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

[bruinsrme]

One thing to keep in mind. the consumer does not decide what format will be stocked on the shelves.
Retail is making a stronger push to stock blu-ray, the aisles are being expanded. Stocking blu-ray will give them ammo to really start pushing 1080p. Keeping cheaper DVD crap on the shelves doesnt increase profits just meaniless purchases and traffic.
Going thru the retailers they all seem to have a 5 or 6 dollar bin which means small profits and a lot of labor keeping the bins presentable.

I am far from a bluray fan but the audio and video preasentation on my Pioneer/Klipsch set up is very enjoyable.

another thing that will promote growth in the hi def arena is having HDMI group stop dicking around and releasing upgrades to the standard every 18 months. 1.4 is sweet with the LAN capabilities but why only offer 100M it should be a 1G network.

 

[bruinsrme]

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.

Hmmmmm but that leads us right back to the original point why no bluray in apple. Dead technology (in some eyes) or not why not include it.
Remember Steve said firewire was dead, hmmmmm why all of a sudden is firewire 800 being added to their line up. Wheter it be 3 or 5 years why not implement it now so users can enjoy it.

 

[RiCEADDiCTBOY]

boo-hoo no one cares that your not going to buy a computer.

what exactly was the point of your post?

well, i would like to have blu-ray on a mbp too...

but, i'm not going to lose sleep if it's not on their...mostly because of the sloppy way mbp's handle hdmi...

 

[nuckinfutz]

Let us not forget there were/are plans to support better quality digital files with AACS encryption.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Access_Content_System

Managed Copy

Managed Copy refers to a system by which consumers can make legal copies of films and other digital content protected by AACS. This requires the device to obtain authorization by contacting a remote server on the Internet. The copies will still be protected by DRM, so infinite copying is not possible (unless it is explicitly allowed by the content owner). It is mandatory for content providers to give the consumer this flexibility in both the HD DVD and the Blu-ray standards (commonly called Mandatory Managed Copy). The Blu-ray standards adopted Mandatory Managed Copy later than HD DVD, after HP requested it.[12]

Possible scenarios for Managed Copy include (but are not limited to):

Create an exact duplicate onto a recordable disc for backup
Create a full-resolution copy for storage on a media server
Create a scaled-down version for watching on a portable device
This feature was not included in the interim standard, so the first devices on the market did not have this capability.[13] It is expected to be a part of the final AACS specification

Deliver Mandatory Managed Copy and i'm in for a penny/pound/

 

[akm3]

Hmmmmm but that leads us right back to the original point why no bluray in apple. Dead technology (in some eyes) or not why not include it.
Remember Steve said firewire was dead, hmmmmm why all of a sudden is firewire 800 being added to their line up. Wheter it be 3 or 5 years why not implement it now so users can enjoy it.

Steve said it was dead for use on video cameras that consumers use, which have settled on USB as the standard.

And, that is true it is difficult to buy a modern (read: SDHC, Harddrive or...sigh...mini-dvd based) camera that has Firewire connections.

 

[PolySciSurfer]

Hmmmmm but that leads us right back to the original point why no bluray in apple. Dead technology (in some eyes) or not why not include it.
Remember Steve said firewire was dead, hmmmmm why all of a sudden is firewire 800 being added to their line up. Wheter it be 3 or 5 years why not implement it now so users can enjoy it.

True, I think it just has to cross a certain demand threshold. Once the demand gets to the point where it's damn near a necessity to add blue ray to apple laptops (for the masses) then I'm sure the technology will be implemented. My feeling has always been, if we don't see them in widespread production, the demand must not be that high. It's in the company best interest to address the consumers demands.

 

[blackhand1001]

No point having BluRay in a 1440x900 laptop anyway.

Yeah, cause that crap 480i or if your lucky 480p (640x480) from the dvds looks great on that resolution. Blu rays looks spectacular even on 720p sets. Apple needs to give the power users and the tech market more choice. I don't want Steve or whoever else to make every choice for me.

 

[bruinsrme]

Steve said it was dead for use on video cameras that consumers use, which have settled on USB as the standard.

And, that is true it is difficult to buy a modern (read: SDHC, Harddrive or...sigh...mini-dvd based) camera that has Firewire connections.

