Despite what you may believe, Blu-ray is the ONLY answer to Apple's survival.
Are you seriously suggesting that Apple will go bankrupt if they don't adopt that stopgap media format?
Excuse me while I laugh for a while.
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Microsoft Releases Second 'Laptop Hunters' Commercial
- Thread starter fpbecker
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Are you seriously suggesting that Apple will go bankrupt if they don't adopt that stopgap media format?
Excuse me while I laugh for a while.
You've intertwined a few too many conflicting media types there. What are " 1970's Disco Disks"?
Re:Microsoft Releases Second 'Laptop Hunters" Commercial
There's one thing that I've never been able to understand. Why do people still use PC's?
Macs run all of the best programs, Macs are faster, Macs crash less, Macs look freaking sweet, Macs come without **** on your drive, and Macs can dual-boot Windows for your PC executables and batch files.
There's one thing that I've never been able to understand. Why do people still use PC's?
Macs run all of the best programs, Macs are faster, Macs crash less, Macs look freaking sweet
, Macs come without **** on your drive, and Macs can dual-boot Windows for your PC executables and batch files.
There's one thing that I've never been able to understand. Why do people still use PC's?
Macs run all of the best programs, Macs are faster, Macs crash less, Macs look freaking sweet
Honestly? Cause they are cheaper. I had this conversation yesterday with a co-worker. He would love to get a Mac but he can't justify spending hundreds of dollars more than a similarly equipped PC. He said if they were cheaper (he was looking at a 17") he would be more willing to buy.
GUYS GUYS GUYS... It is wholeheartedly embarrassing that there are ANY arguments against putting Blu-Ray in a Mac. How can you lose by having more options???
Please listen to yourselves.. Are you the same people that argued against having SD cards in laptops?
Its the behaviour of people brainwashed by a cult that then leads to commercials like >
http://www.apple.com/iphone/gallery/ads/#copy-and-paste-large
which had my entire room laughing.. I mean, can you imagine if the Pre ran this commercial? You guys would obliterate it....
Just trying to keep perspective
Based on your history of relentless anti-Apple raging, I assume all Apple ads have your "entire room laughing" (where entire room = you, by yourself).
Troll Different.
When Apple tanks, I will be laughing at you.
Remember this last exchange, as well as all our previous.
Now, if Apple incorporates Blu-ray, it will not tank. Bet's off then.
But if not, bankrupt by 2012. At the latest.
Funny post!! Would read again!!
I'll go ahead and book mark this post, and re-visit in 2012 to see if Apple's in bankruptcy.
Then you'll be saying "oh yeah? Well, 2016, at the latest". And so on.
Typical troll.
Despite what you may believe, Blu-ray is the ONLY answer to Apple's survival.
Proof? Anything to back up your claims?
I went through the Amiga crash-and-burn. YOU didn't.
Talk to me in a couple of years. I stand on my experience.
In summation: No company who charged a premium for being cutting edge/having a superior product survived once it began chasing the lowest common denominator.
Not one. Apple is not, nor will it ever be, immune to history.
No matter how many are obliviously ignorant to it.
oh, because it is not what you would do it is a 'horrific business strategy'
as for your 'if they don't blu-ray that's the end' claims. highly doubtful. there is something just as good as blu-ray and that is honest to goodness HD downloads. not the 720 pseudo HD they have on the itunes store now, but real 1080-1200 dpi video. and this user is not going to be shocked if Apple is heading a charge in that direction as we speak. working on codecs that will get the files to a reasonable size, working out deals with the studios to allow the files to be created and sold etc.
and when those files start popping up, don't be surprised to see those blu-ray disks go down in sales. because the costs of hard drives are going down as well and it's a lot less clutter to have your movies on a hard drive.
oh and for the 1% of folks that really just gotta have blu-ray there is 3rd party. it's not like Apple locked out all blu-ray support so you can't even use that.
blu-ray
I know a few people that use a Mac Mini as a HTPC. I would suppose a Blu-ray player for this would be a very nice addition.
I know a few people that use a Mac Mini as a HTPC. I would suppose a Blu-ray player for this would be a very nice addition.
