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If the next MBP doesnt have i5, Blu Ray & ATI say goodbye to highend consumers Apple!
- Thread starter wikoogle
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I believe that Blu-ray discs can pass their maximum resolution of 1080p only via HDMI. Because nothing in the Mac lineup is equipped with HDMI and it doesn't seem to be in the offing, how can a BD played on an external BD player pass 1080p images to a Mac? Further, the ONLY way modern HD soundtracks encoded on most BDs these days can be played is via an HDMI connection. Don't misunderstand me. If there is another way to do it that Apple computers could use, I would like to learn about it.
It didn't seem very obvious to me, since you're suggesting that OS X has Blu-ray playback capabilities, yet Apple still provides no Blu-ray drive which you'd need to rip the disc in the first place.
That's like suggesting that Honda has, for all intents and purposes, a supercharger in every model, since you can go to a garage and buy an aftermarket bolt-on kit.
That's only if the chain is checking for HDCP. Make MKV disables it along with decryption of the disc, thus you get 1080p for anything. The only downer is that you can only get Dolby Digital or DTS (since Macs can't do True-HD or DTS-MA). The Mini DisplayPort spec has HD audio, but the 9400m used by Apple does not support HD audio.
You have to have a Blu-ray drive to play Blu-ray discs. Perhaps you're not aware of that, but that's how it is. They're pretty cheap nowadays - less than US$130.
Sorry, I don't buy this argument.
Because we all know that i5 really matters.
How many people, hell how many applications exist out there to reap the stupid advantage of multi-thread processing? What you want is Apple to invest a in technology that 99% of its userbase doesn't care about. Since when has Apple just jumped onboard with anything, they dont try **** until they know its viable.
And lets talk about that userbase. MAjority of the Apple buyers, do not give a rats **** whats in it. They need it to work. Thats all they care about. They don't care that it has laser beams and a discoball. They don't care it runs Crysis better then Crysis runs Crysis. It works, they are happy.
And Blu-Ray? You, um, ******** me?
Lets look at it this way. You want to watch movies on a 13" screen that close ruining your vision at the same time murdering your battery life?
Do people honestly forget, that Apple has always made everything to appeal to the masses. Not to people like you and me who need the fastest and greatest.
If I wanted i7 and blu-ray SO ****ING BADLY I would have bought a Alienware instead of the MBP and built my own desktop instead of saving up for a family iMac.
Im not a Apple preacher I just appreciate that when you can just buy the ****ing thing and be done with it, it feels good. I mean I probably still might build my own, since I have OCD with having new things. But that doesn't mean Apple needs to **** its money raking business model for a percentage of nerds.
There.
How many people, hell how many applications exist out there to reap the stupid advantage of multi-thread processing? What you want is Apple to invest a in technology that 99% of its userbase doesn't care about. Since when has Apple just jumped onboard with anything, they dont try **** until they know its viable.
And lets talk about that userbase. MAjority of the Apple buyers, do not give a rats **** whats in it. They need it to work. Thats all they care about. They don't care that it has laser beams and a discoball. They don't care it runs Crysis better then Crysis runs Crysis. It works, they are happy.
And Blu-Ray? You, um, ******** me?
Lets look at it this way. You want to watch movies on a 13" screen that close ruining your vision at the same time murdering your battery life?
Do people honestly forget, that Apple has always made everything to appeal to the masses. Not to people like you and me who need the fastest and greatest.
If I wanted i7 and blu-ray SO ****ING BADLY I would have bought a Alienware instead of the MBP and built my own desktop instead of saving up for a family iMac.
Im not a Apple preacher I just appreciate that when you can just buy the ****ing thing and be done with it, it feels good. I mean I probably still might build my own, since I have OCD with having new things. But that doesn't mean Apple needs to **** its money raking business model for a percentage of nerds.
There.
Show me a decent tablet for under $500.
Oh wait, they don't exist.
Last time I checked, Apple effectively renewed a market that has been dead for years and sealed it from competitiveness based on price alone. Sony is planning to enter, but we all know where that is going to go (trash).