Agreed on your points. So why include it and leave off bluray.
I would run out tomorrow and buy a MBP if it had bluray and HDMI.
but I cant bring myself to have to spend the money on something that I can not fully utilize.

for me not having bluray and hdmi is equivalent to not having wired lan and and wifi on a laptop.

I really want to introduce mac into my network but it will mostlikely be the mini and not a laptop

 

[bruinsrme]

True, I think it just has to cross a certain demand threshold. Once the demand gets to the point where it's damn near a necessity to add blue ray to apple laptops (for the masses) then I'm sure the technology will be implemented. My feeling has always been, if we don't see them in widespread production, the demand must not be that high. It's in the company best interest to address the consumers demands.

I guess that is why they did away with the Express card in favor of and SD slot.

 

[RiCEADDiCTBOY]

I guess that is why they did away with the Express card in favor of and SD slot.

works for me...

 

[bruinsrme]

I guess that is why they did away with the Express card in favor of and SD slot.

works for me...

I think providing some sort of slot is great for the consumer.
But why take away something.

 

[RiCEADDiCTBOY]

I think providing some sort of slot is great for the consumer.
But why take away something.

if you try to answer that question - you'd want to slam your head against the way trying to figure out apple's way of thinking and the big picture they see...

 

[uberamd]

I think it's a real shame there is no blu ray either - I know a LOT of people who feel just like the OP, that Apple are more interested in pushing their 'agenda' than giving the customers what they want.

Customers want Blu Ray because it's full high def, 1080p. 720p just doesn't cut it, and anyone who thinks it's acceptable deserves it!!

For serious movie buffs, there's no substitute - it has to be 1080p.

Customers WANT everything. But the majority wins. Blu-ray fans are the smallest minority! Get that through your head. NOBODY I know in real life (and I work in IT) wants a blu-ray player in their computer, and I know 2 people who actually own one, and one is a PS3 (he has no blu-ray movies). So for the love of god, its not as 'in demand' as the people who visit these forums think. We forum members are the minority of the Apple community and usually when we want something, the majority of the market doesn't give a rats @$$.

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?

Exactly. 0. I work in IT, and like I said, I know nobody with one in their computer, and know nobody who wants on there.

 

[harcosparky]

Retail is making a stronger push to stock blu-ray, the aisles are being expanded. Stocking blu-ray will give them ammo to really start pushing 1080p.

I go through several retailers regularly, in fact I make it a point to see the Blu-Ray offerings. Even though I have decided not to jump on the BR Bandwagon I still like to see what's going on with that market.

I have not seen any real expansion in the BR aisles of retailers like Target, Wal-Mart, Sears, and others. If any place has shown an increase that would be Best Buy, but I know they are using profits from another department to do any expansion.

Best Buy is where I got my Blu-Ray library, they gave me three free movies when I bought my HD TV from them.

Going thru the retailers they all seem to have a 5 or 6 dollar bin which means small profits and a lot of labor keeping the bins presentable.

When you look at the numbers, those 5/6 bins are highly profitable and easier to keep presentable than the other shelves.

How hard is it to throw a bunch of DVD's in a bin and line them up. They are not put in those bins in any order, just packed in there.

Imagine a product with a 300% - 500% profit. I imagine in reality they pay $1, maybe even less for each of those movies. They do not pick titles and quantities for those bins, they just order 1,000 or more assorted movies and such.

I have a friend of mine who retails/wholesales DVD's the money made at his level is amazing. What does he do with any product he gets 'stuck' with?? Those movies end up in Flea Markets selling at $2 to $4 a copy.




Thinking on this whole Blu-Ray in a laptop issue.

People want a Blu-Ray drive and an HDMI port - tells me they want to use the Laptop as a BR Player to be hooked up to another screen. Now the laptop is tethered to the TV and no longer portable until untethered.

I made mention of buying an HP Notebook with VISTA on it. I wanted to play around with Vista but one of the attractions to the notebook I chose was the Blu-Ray drive and HDMI port. To be honest it was more trouble than it was worth. It was easier using the PS3 to play a BR movie. I took that crap notebook back a day after I bought it.

Personally I think Apple should scrap the SD Port and the Express port and put the PC Card ( Compact Flash ) port back on.