Uh.. 1%? Blu-ray is being adopted at twice the rate DVD was. At the ~2.5 year mark, DVD was at 4% market penetration. Blu-ray at 2.5 years was at 8%. You have to remember that DVD is now 12 years old, and it was a full 6 years before it passed the 50% mark. Thats right, VHS was still going strong with more than 50% marketshare into 2003.
Another thing to remember is that not everyone has an Apple TV or similar device. More people own blu-ray players than devices like the Apple TV. Not everyone is willing to connect their PC to their home entertainment system. The only devices with enough market penetration to combat blu-ray and rely entirely on online distribution are the Xbox360 and PS3. But guess what? At the rate blu-ray is being adopted, there will be more blu-ray players than game consoles in the not so distant future. Plus not everyone has their PS3 or Xbox360 connected to an HDTV. A blu-ray player, however, is guaranteed to be connected to one.
The most important factor in all of this is bandwidth. Those downloads you're talking about tend to use H.264 or VC-1 video. Guess what blu-ray uses? Exactly. The only way to get the files smaller than blu-ray discs is to take quality down dramatically. Right now, iTunes 720p downloads are at 4.5Mbps. The quality is awful on the majority of movies, but we'll leave that for another discussion. 1080p is literally double the resolution of 720p. So let's say, for sake of argument, that you would need at least double the bitrate. So to get a 1080p movie at ~9Mbps, that means you're cutting the bitrate compared to blu-ray video anywhere from 50-75%. You'd also have to throw out the other neat things blu-ray has, like uncompressed PCM audio, or even the lossless audio tracks. You'd have to go back to compressed audio.
Why should people take a huge step backwards in quality? Thats what would happen to get 1080p video down to just double the size of current iTunes downloads. That means an average movie would be around 8-10GB too. Aside from a couple of Asian countries and a few select places in the US/EU that have fiber optic connections to the home, can you show me where the average person would have the ability to download 8 to 10GB in a reasonable amount of time? I have 10Mbps, I can get 20. Verizon will have FiOS here soon and I can get up to 50 (if I want to pay an outrageous monthly fee). Even at 50Mbps, it'd still be faster for me to WALK to the local grocery store and pull the blu-ray disc out of the Red Box machine.
Apple hasn't directly locked out blu-ray support, but OS X can't play blu-ray discs. Leopard and even Snow Leopard are incapable of fully utilizing the GPU in ways necessary to decode blu-ray video (don't bring up OpenCL, its totally unrelated). Full bitstream decoding is required for blu-ray because the bitrates are so high that pretty much any Core 2 Duo will choke. Don't try to talk about your downloaded MKV files either
Those tend to have 1/10th to 1/4 the bitrate blu-ray has. Plus Macs don't ship with HDMI. While you can convert mini DisplayPort to HDMI (since Apple doesn't support HDCP on the DVI based Macs), you don't get audio support. That means you're stuck with optical output, and the SPDIF standard it uses does NOT support the lossless formats or uncompressed PCM up to 8 channels, only stereo PCM. On the topic of HDMI, theres really no reason Apple couldn't have shipped HDMI. Mini HDMI with audio support has been a part of the HDMI 1.3 standard for several years now. It's about the same size as mini DisplayPort. The difference? HDMI has a small licensing fee (4 cents per device, $10,000 annual fee) while DisplayPort is royalty free and they can pocket every single dollar of that ridiculously expensive adapter they sell you. And yes, HDMI CAN drive the 30" Cinema Display. The 1.3 standard supports the resolution over HDMI, since standard 1.3 supports 2560x1600 @ 75Hz, 24-bit over single link HDMI. Mini HDMI (not the newer revised plug) was introduced with 1.3, back in June of 2006. When Apple updated the MacBook Pro and MacBook to Core 2 Duo they could have began shipping mini HDMI at that point. The "Napa" platform for the Core 2 Duo (even Core Duo) supported 8 channel LPCM over HDMI, and HDMI 1.3 brought support for the lossless audio codecs found in blu-ray and HD DVD
that is all talking about stand alone players attached to TVs which is NOT an indication of the market for drives in computers
fine and dandy. so they don't. they get a stand alone player.
