No Blu-ray. No buy. Simple as that.

[akm3]

I'd love to see the day when Apple pulls the Super Drive out of ALL of their computers. Optical Media's dead? My Ass. You'd be the whiningist, bitchingist saddest lot I've ever seen. Wait, most times you already are...

Blu-Ray is the benchmark NOW. Who knows what the future will bring and who cares. We'll worry about that then. RIGHT NOW, Blu-Ray is where it's at in terms of Quality and Size, and Apple doesn't even support it, much less offer it in any of their computers.

Take another sip of the Kool-Aid boys. Taste's like SJ's sack "of hurt" doesn't it?

Actually, prior to the unibody redesign, I was hoping that the optical drive would be excluded to make room for a second hard drive. That said, I *do* use the drive in my Macbook Pro from time to time, and have burnt DVD's and what not, but I don't think it's worth it when it could easily be handled by an external unit, or better the 'remote disc' feature.

My wife has a Macbook Air and hasn't missed it a bit. We ripped her some DVD's with Handbrake into iTunes and she is in hog-heaven.

It's dead, Jim.

 

[Plutonius]

It is past due and it has come to no BR, no buy.

Why should we care if you buy or not ? You might be better off contacting Apple.

 

[Tilpots]

My wife has a Macbook Air and hasn't missed it a bit. We ripped her some DVD's with Handbrake into iTunes and she is in hog-heaven.

The Macbook Air, I believe, was Apple's testing ground for dropping the optical drive completely across their whole line. I don't think the experiment's gone as well as they hoped. As in your example, you had to have a computer with a DVD drive to get all of your media onto the Air. When Snow Leopard comes out, Air owners will need another computer's DVD drive just to get the OS installed.

As the Air does somewhat prove, though, there is a market for computers without optical drives. At the same time, it also proves the need for optical media.

Since the current benchmark for optical media is blu-ray, Apple is unjustified in not even supporting it. Even if they only supported it for external drives, that would be enough to appease most. Not even giving us the option is the BIG problem.

 

[sushi]

Currently DVD is the most common format found in the typical home.

Blu-Ray sales seem to be increasing along with download purchase and rentals. Which one will win out? Who knows at this point.

What I do know personally, is that while I was ready to go the BR route I am now quite content with the download route be it purchase or rental. I find this funny in that I love high quality videos.

I remember back when CDs came on the scene and many phonograph lovers said that CDs would fail because of the quality of the music was not near as good as analog. Jump ahead almost 30 years and many folks believe that MP3 is good enough.

I see video going the same way. Convenience over quality.

Personally, I like being able to rent a movie and start watching it immediately instead of going to the local video rental place. Saves time, gas, etc. Plus I don't have to worry about late return fees.

There are some who say they want BR for backup purposes. In my case I say no thank you. It would simply take too long and require to much effort to back up my HDs. Much easier, faster and cheaper to clone to an external HD.

Anyhow, it will be interesting to see how the BR market develops compared to the others.

 

[longball11]

I laugh at all these posts. I have to keep reminding myself that the people saying blu ray is dead and own apple computers are like 10% of the computer world and the windows is like 90%.

Apple only has decent specs on their stuff and I see those people adapting to that. They cant accept the fact blu ray is top notch better.

 

[JustDom89]

so what computer you going to get? sony vaio?

 

[HBOC]

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Maybe referring to the Xbox 360 and the recent announcement that they would be doing HD movie downloads?

The point that others make is that Microsoft at least supports blu-ray rather than pretending it doesn't exist. In some respects, Microsoft allows it's users many choices that simply aren't available in a Mac. Now it's up to you to decide what is important and base your buying decisions on that. I can relate to what the OP has to say.

As for blu-ray, I don't necessarily care anymore if it comes to the Mac. I will get a blu-ray player for my living room and a blu-ray drive for my PC and rip the movies in HD so that I can play them on my future MacBook Air.

what i meant about MS not supporting bluray was simply the XBOX 360. Obviously they support bluray on their OS's, as many different PC's come with bluray.

 

[msmth928]

'Full' HD is a marketing term. Computers have been able to do higher than 1080p resolutions for years now. Within the next decade or two they'll go higher (and we'll get resolution independence). 720p is fine for the average consumer - it's not as if watching a 720p video makes you impotent or kills a kitten.