Firewire Dead???? For the CONSUMER it pretty much is. Video cameras are now Flash Drive or HDD based and use USB. Only tape based camcorders have Firewire anymore, and they are not cheap. The average consumer will bypass the $1,000 HD DV Camcorder for the $500 HD HDD Camcorder.

I am happy Apple did not put the BR Drive in the notebook, as I would hate to pay the premium for a feature I won't use.

If Apple ever does offer Blu-Ray I hope it would be an OPTION that you had to pay extra for and order only.

 

[RiCEADDiCTBOY]

People want a Blu-Ray drive and an HDMI port - tells me they want to use the Laptop as a BR Player to be hooked up to another screen. Now the laptop is tethered to the TV and no longer portable until untethered.

I made mention of buying an HP Notebook with VISTA on it. I wanted to play around with Vista but one of the attractions to the notebook I chose was the Blu-Ray drive and HDMI port. To be honest it was more trouble than it was worth. It was easier using the PS3 to play a BR movie. I took that crap notebook back a day after I bought it.

ha! i found my previous laptop useful with blu-ray and hdmi. its all circumstantial but, whenever those situations arise - you are glad you have it. example? going over to a friends house that has an hdtv and want to watch some hi-def movies? plug and watch.

hdmi? same situation...downloaded some new material to watch with the family and kids? plug and watch. its a great alternative to have.

even having a true hdmi option would prove wonderful...screw the blu-ray...just give us a real hdmi solution without having 2-3 dongles hanging out of our notebooks...

it's nice hooking up a notebook to a big screen tv thru hdmi connection and playing some games for the hell of it.

 

[hideous.ape]

Simple fact is Apple hates paying for too many components that require expensive licensing because only one company is footing the bill. Blu-Ray and HDMI have high licensing costs...Display Port and DVD doesn't. Lots of people waffle on with "but my 5 year old PC laptop has X, Y & Z". Ya but the hardware was researched, designed and built by one company and the OS was built by another so overall development costs are split almost 50/50 between two companies to get that fully functional laptop into your house. Apple take care of all aspects of the product so have to make cost and design decisions for things like blu-ray which will add to the launch price of the product.

Blu-Ray could probably be added into OSX with about a months notice but my guess is it is already fully supported in SnowLeopard but just not enabled yet. I reckon the next real update to the Apple product line such as Core i7 CPU's in iMacs and MacBooks will also have Blu-Ray. If your doing a major redesign then that is the time to add all the latest features you want.

The SD Slot is a weird one as I reckon it should have only been added to the 13" Macbooks. All others should have had the Express Slot as a USB SD card reader or an Express SD card reader can be added for next to nothing if thats what you want. An Express slot provides the most amount of choice to the end user to add the feature they need most such as an extra Firewire port, an SD Card Reader, a fast external Sata HD, etc...an SD card slot provides well an SD card slot and nothing more.

 

[harcosparky]

ha! i found my previous laptop useful with blu-ray and hdmi. its all circumstantial but, whenever those situations arise - you are glad you have it. example? going over to a friends house that has an hdtv and want to watch some hi-def movies? plug and watch.

AH HA!

You could have taken over a Macbook Pro AND a stand alone Blu Ray Player.

That way you could watch the movie and play on the computer at the same time !

:lol:


.

 

[uberamd]

example? going over to a friends house that has an hdtv and want to watch some hi-def movies? plug and watch.

Yes, because that happens to lots of people.

 

[blackhand1001]

The SD Slot is a weird one as I reckon it should have only been added to the 13" Macbooks. All others should have had the Express Slot as a USB SD card reader or an Express SD card reader can be added for next to nothing if thats what you want. An Express slot provides the most amount of choice to the end user to add the feature they need most such as an extra Firewire port, an SD Card Reader, a fast external Sata HD, etc...an SD card slot provides well an SD card slot and nothing more.

Why not both. Theres plenty of room for port on the case. They cut out ports on the unibody models that were on the previous versions. A with the whole blu ray thing, how come the pc companies can sell $800 laptops with the same cpus as the macbook, dedicated graphics cards and blu ray.

 

[RiCEADDiCTBOY]

AH HA!

You could have taken over a Macbook Pro AND a stand alone Blu Ray Player.