again, not an indication of the market for drives in computers. which again, is what is being talked about -- the alleged idiocy of Apple for calling Blu-ray 'a bag of hurt' and not being the first to put blu-ray drives in all their computers.
at this exact moment yes. HOWEVER, there was a time when files were much much bigger and looked horrid compared to what there is now. and it wasn't that long ago.
if companies wanted to have 1080 res files at a reasonable size then they work on new codecs and try to come up with a solution.
aside from the ubergeeks in a place like this or total video/audio junkies, how many folks can really tell the difference between compressed/uncompresssed audio or Stand def/High def or 720/1080. probably not as many as folks think.
and the reason they should? because you (and a small handful of folks) said they should have. funny, a lot of that group are the ones calling Apple morons cause they haven't put blu-ray in their computers.
And your argument fails in that regard too. I can walk into Best Buy or Fry's and walk out with a PC notebook that has blu-ray for under $1,000. It will also have HDMI and the ability to push 8 channel LPCM over HDMI. I can add a blu-ray drive to my existing notebook PC for $60. Thats an internal drive too. Desktop PC drives cost around the same, and many desktop PCs that are in the Mac mini price ranges ship with blu-ray.
For the same price as either the MacBook or low-end MacBook "Pro" I can get a notebook PC that has dedicated graphics that are faster than anything Apple currently ships out of the box (including the Mac Pro) and blu-ray, as well as larger screens, HDMI, etc.
Again, blu-ray is everywhere. Already own a notebook PC? As long as its no more than around 3 years old you can pop in an IDE blu-ray drive for about $60-$70. You can walk into any major electronics retailer and walk out with a blu-ray equipped notebook PC for under $1,000. You can walk into the same store and, for about the same price as the cheapest MacBook Pro, walk out with something that has blu-ray and is faster than any of the MacBook Pros.
There are even cheap USB blu-ray drives. You can get one for about $90 or so these days.
Do you realize how long it would take to develop something more efficient than H.264? Not only that, but make it a standard AND get hardware support? As it is right now, AVC HD (that would be H.264 high definition) running at blu-ray bitrates can only be decoded using specialized hardware or the GPU (not any of the Intel GPUs shipped in Macs) has to do all of the work. Making a codec more efficent than H.264 would most likely not run on current hardware, at least not current Macs since they tend to be behind the curve compared to the rest of the industry. H.264 is currently as good as it gets and it will be that way for the near future.
Plus there are still other issues. Even if you could get something around even the current 720p file size on iTunes, how many people are going to be okay with that? I mean, because of bandwidth. I have a 10Mbps connection and it still takes about an hour to download a 720p movie from iTunes. Why would I bother with that when I can go to the local Red Box or Hollywood Video and pick up the blu-ray disc in less than 10 minutes?
The difference between standard definition and high definition is obvious on any digital display. Theres no way around it. If someone can't say just how bad standard definition material looks on a high definition display (not including DVD), then they truly do need to have their eyes checked.
As for audio.. well, just about every average person I know can tell the difference between the Dolby Digital Plus tracks on blu-ray and the lossless or uncompressed tracks. All it takes is playing the scene with compressed audio then switching tracks and playing the lossless/uncompressed track. Every single person I've demonstrated the difference for so far has been able to hear and FEEL the difference. Perfect example is The Dark Knight on blu-ray. In the scene in the movie when the Joker blows up the police car with the bazooka. When you listen to the DD Plus track, its a loud boom. The lossless track lets you hear the explosion rip through the car and you feel it in your stomach. Same thing for the hospital scene. Loud booming compressed, explosion ripping through the building and the building crumbling apart on lossless, plus you can feel it. Even the 11 year old 8" subwoofer I have in the bedroom gets brought to life by the lossless track in ways that the compressed audio never could push it.
Because HDMI has been a standard option on desktop PCs for about half a decade now. It's been a standard feature of notebook PCs for the last couple of years, and optional for about a year before that. HDMI is a standard feature on respectable computer monitors as well.
