the same reasons I listed above, and because BD quality is about twice as good as the iTunes HD movie quality, in both video and audio.

But you're right Logos, someday it will be equal or better. Someday.
We're talking about TODAY. And Apple's decision to exclude Blu-Ray TODAY. Not a year (or 5 as you suggested) in the future.

The one and ONLY area that iTunes has an advantage over DVD/Blu-Ray is convenience. The end.


Mike

Look at the difference the last five years have made. It was only 5 years ago that iTunes launched and then it was only music. No one could even think about having a digital movie sent over the internet to them five years ago. Do you really think that in five years we will be very similar to now. Sure five years is not a lot of time but in technology it is an eon. DVD has only been here for a mere 10 years.

In Apple's defense, I don't think it makes sense to give the Mac system-wide Blu Ray support yet. Right now anyone can go out now and buy a drive and use it for backup. There's nothing stopping you. Drives are available. Software is available. That's great. I'd love to be able to throw my 40G Aperture library on one Blu Ray disk.

What's holding people up and why I think people want Blu Ray is for watching movies. But how does this make sense? Does anyone think that a Blu Ray movie on your 15" MacBook is going to somehow look better than a SD DVD? I don't think so. Blu Ray shines on a 40-50" LCD home theater with surround sound. Blue Ray on a laptop just seems silly. The only way I think Blu Ray would come close to giving you your money's worth would be on a Mac Pro with a 30" display, but honestly. That's a stretch.

Seriously, how many people out there would watch Blu Ray movies on their MacBook enough to make it worth while for Apple to invest in it? Not to mention they'd have to pass the royalty/licensing fees to the consumer. I wouldn't be happy about that.

As much as you videophile's hate to admit it, Blu Ray just isn't mainstream yet. The last time I was in Best Buy, they had isles and isles of DVDs, and maybe a 6 foot run of Blu Ray. Not that many people are ready to go through yet another transition. We've seen Beta to VHS, to Laserdisk to DVD, MiniDisk, Tape to CD, Vinyl to CD, yadda yadda yadda. I for one am not ready to abandon DVD yet and I am not ready to adopt yet another format that could just be replaced in 5 years.

I agree completely with your post. I think the Blu-ray backup market is small though because more and more people are moving to online storage or external hard drives.

 

[saltyzoo]

2. BUZZ (hardy har har)! NO there are plenty of easy ways to strip DRM and iTunes servers are not going down anytime soon.

1) Stripping DRM requires breaking the law - playing a purchased BR disc does not.
2) iTunes servers DO go down - you have no control of when and for how long.
3) Your ISP DOES go down - you have no control of when and for how long.
4) Your ISP can limit the speed or amount of data you can receive - some have made it impossible to use itunes for video streaming without huge financial impact to the viewer.
5) Your internal network can go down - at least you do have control of this one.

3. I will be taking every movie I own wherever I want, I will actually own them, and I will be able to play them anywhere with a modern TV because of inputs.

Can you play them in your car for your kids?

You get better video quality and extras now, but don't be stupid and think that technology will not be available for digital distribution in the next 5 years.

True, but it could also get much worse for you. You are betting on a closed system and trusting the vendor to continue to give you what you want. When I buy a disc, I know exactly what I'm getting, and that "contract" isn't ever going to change. Apple might decide that it's "ok" to reduce quality even more to handle increased load as more subscribers come online. Don't be stupid and think that what you get today will only get better in the next 5 years. It may, in fact, get worse. You have no control.

 

[Logos327]

1) Stripping DRM requires breaking the law - playing a purchased BR disc does not.
2) iTunes servers DO go down - you have no control of when and for how long.
3) Your ISP DOES go down - you have no control of when and for how long.
4) Your ISP can limit the speed or amount of data you can receive - some have made it impossible to use itunes for video streaming without huge financial impact to the viewer.
5) Your internal network can go down - at least you do have control of this one.

Can you play them in your car for your kids?