I know two people in my area with Blu-ray players. Myself, and a youth pastor. Nobody else cares enough. No, my evidence isn't absolute, merely anecdotal. But how many people actually use the Blu-ray drives in their computers?

Who cares about marketing terms? 1080p/full HD (call it what you want) is the highest standard that is current and most commercially supported right now. In other words for a movie buff who collects movies, it is THE best choice, and as we all know there are a lot of movie lovers out there!

As I said, people who think 720p is fine ('average consumers') deserve it - Apple users are normally a bit more discerning though

 

[akm3]

The Macbook Air, I believe, was Apple's testing ground for dropping the optical drive completely across their whole line. I don't think the experiment's gone as well as they hoped. As in your example, you had to have a computer with a DVD drive to get all of your media onto the Air. When Snow Leopard comes out, Air owners will need another computer's DVD drive just to get the OS installed.

As the Air does somewhat prove, though, there is a market for computers without optical drives. At the same time, it also proves the need for optical media.

Since the current benchmark for optical media is blu-ray, Apple is unjustified in not even supporting it. Even if they only supported it for external drives, that would be enough to appease most. Not even giving us the option is the BIG problem.

In today's world you do NEED an optical drive. I just don't believe it has to be built in to your computer. We used a different computers optical drive to rip movies / media / cd's, to install software, etc. But it's not like it was inconvenient just cause it wasn't built in.

How often do you really, REALLY use the optical drive in your notebook, when you aren't already at home or work where you would likely have access to either an external one or a different computer with one?

 

[Nermal]

No point having BluRay in a 1440x900 laptop anyway.

I don't understand this argument. DVDs support up to 720x576, which is of course much lower than 1440x900. By using an HD format, you make use of the full 1440x900 resolution.

 

[JoshJosh117]

,

 

[Scott6666]

Originally Posted by Scott6666
+1000

Like any of us care if you don't buy a mac.

Like any of us care about a useless post.

Yowww. I thought +1'ing was a pretty common, and socially acceptable, way to express support for a point of view.

Didn't realize you started the "+1 Remediation Squad" . Good luck out there cleaning them all up.

 

[contoursvt]

I guess all the fanboys defending apple on the lack of blueray need to justify it in some way. I mean how else can one make sense of such an embarrassing situation - 2009 and no blueray support.

Optical media is not on the way out at all. Brainwashed people may think that. Try downloading something thats blueray quality and tell me how long you will wait. Heck download something thats full DVD quality without heavy compression and you will still be looking at a fair sized download.

Bluray players are down to $199 or less for home based players and blueray movies are not expensive either. Screen resolution on TVs and computers are commonly available at 1080P res or higher.

Basically there is no excuse and no, optical media is not going anywhere fast. I suspect it will be 10 years before its even thinking of going anywhere...

 

[akm3]

I guess all the fanboys defending apple on the lack of blueray need to justify it in some way. I mean how else can one make sense of such an embarrassing situation - 2009 and no blueray support.

Optical media is not on the way out at all. Brainwashed people may think that. Try downloading something thats blueray quality and tell me how long you will wait. Heck download something thats full DVD quality without heavy compression and you will still be looking at a fair sized download.

Bluray players are down to $199 or less for home based players and blueray movies are not expensive either. Screen resolution on TVs and computers are commonly available at 1080P res or higher.

<b>Basically there is no excuse and no, optical media is not going anywhere fast. I suspect it will be 10 years before its even thinking of going anywhere...<b>

Said everybody about floppy disks in the imac. I'm not defending apple for not including it, I'm applauding them for not wasting my money on something that is useless.

 

[contoursvt]

So what are you saying? Are you saying that having choices is bad? How is apple having a BTO option of blueray going to be a waste of your money if you dont order it that way?

Also last time I checked, blueray was very much the standard and quite new where as when the imac dropped the floppy, that technology was already like 15 years old or something like that. Not quite the same.

Said everybody about floppy disks in the imac. I'm not defending apple for not including it, I'm applauding them for not wasting my money on something that is useless.

 

[nuckinfutz]

I guess all the fanboys defending apple on the lack of blueray need to justify it in some way. I mean how else can one make sense of such an embarrassing situation - 2009 and no blueray support.

Optical media is not on the way out at all. Brainwashed people may think that. Try downloading something thats blueray quality and tell me how long you will wait. Heck download something thats full DVD quality without heavy compression and you will still be looking at a fair sized download.

