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iTunes 9 to Include Blu-ray Support and iPhone App Organization?
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"Oh, all I want is to listen to this song..."
*clicks on iTunes*
*taps foot*
*get a coffee*
"Oh, there it is, just works!"
I'm tired of all the bloat on iTunes, I wish they would separate the music from all the bloat!
..
It used to be a 4.5MB download didn't it? Now its 90MB !!!
Can't wait for all the BR naysayers to keep up the "optical media" is dead BS.
It's dead. I truly don't know how you can't see this. Optical media is the bottleneck for the whole system. I never use my optical drives. Ever. There are far better ways to get data than spinning disks.
The app organization tools would be welcome here. I've been trying to keep games and everything else separate, which worked well until I needed more than one page for each.
Maybe those people need a sound system for playback of the BD movie and not use just the TV's built-in speakers. Regular DVDs also look much sharper when played on a BD player.
Damn right!
Until the vast majority of users are on unrestricted connections of 20mbit+, optical media will have a place. It's simply not feasible to download BR spec media on most home internet connections, eg: the vast majority of internet users in the UK see less than 4mbit, with a large number of that seeing less than 2mbit. Download a couple of films and watch a bit of streaming video, some apps, and some regular browsing, and many UK users will be hitting their usage caps.
iTunes HD media is a fair way behind that on a typical BR disc in terms of quality (resolution, bitrate, audio codecs), and even that tends to come in at 3.5GB for a typical HD film. I don't fancy waiting around for the best part of a day or two waiting for one film to download - I can walk into my local video shop about 5 mins away and purchase 4 BR movies for around £30 which will be superior in every way to the download version in less time than it takes to download the trailer.
Optical media will be the preferred distribution method for quite some time yet.
^ Oh hells yes. Pulling data from an optical disc is what, veryfastmbps, the overwhelming bulk of broadband connections don't have such speeds. When I used to have a 2mbps connection it was still quicker to walk or get a bus into town, buy the product and go home again than it was to download a film from iTunes or game from Steam. DD is the future but connections just aren't up to scratch just yet.
It is a fast jukebox though. On my 12" Powerbook the latest iTunes loads up faster than the version it came with. And I don't even use half of the new features but it doesn't bother me.
But why would iTunes 9 include Blue Ray support? It doesn't have support for DVDs after all, wouldn't DVD Player (or a renamed version) be a better candidate for such playback?
It is a fast jukebox though. On my 12" Powerbook the latest iTunes loads up faster than the version it came with. And I don't even use half of the new features but it doesn't bother me.
But why would iTunes 9 include Blue Ray support? It doesn't have support for DVDs after all, wouldn't DVD Player (or a renamed version) be a better candidate for such playback?
"At the recently concluded Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the Digital Entertainment Group released its figures for DVD spending in the United States in 2008. The results were a 5.5% decrease from the previous year.
DEGs figures arent just for outright sales of DVDs, but also include DVD rentals and Blu-Ray disc sales. Rental revenue stayed nearly constant from previous years figures but sales pretty much took a nosedive. While its easy to blame dismal sales on the old monster of piracy, I personally think there are a lot of factors for this loss. Here are some of them."
- from ghacks.net (January 2009)
DVD sales figures are down 5.5% - includes BD. The most likely reason is the increase in availability of movies over the internet as well as cable.
BD movies ARE more expensive so it is to be expected that they do not sell as well as DVDs.
Also, the number of movies available on DVD is still greater than what is available on BD. My local video rental store charges the same for BD as DVD in that I can pay for either with the same advance-purchase 'coupon' - I look for a movie on BD before I look for it on DVD.
Lastly, it's the economy, stupid! People have less money to spend. It amazes me how, in this economy, companies are INCREASING their fees and causing customers to quit using / buying their services / products.
As has been said, this could just be to support BDs as data discs for transferring those 'digital copies' that are cropping up on discs. It would save on an extra DVD for the studios if they knew that any PC or Mac with a BD drive could read it and the drives are getting cheaper all the time).
No, it's not 'dead' until no-one sells it and no-one uses it. Millions of Blu-rays and DVDs are being sold still. People still buy music on CDs so it's frankly laughable to say optical media is dead when talking about video too.
The internet is still the bottleneck for many of us.