What's stupid is to make the consumer pay outrageous prices for adapters. It's good from a business standpoint, but is a clear sign that the company couldn't care less about their customers and only care about the shareholders.
mosx the desktop BD-ROM drives are just under ~$100 now. A USB external one for a notebook is still running about double that price.
Lets not forget GPU hardware accelerated playback. Intel just finally rolled that out on the GMA 4500HD for mobile hardware. HDMI has been around for ages on laptops. You're going to be pegging the CPU for playback unless you have a dedicated GPU that has hardware acceleration. The minimum there for full acceleration is the Radeon HD 2000 series or GeForce 8M.
Lets not forget GPU hardware accelerated playback. Intel just finally rolled that out on the GMA 4500HD for mobile hardware. HDMI has been around for ages on laptops. You're going to be pegging the CPU for playback unless you have a dedicated GPU that has hardware acceleration. The minimum there for full acceleration is the Radeon HD 2000 series or GeForce 8M.
Actually, you're quite wrong about the price. If you just want a drive thats a reader, newegg has blu-ray/DVD/CD readers for about $65. Combo (blu-ray reader/DVD + CD writer) drives start at $90. As for external: http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=BLK-EXT-NB-DVDRW-BD-R&cat=DVD Thats just one of many. Theres a Lite-On one floating around for about $120.
The Intel GMA 4500MHD has been around for nearly a year now. Apple was still shipping GMA X3100 based systems for months after the release of the newer Intel GPU, proving what I said about Apple being behind the curve.
Only Intel based notebooks under the $650 mark ship with Intel graphics anyway. HP and others (except Dell) generally offer dedicated graphics or nvidia chipsets above that price range. AMD based notebooks below and in that price range ship with the Radeon 3200 or 34x0 line as well.
Also, GPUs as far back as the GeForce 7 line (not including integrated) and Radeons better than the X1200 offer H.264 hardware acceleration and full bitstream decoding. Even the GeForce Go 7300 in the Apple TV is capable of playing blu-ray video, but Apple's extremely limited software does everything IN software rather than using the available hardware. Thats why its limited to such poor quality 720p video.
The GeForce 8 line was launched in 2006 anyway. So, it's pretty difficult to find a PC product that isn't a netbook that can't play blu-ray with a simple drive upgrade. It is, however, impossible to play blu-ray on any Apple product and be able to fully take advantage of the capabilities of blu-ray, and the vast majority of Apple products sold up until the UniBody revision (since the MacBook was the most popular Mac) can't support blu-ray video at all!
The Intel GMA 4500MHD has been around for nearly a year now. Apple was still shipping GMA X3100 based systems for months after the release of the newer Intel GPU, proving what I said about Apple being behind the curve.
Only Intel based notebooks under the $650 mark ship with Intel graphics anyway. HP and others (except Dell) generally offer dedicated graphics or nvidia chipsets above that price range. AMD based notebooks below and in that price range ship with the Radeon 3200 or 34x0 line as well.
Also, GPUs as far back as the GeForce 7 line (not including integrated) and Radeons better than the X1200 offer H.264 hardware acceleration and full bitstream decoding. Even the GeForce Go 7300 in the Apple TV is capable of playing blu-ray video, but Apple's extremely limited software does everything IN software rather than using the available hardware. Thats why its limited to such poor quality 720p video.
The GeForce 8 line was launched in 2006 anyway. So, it's pretty difficult to find a PC product that isn't a netbook that can't play blu-ray with a simple drive upgrade. It is, however, impossible to play blu-ray on any Apple product and be able to fully take advantage of the capabilities of blu-ray, and the vast majority of Apple products sold up until the UniBody revision (since the MacBook was the most popular Mac) can't support blu-ray video at all!
Refurbished with a 90-day warranty. That explains the price.
The 3200 is the M780G.
You didn't get full bitstream decoding until the Radeon HD 2xxx or GeForce 8 Series (post-G80).
The G80 used the original VP1. You had to wait until April 2007 to get VP2 on the G84/G86 and then later on the G92.
