Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Shipping in September: $29 for Leopard Users

[nuckinfutz]

But we "nitwits" are watching 40 Mbps 1080p content with 96 KHz/24-bit lossless 7.1 sound - while you geniuses are looking at 4 Mbps heavily compressed 720p, or upscaled "VGA-quality 640x480" DVDs.

Aiden

The nuck owns 210 movies in HD on optical though I humbly posit that a computer and even a computer screen is ill suited to the proper display of the avg film. I'd gladly coin up for Blu-ray on disc for home and an affordable "Managed Copy" suitable for computer uses but AACS still isn't fully ratified (Lordy)

I understand the desire to take a disc on plop it into the ole computer but cinema just wasn't made to playback on the craptastic computer LCDs sitting on the avg computer desk <shudder>

OT

I'm looking to upgrade my lilliputian 32" Sharp with a 55" LED HDTV...if ur gonna do HD...."do" HD. Superbowl 2010 at my place...bring your own beer fellas.

 

[toke lahti]

Blu-ray < iTunes Store

Really?
BR has better PQ than iTunes movies.
They sell more BR movies than iTunes movies.

 

[nuckinfutz]

Really?
BR has better PQ than iTunes movies.
They sell more BR movies than iTunes movies.

Oh yes...BD is king of the hill but often convience trumps quality

 

[Amdahl]

Trying to manage two frameworks and two ISA is a recipe for disaster and the ramifications of this disaster is buggy software. Engineering time is most definitely finite.

I don't want to keep going in circles too much on this thread, but do want to point out that there is very little effort involved here. Steve Jobs Himself demonstrated how easy it is to compile apps for both platforms, and the world has been doing it since 2006. Apple has been doing it since 2001, before they acknowledged a move to Intel. So, it is not hard. Apple says so.

In terms of the system level work, which is hard, it is a pretty moot point if Apple isn't going to implement the new system level technologies on PPC (which, considering they aren't supporting lots of Intel hardware for OpenCL, is a given.). It is just a matter of providing the user-level code compiled for PPC. Point and click.

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

Oh yes...BD is king of the hill but often convience trumps quality

If thats the case, do you support removing all optical media from macs? iTunes music is terrible quality (well, it was until recently, but its still not great) but more convenient than buying a cd, so obviously we dont need to read cds anymore, right?
Downloading an app dmg is more convenient than buying the dvd, so we dont need any dvd playback, right? Same applies to dvd movies, its more convenient to pay to rent the movie from iTunes (this time quality wins) than dig out the disc i already own and pop it in.
Obviously we should be paying apple for being so smart and (hypothetically) removing the dvd drive!

 

[*LTD*]

Aiden

The nuck owns 210 movies in HD on optical though I humbly posit that a computer and even a computer screen is ill suited to the proper display of the avg film. I'd gladly coin up for Blu-ray on disc for home and an affordable "Managed Copy" suitable for computer uses but AACS still isn't fully ratified (Lordy)

I understand the desire to take a disc on plop it into the ole computer but cinema just wasn't made to playback on the craptastic computer LCDs sitting on the avg computer desk <shudder>

OT

I'm looking to upgrade my lilliputian 32" Sharp with a 55" LED HDTV...if ur gonna do HD...."do" HD. Superbowl 2010 at my place...bring your own beer fellas.

Just as an aside . . .

There are a million ways to aquire HD content (full 720p or 1080p) over the web (via Windows or OS X), download it, watch it on your computer/large LCD attached via VLC players. Even Quicktime will read /mkx files. No Blu-Ray required. Web-based content is the way to go. Physical media is for suckers. Better yet, I believe AppleTV will read it (.mkv files) or can be made to read it, so it can be enjoyed on your TV. Even better, $180 gets you a sweet little Western Digital HD media player, for example, which will read everything, HD and all.

If thats the case, do you support removing all optical media from macs?

I do.

Nothing more needed than USB sticks and SD cards as far as removable/portable storage goes, aside from the existing paradigm of external hard drives, where large media files can be stored easily.

 

[DoFoT9]

Just as an aside . . .

There are a million ways to aquire HD content (full 720p or 1080p) over the web (via Windows or OS X), download it, watch it on your computer/large LCD attached via VLC players. Even Quicktime will read /mkx files. No Blu-Ray required. Web-based content is the way to go. Physical media is for suckers. Better yet, I believe AppleTV will read it (.mkv files) or can be made to read it, so it can be enjoyed on your TV. Even better, $180 gets you a sweet little Western Digital HD media player, for example, which will read everything, HD and all.

there are good and bad points for all, ripped files are NOTHING like the original with both sound and video quality.