That's true, especially since the iPad is nowhere near a "decent tablet", but a stretched out iPod.
For OP: A higher res iSight camera will do next to nothing. Its the same story with people whining about the iPhone camera being only 2 or 3 megapixels.
With these tiny image sensors, everything else being equal, higher res will often make image quality worse, with more noise and with less dynamic range. Also, I dont think the optics would be able to resolve all those megapixels anyway, and the quality is never better than the weakest link. People should stop asking for more megapixels. They should ask for bigger sensors instead.
Blu-ray is a yes and no for me. Yes, if they choose to have an optical drive, it makes no sense to not have it Blu-ray (well for Apple it does...). All you people complaining: You dont have to use it, and Blu-ray drives will do nothing to the performance of normal DVDs/CDs. It wont be much bigger either. The question is if we really still need the optical drive though - especially considering what Apple could fit in instead. Larger battery with double the battery life? Yes please. A bigger, more powerful graphics card? Mmh yes! Larger, faster hard drives? Bring it on! I dont know much about hardware, but the Macbook Pros are after all pretty compact. If removing the optical drive is what makes it possible to fit in higher spec hardware in the same sleek package, I say go for it. Also, removing optical drives would save money. This money could be spent on better CPU/GPU/RAM/HDD instead, and if the price was the same, I think most people would be happy to make the trade.
Core i5/i7? Absolutely. All next-gen MBPs should have this in 2010, though I suspect it will only be available in the high-end versions.
RAM: 4 gigs should be standard in all Macbooks; 8gigs in the high-end 15" and 17" models.
GPU: Apple has a lot of work to do here, and its finally time they catch up. Now with Steam supporting the Mac OS platform, millions of gamers can play those games on their Mac. Now is the time for Apple to please to gaming crowd. What should we get? First, a significant upgrade on the standard GPUs. Also, more customizing options for those willing to pay.
Apple already seems to have got it somewhat right with their iMacs, and Im sure the notebooks are next.
Carbon. Being no material expert, I gotta make an "if" here: If they can make it as solid as their aluminium casing, then its time. Seriously, my squash racket is carbon, and I smash it in the walls all the time. Yes, carbon is more breakable or whatever, but when its used in sports, I think it will be solid enough for notebooks. And much, much lighter. At 2 kg, my 13" MPB is not as light as it could be (not as heavy as some PCs though)
With these tiny image sensors, everything else being equal, higher res will often make image quality worse, with more noise and with less dynamic range. Also, I dont think the optics would be able to resolve all those megapixels anyway, and the quality is never better than the weakest link. People should stop asking for more megapixels. They should ask for bigger sensors instead.
Blu-ray is a yes and no for me. Yes, if they choose to have an optical drive, it makes no sense to not have it Blu-ray (well for Apple it does...). All you people complaining: You dont have to use it, and Blu-ray drives will do nothing to the performance of normal DVDs/CDs. It wont be much bigger either. The question is if we really still need the optical drive though - especially considering what Apple could fit in instead. Larger battery with double the battery life? Yes please. A bigger, more powerful graphics card? Mmh yes! Larger, faster hard drives? Bring it on! I dont know much about hardware, but the Macbook Pros are after all pretty compact. If removing the optical drive is what makes it possible to fit in higher spec hardware in the same sleek package, I say go for it. Also, removing optical drives would save money. This money could be spent on better CPU/GPU/RAM/HDD instead, and if the price was the same, I think most people would be happy to make the trade.
Core i5/i7? Absolutely. All next-gen MBPs should have this in 2010, though I suspect it will only be available in the high-end versions.
RAM: 4 gigs should be standard in all Macbooks; 8gigs in the high-end 15" and 17" models.
GPU: Apple has a lot of work to do here, and its finally time they catch up. Now with Steam supporting the Mac OS platform, millions of gamers can play those games on their Mac. Now is the time for Apple to please to gaming crowd. What should we get? First, a significant upgrade on the standard GPUs. Also, more customizing options for those willing to pay.
Apple already seems to have got it somewhat right with their iMacs, and Im sure the notebooks are next.