Bluray players are down to $199 or less for home based players and blueray movies are not expensive either. Screen resolution on TVs and computers are commonly available at 1080P res or higher.

Basically there is no excuse and no, optical media is not going anywhere fast. I suspect it will be 10 years before its even thinking of going anywhere...

Why would I watch Blu-ray on my computer which has different gamma settings than a HDTV? Not to mention half the size of a decent HDTV?

Resolution is wholly separate from color. Computer monitors are designed for fairly static displays ...HDTV are designed for view video content.

Blu-ray requires some heavy DRM it's not like tossing in DVD support with it's easy encryption. You need AACS and BD+ support.

No thanks...Blu-ray can stick to its intended market the HDTV and we can keep our lowly 720p video which looks fine on a typical LCD screen.

 

[harcosparky]

I don't think anyone cares what you buy, or not to be honest.

You probably are not even in the market for a new notebook, just wanted to sound off!

I considered Blu-Ray, then I considered it to be a joke.

I have a PS3 that plays Blu-Ray, last Christmas got it and then bought a new HD TV that came with three FREE BLU-RAY movies. I still have the 3 Blu-Ray movies, PS3 and TV ..... guess which ones we still use???

Wanna buy a PS3? :lol:

I have reserved a space for a Blu-Ray player next to my Laser Disc player in my " Electronic Ideas That Bombed " museum. :lol:






.

 

[miles01110]

I'm just mad they don't support LASERDISC!

NO LASERDISC NO BUY! Simple as that.

Heh.

I've never seen a more closed-minded bunch of people. You do realize that just about every other laptop manufacturer offers Blu-ray drives on their laptop line.

Well then looks like you're spoiled for choice.

I can't believe that anyone would praise them for this. You should all be booing them for doing so little.

It's all relative. Price drops are basically unheard of.

My next laptop is going to have Blu-ray and eSata, and I'll be getting it when USB 3 comes out. If Apple doesn't make a laptop with those specs at that time, I'll get a Dell, which will have a normal DVI port too...

Enjoy.

I can't speak for Snow Leopard, but Leopard vs Win 7 is no comparison, Windows blows OS X out of the water.

Matter of taste. I've used Windows 7 and have been impressed with the improvements from Vista, but still maintain that Windows 2000 and Windows XP are the most functional releases to date.

No point having BluRay in a 1440x900 laptop anyway.

Owned!

 

[contoursvt]

Heck why should anyone watch DVD on their computer either. I'm sure the colour settings are not exactly the same so skip it.

Last I saw, there were a ton of 1080p computer screens as well that could make full use of Blueray. Anyway its about options.....

Why would I watch Blu-ray on my computer which has different gamma settings than a HDTV? Not to mention half the size of a decent HDTV?

Resolution is wholly separate from color. Computer monitors are designed for fairly static displays ...HDTV are designed for view video content.

Blu-ray requires some heavy DRM it's not like tossing in DVD support with it's easy encryption. You need AACS and BD+ support.

No thanks...Blu-ray can stick to its intended market the HDTV and we can keep our lowly 720p video which looks fine on a typical LCD screen.

 

[HBOC]

In today's world you do NEED an optical drive. I just don't believe it has to be built in to your computer. We used a different computers optical drive to rip movies / media / cd's, to install software, etc. But it's not like it was inconvenient just cause it wasn't built in.

How often do you really, REALLY use the optical drive in your notebook, when you aren't already at home or work where you would likely have access to either an external one or a different computer with one?

That is true. Unless you travel most of the time, who spends money on a computer (a Mac, nonetheless) to use it mostly to watch movies.

Now i could see this more of a concern with the Mac Pros, especially for video/audio. (lack of bluray)

 

[nuckinfutz]

Heck why should anyone watch DVD on their computer either. I'm sure the colour settings are not exactly the same so skip it.

Last I saw, there were a ton of 1080p computer screens as well that could make full use of Blueray. Anyway its about options.....

I hear ya man. Options are good though I hate too much DRM. Sony put all that effort into DRM and it didn't even last a year.

 

[technocoy]

wow, apple drops firewire on a few machines, which the rest of the computer world NEVER fully adopted and you all lost your minds. They refuse even OS level support of a popular and getting more popular format and you mock the OP?

While I agree that the OP may have been a bit dramatic in his rant to discredit his want/need for Bluray is pompous and judging by the replying posts, quite ignorant.