 

[nuckinfutz]

If thats the case, do you support removing all optical media from macs? iTunes music is terrible quality (well, it was until recently, but its still not great) but more convenient than buying a cd, so obviously we dont need to read cds anymore, right?
Downloading an app dmg is more convenient than buying the dvd, so we dont need any dvd playback, right? Same applies to dvd movies, its more convenient to pay to rent the movie from iTunes (this time quality wins) than dig out the disc i already own and pop it in.
Obviously we should be paying apple for being so smart and (hypothetically) removing the dvd drive!

I do not advocate removing all traces of optical players from a person's home but I do believe the optical formats days as an integrated peripheral in the standard computer is coming to an end.

When I go to vendor meets for my job they no longer hand out CD/DVD or even "dead tree" media datasheet they hand out cheapo flash USB Flash drives. Much more useful IMO.

An external USB DVD burner is a paltry expense that can be shared. If my hard drive in my laptop or desktop dies and I haven't a second drive with mirrored data I'm screwed. My optical drive is going to do nothing for my data. Apple will wise up and get rid of the optical drives in their notebooks soon enough. They clearly aren't fans of Blu-ray enouch to hop on that bandwagon.

Removing optical and HDD drives in lie of solid state storage means no moving parts ..better battery life and quieter computing.

Die optical die!

 

[VoR]

there are good and bad points for all, ripped files are NOTHING like the original with both sound and video quality.

h264 and vc1 are both designed to be scalable codecs. We've got optical media that's 40gigs in size, we might as well use it - doesn't mean an image that's 20gigs in size is awful. We've got idiots running the industry, a badly produced and encoded film/music is going to be iffy whatever the filesize - and large files with our slowly evolving internet infrastructure are probably the best anti piracy tool they have.

Oh yes...BD is king of the hill but often convience trumps quality

Convenience to me is a few things, and probably differs from apple and the itunes masses - hardly the people I want in charge of shaping this industry...
I'd like to buy all my digital media once, in the best possible quality. If I need a small copy/whatever, I'll make one.

 

[baditkoff]

TC/TM & Snow

Just wondering.
I'm currently running Leopard and using TC/TM.
Question:
After the upgrade. Will TC/TM create a new baseline?
Thanks.

 

[*LTD*]

there are good and bad points for all, ripped files are NOTHING like the original with both sound and video quality.

You'd be very, very surprised at what's out there now. If you rip the source right to MKV then video-wise you should have a replica.

All you need to look for is a PROPER release, and look for encoding details and filesize.

And that's all that needs to be said.

But then this isn't the norm anyway, so officially, Blu-Ray media is still the only way.

 

[VoR]

You'd be very, very surprised at what's out there now. If you rip the source right to MKV then video-wise you should have a replica.

All you need to look for is a PROPER release, and look for encoding details and filesize.

And that's all that needs to be said.

But then this isn't the norm anyway, so officially, Blu-Ray media is still the only way.

PROPER are just a ripping/p2p release team? MKV is just a container. Encoding details and filesize don't mean a huge amount if it's not done PROPERly?

 

[smartalic34]

The other thing that bugs me is that we all know Apple has internal PPC builds of Snow Leopard, not to mention probably builds for ARM chips as well in development. Otherwise, there would never have been a surprise INTEL Mac in the first place running Mac OS X.

Considering that "everyone knows this," you're the first person to ever claim this. Where is your evidence or proof that Apple is withdrawing PowerPC builds of Snow Leopard from the public?

Quillz, Apple is only releasing its Intel version of Snow Leopard to the public: http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html if I understand your question correctly... but yes, Apple of course has a PPC build of Snow Leopard.

Back in 2006 when Apple revealed they were switching to Intel, Steve Jobs showed a slide during his presentation that showed a satellite view of the building where Intel development took place. he stated that Apple had Intel builds of Mac OS X all along... so why would Apple stop creating both now? they have tro hedge their bets against the future, possibly when PPC might make more sense again.

 

[synth3tik]

With the disappointment that new 13" "Macbooks" have firewire again, after I just redid my entire set up, at least I can get the functional update for $100 off.

 

[*LTD*]

PROPER are just a ripping/p2p release team? MKV is just a container. Encoding details and filesize don't mean a huge amount if it's not done PROPERly?

Right, so pay attention to the specs. If you know what to look for, you're golden. There is plenty to choose from when it comes to major releases. And a lot of superb transfers, DTS, DD, and all.