Thanks for an excellent post with many good points. I just wanted to answer your question.
The answer is piracy. Consumers took a giant step backwards with mp3 "over" CD, because mp3's were, for the most part, free. Apple and Jobs are counting on the same mindset for the eventual widespread piracy of movies. Which is why Jobs and his minions here are so deadset against Blu-ray; the anti-piracy features.
Piracy sold millions of iPods; piracy and iPod sales created the iTunes store, creating more revenue for Apple as it "solved" the problem they themselves had created (Create problem, then solution, profiting from both).
They are trying to profit off video piracy in the same manner, and Sony, presenting a theft-proof solution, gets in the way of them profiting off a problem they're trying to perpetuate; piracy.
It's very ugly, it's very callous, it's the height of US capitalism at its worst, but there it is. Progress suffers because of greed.
Not a shred different than oil companies buying up competing and higher mileage technologies and sitting on them.
People who live that way often end up poisoning themselves.
It's also why Apple will fail, and in this case, most deservedly so. I've done all I can to try and turn it around, but in the end, piracy and greed will win at Apple. And when corporations like Sony finally beat piracy, and have no reservations about it, they will, Apple, counting on piracy going on forever, will go bankrupt. Not just from missing the Blu-ray boat, but from neglecting their high end big ticket base in favor of the lowest common denominator.
Bankruptcy for Apple is not what I wanted. But I always knew, in the back of my mind, after sticking with Amiga for more than a decade, I'd somehow pick the loser yet again.
I went through the Amiga crash-and-burn. YOU didn't.
Talk to me in a couple of years. I stand on my experience.
In summation: No company who charged a premium for being cutting edge/having a superior product survived once it began chasing the lowest common denominator.
Not one. Apple is not, nor will it ever be, immune to history.
No matter how many are obliviously ignorant to it.
I didn't know that you knew me that well.
I've been around for a lot longer than the Amiga crash, thanks. You make a highly arrogant assumption that everyone here just started with computers in the last 10 years or shorter except you.
Again, I'll see you in 2012, when you're wrong.
It's also why Apple will fail, and in this case, most deservedly so. I've done all I can to try and turn it around, but in the end, piracy and greed will win at Apple.
Everything eventually fails, just enjoy it while it lasts baby. We will all be using Google chrome sooner or later anyway.
I just went through this exercise with my college bound son. He is attending the University of Colorado at Boulder. They have on campus support for Apple and Dell products. (Meaning, for any Apple or Dell PC/Laptop under warranty, you can take the system to their repair depot and they will fix it.) Additionally, we asked at orientation if there was a preference and were told that they only required a fairly recent version of Microsoft Office products, but individual colleges within the university might have additional requirements. So, my son and I started our own "laptop hunt", with the exception that I was going to be the one to pay for it. He was looking for portability, battery life and ease of use. From conversations with others, larger laptops (16-17") were difficult to use for note taking because of limited "desk" space in most classrooms. So, we were focused on 13-15" laptops. Also, he has been a PC gamer (WoW) for a few years, but really wants to kick the habit, so gaming was NOT a priority.
We went to Best Buy to play with the various Apple and Dell models on display. The comment on the Dell systems was ... wow, they are big and heavy (Studio 15). He played with the 13" uMBP and liked the size and battery life. So, we decided that a 13" would be the best fit. We went home and tried to configure a Dell M1330 with similar features to the 13" uMBP, but the price ended up being around the same as the Apple laptop and the extra life battery was going to stick out like a wart. Additionally, Dell was going to be unable to deliver the M1330 until mid-august ... Apple could deliver in 5-7 business days. I pointed out to him that I needed, we could configure the Apple to boot either Mac OS X or Windows XP via boot camp.
Final decision: Apple 13" MacBook Pro.
That must only work in the US. In the UK, a better specced Dell laptop is £100 cheaper than the bottom end 13" MBP.
This has got to be one of the biggest "I don't have a clue what I am talking about statements" in a long time.
1. 720p is considered HD by everyone in the professional realm of video
2. Video is not measured by dpi.
Hats off for making me laugh this morning.
-mark