Aside from possibly the highest rung of FiOS there is no convenient way to download a video file that comes close to the quality of a bluray video. Even with FiOS (which is hardly anywhere at the moment) I imagine it would take hours, possibly as much as a day.

A full movie in on Bluray, with language support, subtitles, and lossless audio (we'll leave out the special features for now) clocks in around 23GB of data. Yeah, let's just download it! Now how many of those can we fit on a 2TB drive (assuming you have the dough to spend on a bunch of those for archiving your movie collection)? Around 45. That's JUST bluray quality videos. No OS, no photos, no project files, no other media.

Yeah, optical media is annoying, but until hard drive storage and internet speeds catch up there is no way in hell that bluray is dead. Sorry. And judging by the fact that we're still years behind even europe and Japan in adopting high speed tech, I'd say you got a decent wait on your hands.

I don't think Apple necessarily has to support it in every machine (such as the macbooks or even their laptops in general) but they should at least give use the option at the OS Level.

Those of you who say just rip it on a windows are hilarious. First of all, it takes me on average the amount of time it would take to watch the movie TWICE to break encryption, decode/rip, and then remux the correct audio and video tracks together. That's just to get the main feature and even then you've got about a 45% chance it's not going to work that easy and you have to use one of about 3-4 methods to somehow get everything syncing up right.

It's not like busting out DVD copy or handbrake and just ripping a DVD in 5 minutes.

Now that you have your stripped down 25GB file, where you gonna archive it too?

It's a PITA just for me to use the emerging video format and thats just jacked.

Whoever used the gamma argument, well, I'm just not even going to dignify that moronic statement with a breakdown. Seriously? Gamma?

If you care about your movie watching experience to the point of considering yourself an armchair videophile then there simply is no better consumer option at the moment than bluray.

The bitrate of a bluray movie at times approaches 55-65MBsec. There is so little visible compression that it's nearly not even there from even a distance of two feet on a 47" 1080p TV.

Saying optical media is dead is like saying mechanical harddrives are dead. Of course they are. EVENTUALLY. but sorry, it's only in your wet dreams that everything is moving over your utopian all-encompassing uber-network.

Bluray is not just about the pixel dimension of each frame, it's also about the compression and detail of the image. Just like a crappy 60% jpeg vs a high quality tiff.

I know it's stupid to say you'd leave your OS of choice because of it, so in that respect the OP was a little silly, yes, but to browbeat him (with ignorance, ironically) over calling out Apple on a feature that should be there at this point is wrong. Sorry.

 

[theLimit]

I'm not aware of any slim-line (<9.5mm), slot-load, SATA BD-R drives available at this time. That may be why Apple hasn't adopted them, they're still just too darn big to fit in the MBPs. If anyone knows of one, I'd like a model number and info on how well it works in a 15" MBP. I've been waiting seemingly forever and I don't really enjoy lugging around my external 5.25" burner and power adapter.

 

[akm3]

Now that's manning up! Nice to see Southerners still got some piss n vinegar in them.

Damn you got a stack of hardware that's pretty impressive. "FakePro" thats funny.

I've got both Blu-ray and HD DVD as well and you know I just don't get excited about watching movies on a computer LCD. Folks I realize that this is "my" opinion here but you really don't see and feel the impact of HD discs until you see'em on a big screen and hear'em on a decent soundsystem.

I'm saving my ducats for a 55 LED screen for proper HD viewing. Not that I don't see a need for Blu-ray especially recording since a lot of my buddies want to give their clients HD versions of their productions.

Perhaps i'm just a Sony Hater/Lover (lately it's been more hate)

I agree with you, and on my 1080p HD-ILA 61" television, with 7.1 'Logic 7' Lexicon surround sound (on Martin Logan speakers, no less), I *do* see and hear the benefit that Bluray provides - but unfortunately it isn't enough to overcome the fact it is an evolution of a dying technology and thus not worth investing into this late into the game.

Having the absolute best buggy-whip available still doesn't mean horse & buggy isn't doomed. Buy a car.

 

[PolySciSurfer]

I agree with some of your points. Especially the one where it sucks to have to rent a movie you already own. Hmm, well here's the thing, you might just have to do that if you want to watch those movies on your laptop. You invested in blue ray for your home system, knowing full well that Apple does not have a laptop with built in blue ray. You did this knowingly. So, I don't get why you are upset? If I wanted real versatility in that sense, I would just go with the safe bet and use regular dvds on my home system. Just my two cents.