No, it's not 'dead' until no-one sells it and no-one uses it. Millions of Blu-rays and DVDs are being sold still. People still buy music on CDs so it's frankly laughable to say optical media is dead when talking about video too.
The internet is still the bottleneck for many of us.
Nothing to do with that and everything to do with iTunes using 64bit CODECs for compressing audio and video; using all the latest optimisations available that come with Core 2 (assuming they use the latest GCC or at least pack port some features from the latest version).
I know when I compiled lame in 64bit using the Sun compiler, there was an improvement in compression speed; I'm sure with some hardcore work utilising SSE, 64bit and extra registers, it'll make things a lot faster.
So then my Apple IIe isn't dead and I should demand software updates, third-party software, and repair support.
Neither is my HD DVD player. I should demand new movies.
Right.
Also, BluRay, you can't rip and put on your iPod - many moons ago, only a small few did it. The applications are so easy these days I see people with a relatively middle of the road understanding using rippers as easily as they do with music.
If BluRay want to take off - reduce the price, get rid of all the protection - lets face it, those who want to rip off the system will always find a way. If BluRay is cheap enough to make it more convenient to purchase than downloading a torrent. The margins would lower but the volume would make up for it.
Oh, and don't make crappy films; then you won't need to make 5 good ones to make up for the 1 crappy one.
Ah, so you won't be installing Snow Leopard then.
I don't make much use of the optical drive either, but our wishful thinking isn't going to translate to general public opinion. There are still some 500 million audio CDs sold in the U.S. alone every year, and that's a 30 year old format. Blu-ray is brand new. Global sales of home entertainment on optical media (games, movies, music) amounted to $61 billion in 2008. It's not going anywhere anytime soon.
A full HD quality movie takes up 15-30 GB on a Blu-ray disc. For anyone who wants it in full quality rather than a mangled version optimized for distribution via the internet, a 30 GB file simply isn't feasible. 30 of them will eat up a 1 TB drive, and downloading them will take forever and a day. Once 100 TB drives and gigabit broadband connections are standard in most households, it will be a different story.
That's an awful analogy.
Neither of those products are still available to buy in stores. CD, DVD and Blu-ray media and the devices that play them very much are.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=HD+DVD&x=0&y=0
You were saying? Oh, and look at that. 1/15th the price of a Blu-ray movie. HUH. Guess who's getting the better deal.
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You only use solid state drives? That must be expensive!
I've had 4 well reviewed HDDs fail on me within the last 10 years. I've had no optical, carefully kept backup CDs/DVDs fail during the same period. I'd rather ship my content off onto disks, as would a lot of other people. If I record stuff on tv I want to archive to disk, not have it filling up my HDD.
Optical disks may be on the way out, in 10 years time they may not be so necessary. Right now they are.
I personally have contributed to that number, and I'm praying that the audio CD format never disappears. I don't want my music to become lossy. With increasing file storage on all devices, compression is becoming less important. (Edit: In fact, the only reason I'm using iTunes right now is because I'm using an iPod, but when my Pandora comes, I'll be changing to Songbird anyway. So, I guess that counts me out of the usual crowd around here anyway.
)Besides, I think people (like me) enjoy the experience of opening the wrapper, pulling out the CD, reading the insert, all with the smell of fresh plastic and paper materials. A lot like reading a newspaper I'd say.
So when apple introduces BR drives, what will you say then?
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"They're unnecessarily expensive, just like every other BTO option Apple has."
Because, unless you haven't been paying attention, we already have COMPLETE Blu-ray support in OS X. The only thing that we can't do is play a Hollywood movie directly from a disk.
I couldn't care less about Blu-ray as a movie format because of all the useless licensing and DRM. Blu-ray as a data format is fine (except one scratch ruins 50GB), but I just couldn't care less about movies. That's the only thing that Apple could add at this point, and I don't give a crap.
i don't agree, alot of us will already be buying blu-rays and may want to watch them on their computer, or... laptop. so digital copy also isn't as good pic quality and can take up alot of hard drive space. so... just not my favorite thing. one thing to rent a movie, another to have to keep it on hard drives perpetually.
i don't buy that. lower end models should be open to the possiblity of not burning BD media and just being able to playback. that said, it would be cool for apple to start calling the superdrive HD Superdrive. so it is BD compatible also. for burning and playback
If history has taught us anything, the opposite of what you say on MR is what actually comes true.