And to view a lot of older movies in HD (never released to Blu ray/never filmed in HD), there's not much choice but to look at "alternative" means. It's pretty amazing to watch The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in HD, and Lawrence of Arabia in HD will blow you away. There are some absolutely gorgeous transfers out there, with full DTS sound. Stuff that will easily test your home theatre setups. All the goodies.

But again, I don't officially condone doing this.

 

[VoR]

There's plenty of choices for any release, but 'knowing what to look for' doesn't always help, especially if you're literally talking about specs like you said. A video with 15mbs average bitrate isnt necessarily better than one with 10.

I believe paying a newsgroup provider is the best way to access media with top quality releases/availability/metadata/'shaping the industryness' - but I don't condone it either, obviously.

 

[*LTD*]

There's plenty of choices for any release, but 'knowing what to look for' doesn't always help, especially if you're literally talking about specs like you said. A video with 15mbit average bitrate isnt necessarily better than one with 10.

I believe paying a newsgroup provider is the best way to access media with top quality releases/availability/metadata/'shaping the industryness' - but I don't condone it either, obviously.

Agreed, more or less.

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

I'd be willing to bet that if Apple announced that they are including Blu-ray drives in all the new macbooks that a ton of people who are now anti-Blu-ray would change their tone and praise Apple for it.

I have a 46" lcd and the difference between a dvd and blu-ray is just stunning. I also have a smaller 36" (i think) with the ps3 hooked up to it. I can notice the difference between 720 and 1080 on it, though its not quite as obvious. I dont have bandwidth to download a 1080p movie with 7.1 channel surround, and i would rather not rent a super-compressed 720p movie from iTunes, so i buy Blu-rays. Thanks to Apple's great innovation i cant watch my movies on a mac, i would have to buy an external blu-ray and boot into windows. All this wouldnt be such a big annoyance if i didnt have to pay tons more for a mac that doesnt have features a cheaper pc would.

 

[VS007]

Few questions when I upgrade to SL from Leopard.
1. Would I lose my files under Documents and Pictures?
2. I installed few applications, would I need to reinstall them?
3. Few of the apps I bought are for Leopard, would it work on SL?

Thanks

1. If you choose the "upgrade" option you will not loose anything.
2. Again no if you "upgrade"
3. It's always best to check with the authors of those apps to see BEFORE you try and upgrade. There always seems to be a few apps that have problems. I would assume that Apple apps would work.

Thanks LurchNC!

 

[*LTD*]

I'd be willing to bet that if Apple announced that they are including Blu-ray drives in all the new macbooks that a ton of people who are now anti-Blu-ray would change their tone and praise Apple for it.

Not really. More physical media to mess with, and store. I'm perfectly content to wait online streaming/availablity and take full advantage of the goodies that are already available in this area. If you know what to look for you can avoid wasting your money on Blu ray physical media.

 

[Twilight Elk]

Stupid question:

If I buy the upgrade to Snow Leopard, would that also upgrade my iLife to 2009 or will I still be stuck with 2008?

I think I know the obvious answer, but I might as well ask it.

 

[flopticalcube]

Stupid question:

If I buy the upgrade to Snow Leopard, would that also upgrade my iLife to 2009 or will I still be stuck with 2008?

I think I know the obvious answer, but I might as well ask it.

iLife is not part of the OS so, no.

 

[macuserx86]

There's plenty of choices for any release, but 'knowing what to look for' doesn't always help, especially if you're literally talking about specs like you said. A video with 15mbs average bitrate isnt necessarily better than one with 10.

I believe paying a newsgroup provider is the best way to access media with top quality releases/availability/metadata/'shaping the industryness' - but I don't condone it either, obviously.

I completely condone it, quality, fast, free content (minus the monthly fee).

 

[yojitani]

I'm curious to see how they will implement this upgrade. My wife 'accidentally' chucked ours in the bin last week (my fault, I put it in a bag when I was cleaning up my office). I thankfully have an image backup on an external, but no more box, no physical media... hmm... I might have a receipt somewhere.

 

[AidenShaw]

There are a million ways to aquire HD content (full 720p or 1080p) over the web (via Windows or OS X), download it, watch it on your computer/large LCD attached via VLC players. Even Quicktime will read /mkx files. No Blu-Ray required.

If you can claim that there are a million legal ways to acquire full bandwidth HD content (not some pirated Handbrake'd rips) please post some URLs. I'm interested.

Make sure that they have the original menus, extras, and other bits. And of course, the original lossless 7.1 channel 96 KHz/24-bit soundtrack.