True, but it could also get much worse for you. You are betting on a closed system and trusting the vendor to continue to give you what you want. When I buy a disc, I know exactly what I'm getting, and that "contract" isn't ever going to change. Apple might decide that it's "ok" to reduce quality even more to handle increased load as more subscribers come online. Don't be stupid and think that what you get today will only get better in the next 5 years. It may, in fact, get worse. You have no control.

1) Oh come on. If you wanted to put a movie on your iPod or iPhone you would have to strip the copyright/region protection which is against the law. This is a stupid reason.
2-5) I was referencing a total shutdown like what Yahoo, MS, and Wal-mart have tried to do in the past months, but all of my movies are stored on my physical hard drive and again can be easily stripped of DRM if this were to happen.

Of course I can play this in the car with my kids...on a bigger screen than those tiny 7" fold downs.

Things will not get worse for me. If anything they will stay the same. Traffic will increase but so will the technology. Hell Japan can easily stream Blu-ray quality movies, it is not like the technology doesn't exist. I have just as much control over the product I buy.

Edit: Not to mention look what happened to music and what is now happening with video games. This isn't so much about blu-ray as it is about physical copies of your media. The world is moving on. Digital distribution is the method of choice like email over regular mail and text messaging (with the younger crowd) over calling.

 

[UltraNEO*]

1) Stripping DRM requires breaking the law - playing a purchased BR disc does not.
2) iTunes servers DO go down - you have no control of when and for how long.
3) Your ISP DOES go down - you have no control of when and for how long.
4) Your ISP can limit the speed or amount of data you can receive - some have made it impossible to use itunes for video streaming without huge financial impact to the viewer.
5) Your internal network can go down - at least you do have control of this one.

Can you play them in your car for your kids?



True, but it could also get much worse for you. You are betting on a closed system and trusting the vendor to continue to give you what you want. When I buy a disc, I know exactly what I'm getting, and that "contract" isn't ever going to change. Apple might decide that it's "ok" to reduce quality even more to handle increased load as more subscribers come online. Don't be stupid and think that what you get today will only get better in the next 5 years. It may, in fact, get worse. You have no control.

The Law is a funny thing, it varies according to where you live. I got a great solution!! Move to Sweden, and only rip, share and distribute the movies that ain't owned by Swedish movie companies, alternative move to China where copyright isn't enforced at all!

Seriously... Who actually give two hoots about the DRM?
So far this year, there ain't any movies produce by Hollywood that's worth space on my hard-disk nevermind my bookshelf!! Near enough all the recent movies are re-enactments of someone else's story and in some cases it's a poor remake!! Where have the all the talent gone?

 

[jaytv111]

1) Oh come on. If you wanted to put a movie on your iPod or iPhone you would have to strip the copyright/region protection which is against the law. This is a stupid reason.
2-5) I was referencing a total shutdown like what Yahoo, MS, and Wal-mart have tried to do in the past months, but all of my movies are stored on my physical hard drive and again can be easily stripped of DRM if this were to happen.

Of course I can play this in the car with my kids...on a bigger screen than those tiny 7" fold downs.

Things will not get worse for me. If anything they will stay the same. Traffic will increase but so will the technology. Hell Japan can easily stream Blu-ray quality movies, it is not like the technology doesn't exist. I have just as much control over the product I buy.

Edit: Not to mention look what happened to music and what is now happening with video games. This isn't so much about blu-ray as it is about physical copies of your media. The world is moving on. Digital distribution is the method of choice like email over regular mail and text messaging (with the younger crowd) over calling.

sorry but digital distribution won't get anywhere with our crappy internet connections. Maybe in Japan where 50 Mbits/sec is cheap and widespread digital distribution will easily take off, but if i recall correctly, the average internet speed in the US is somewhere around 1.5 to 2.0 Mbit/sec. Also ISPs like Comcast and Cox cap our internet usage, so it will become an expensive proposition to download all of your content if your charged overage fees every month. Physical media isn't going anywhere for at least 10 more years, possibly longer. (Although DVD will still predominate IMO, but Blu will make some inroads)

 

[Wolfpup]

Even if we could download 50GB/s, it's still irrelevant until they sell it without activation. Otherwise it's just a rental.