Carbon. Being no material expert, I gotta make an "if" here: If they can make it as solid as their aluminium casing, then its time. Seriously, my squash racket is carbon, and I smash it in the walls all the time. Yes, carbon is more breakable or whatever, but when its used in sports, I think it will be solid enough for notebooks. And much, much lighter. At 2 kg, my 13" MPB is not as light as it could be (not as heavy as some PCs though)
Just to add to the discussion, I would like to point out that movie downloads from iTunes (HD or not) are not available in most countries. In mos european countries you cannot download movies from iTunes due to rights management from the distributors. The same happens with Netflix or Hulu.
For me, there's no legal option for movie download or streaming (legally I mean). So having BR in my computer would be nice in order to connect it to my TV.
For me, there's no legal option for movie download or streaming (legally I mean). So having BR in my computer would be nice in order to connect it to my TV.
It is my understanding that, while BDs (Blu-ray discs) can be ripped and re-encoded in a way a computer can deal with, the operation takes a long time. When I used to rip and re-encode DVDs for iTunes and Apple TV on my MBP with HandBrake, even that operation ordinarily took about an hour and usually more. I understand that ripping and transcoding a BD takes considerably longer than the runtime of the movie. Thus, a movie might take plus or minus 3 hours to convert. Also, as you have said, you can't get HD audio. Under the circumstances, thanks but no thanks. I'll stick with a regular old BD player in my home theater.
There's a more fundamental reason why I believe ripping BDs to a computer isn't practical. I joined the BD revolution 2 years ago and never looked back. Nevertheless, let me say that the idea of gaining the ability to play BDs on a laptop underwhelms me. At least half the magic of watching a BD movie is its HD soundtrack. For that you need an HDMI cable connected to an audio-visual receiver to receive it, and at least 5 speakers spread around a room, plus a subwoofer, to reproduce it. That's hardly a task for a laptop.
The difference in picture quality between a a 1080p image displayed on a 13, 15, or 17 inch laptop, compared to a good old 480p DVD, is going to range between minimal and indiscernable. The only way to get the genuine improvement in picture and sound provided by BDs is to watch them in a home theater with a large HDTV, a reasonably powerful HDMI equipped audio-visual receiver, and a set of 5.1 speakers. Once anyone experiences the real deal it seems unlikely to me that he will be very interested in watching a BD on a computer. Indeed, that's why so many of the studios now furnish a "digital copy," which is a DVD by any other name, of a movie along with the BD, so that BD buyers can conveniently see the film on their laptops while they are on the road.
The more I think about it, the more I come around to the notion that Apple's decision not to add BD drives of HDMI ports to it computers may make sense.
It has nothing to do with ripping. MakeMKV decrypts and de-HDCPs the disc on the fly, and sends it out by streaming server. Any application that can read streams will then play the disc. VLC does this already, and soon Plex and XBMC will be able to if MakeMKV devs get the UPnP fixed.
That sounds like a giant pain.
What's wrong with simply being able to put in the blu ray disc I already own into the laptop, and having it start playing?
And if you don't think it makes a difference with a dvd, here you go...
Here's a comparison of an upconverted dvd on a 7 inch netbook laptop sized screen, versus a blu ray on a 7 inch netbook laptop sized screen.
Source: http://forum.blu-ray.com/617171-post5.html
What's wrong with simply being able to put in the blu ray disc I already own into the laptop, and having it start playing?
And if you don't think it makes a difference with a dvd, here you go...
Here's a comparison of an upconverted dvd on a 7 inch netbook laptop sized screen, versus a blu ray on a 7 inch netbook laptop sized screen.
Source: http://forum.blu-ray.com/617171-post5.html
Despite our fundamental disagreement about the practical utility of adding a BD drive to the MBP line, I agree with you that bending one's self into a pretzel to be able to stream a BD image from a laptop to a large display "sounds like a pain." From my point of view, at least, it would be more trouble than it was worth because it's far easier to watch it on a BD player in the first place and get the benefit of HD audio, to boot.
CARBON fiber is not happening. Period.
AL is one of the best materials and cheap to transfer heat away.