But yeah, I get 88-90KB/s typically. Which honestly isn't bad at all for me, but still, I've got faster than most people.

 

[UltraNEO*]

sorry but digital distribution won't get anywhere with our crappy internet connections. Maybe in Japan where 50 Mbits/sec is cheap and widespread digital distribution will easily take off, but if i recall correctly, the average internet speed in the US is somewhere around 1.5 to 2.0 Mbit/sec. Also ISPs like Comcast and Cox cap our internet usage, so it will become an expensive proposition to download all of your content if your charged overage fees every month. Physical media isn't going anywhere for at least 10 more years, possibly longer. (Although DVD will still predominate IMO, but Blu will make some inroads)

Correction:
Japanese internet speeds vary from 20 to 120Mbit/s, depends on your building and connection.
If it's Hikari fibra, then it's usually "synchronous" or "symmetric" i.e. Upstreams = Downstreams

 

[FF_productions]

Apple will put blu-ray in the Mac Pro/iMac before it hits the portables, that I can assure you.

Blu-Ray is of benefit to the pro user that needs to burn to Blu-Ray/Back up to Blu-Ray. (I'm not counting out the consumers, just sayin)

Apple will give it to them first, then bring it down to the consumer level later on.

I think it's a crock of shitt to say iTunes Store replaces DVD's/Blu-Ray at this moment in time.

Yes, I own an Apple TV. Not ONE of my 1000 movies in my iTunes library come from their store. They are all DVD rips from a giant collection.

Many things need to happen before online seriously considers taking over.

1. Internet Access/Speed must go up BIG time in the States and anywhere else where it is too slow to download large content
2. Extra's need to be included, it needs to have the feel of the physical DVD, iTunes music has extra album-only included with some albums, the same must be done with movies.
3. Quality, this is a very controversial one. Apple TV's HD movies top out at 720p, not the full experience, not competitive towards Blu-Ray. There needs to be 2 clear options, 1 for iPod/iPhone, the other in High-Definition (1080p no strings attached for an optimal viewing experience).

Internet Speeds will continue to pick up with time, meaning we will only benefit with time. I haven't found a reason to go to blu-ray due to having an older rear-projection tv that tops out at 480p, BUT Apple TV has found its place in the living room.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[jaytv111]

Even if we could download 50GB/s, it's still irrelevant until they sell it without activation. Otherwise it's just a rental.

But yeah, I get 88-90KB/s typically. Which honestly isn't bad at all for me, but still, I've got faster than most people.

I wouldn't care actually, I'd be fine with only having a "rental", as long as you can still play it as much as you want. Itunes servers aren't going anywhere, so we can rely on them to be available for a long time. The point is that there's no way digital downloads could even compete with Blu ray if our internet connections won't even permit it. That's the main hurdle right now.

Correction:
Japanese internet speeds vary from 20 to 120Mbit/s, depends on your building and connection.
If it's Hikari fibra, then it's usually "synchronous" or "symmetric" i.e. Upstreams = Downstreams

sounds cool. Americans won't be able to get these kinds of speeds unless they have Fios, which only about a million or so do. And even Fios is maxed out at 50 Mbits/s, and much lower upstream as well.

 

[jaytv111]

also I think most people are missing the point of having a Blu Ray player in their laptop. If you buy a Blu Ray disc, you can only play it in Blu Ray drives. So, if you only have a DVD player in your Macbook Pro, you will need to buy both a DVD and Blu Ray copy in order to take advantage of both portable viewing and High Def viewing. I would think it's just plain more convenient to be able to buy one disc and play it on both your laptop and High def theater.
Also consider that even with the MBP screen, high def movies will look better than DVD's, even though it's just a 15 inch screen. Some may not be able to tell the difference, but I know I can.
Plus Blu Ray is the next gen of discs, even if you think DVD is good enough. It'd be like if Apple said Firewire 400 is good enough, no one needs Firewire 800 so let's not include it. Or same with USB 3.0. Blu Ray is the next upgrade in discs.