That way you could watch the movie and play on the computer at the same time !

:lol:


.

why bring both? i don't know about you - but, when i'm watching a movie...i watch the movie. why bring two units for the value of having one? and for others - not everyone has both.

Yes, because that happens to lots of people.

umm, pretty much all features on a notebook and how people view their significance is pure opinion based. everything is circumstantial. the ability of having the option to perform such tasks is already enjoyed by many other notebooks. do i care if it is on it or not? sure...but, i am not going to lose sleep if it's not there - just another feature that would have been nice to have.

...honestly, it DOES happen to a lot of people. especially those in the military. last i checked - there were tons of military service members that move around alot and enjoy having that flexibility...myself included. and with the diverse crowd the military brings - apple has a huge presence in the military community.

 

[Porco]

I want Blu-ray playback support too, as I've posted plenty elsewhere. I'm continually perplexed why anyone who isn't interested would apparently want to deny it as an option for those who are interested.

To look at it from another angle, I'm not for one minute advocating Apple block HD downloads just because I have no interest in them (through both lack of a fast enough connection and lack of desire for what I think is overpriced and over-compromised quality, amongst many other issues I have with iTunes movie downloads.)

Here in the UK it's still a small minority of discs that have 'digital copies', and honestly I'd rather they just included a DVD and a licence to rip it for iPods etc. If every single BD came with a rippable DVD or a video file it would alleviate the problem a bit, but really I just think it's sad they can't get their act together and support it in the OS for those who want to spend the money on the hardware. It could even be a paid-for add on to OS X to cover the licensing or whatever and have absolutely nothing to do with anyone who isn't interested.

The UK government, who have a lousy IT record, has plans to 'try' to get 2Mbps download speeds accessible to everyone by 2012. There are a sizeable number of people who still don't even go online. Then there are people who just plain prefer physical media, to collect. And those who value quality over the convenience of iTunes (though it's really only that convenient if you are lucky enough to be one of those people with both a very fast connection and caring enough to want HD content for some reason, but not enough to want the best HD content).

To repeat the points to those who know why someone might want BD playback on a mac:

- I have BD discs. I want to play them on my mac, not have to re-purchase a title I just bought because Apple are playing silly political games.

-I have a reasonably slow internet connection that almost certainly won't get past 2Mbps in the next few years, barring some extreme investment in the middle of an economic crisis. So iTunes is not a credible alternative, even IF I hated physical media and couldn't wait to ditch it (whether or not I do is therefore irrelevant).

For me those are the two issues at the crux of the matter.

Other side issues I have with the current lack of support for Blu-ray on the mac include:

-Not being able to import films from other countries once iTunes can control exactly what you have access to. I have lots of movies that weren't or still aren't available in the UK - if physical media goes away, studios and distributors get stricter control over when and if movies can be seen in various countries. Ever bought a foreign movie title not released in your country? Get used to losing that if you wish for the death on movies on discs.
-Lower quality. Really if you don't care about the movies looking and sounding any better than watchable/listenable, why even buy HD? Get the SD version for less money and make do. If you do care, Blu-ray is the natural choice.
-The vendor lock-in of needing an Apple TV or iPod to watch the things outside of your computer.
-The hypocrisy of Apple being on the Blu-ray Disc Association board when they are such laggards at adopting the format at best, or arguably downright undeclared opponents the format at this point.
-The conflict of interests of Steve Jobs' position at Disney, who have released some really great Blu-rays that you can't play on any of his company's computers but you can on most of his rivals'. That is just making him, and Apple, look silly.

So yes, I want Blu-ray support on the mac. However I wouldn't go so far as to say I would not consider buying a new mac without Blu-ray. Firewire was a bigger deal to me. If they'd added Blu-ray as an option to the new 13 inch MB Pro I think it would have sealed the deal and I'd be ordering now though.

 

[panzer06]

No reasonably priced 9.5mm slot loading Blu-Ray drives!

I believe the single biggest detriment to fulfilling our desire for Blu-Ray functionality on our Mac laptops is the lack of a reasonably priced 9.5mm slot load Blue-Ray drive. Panasonic announced one in late 2007 and I haven't been able to find it anywhere except one no name place for $775.

Even the tray loading 12.7 mm drives cost from $260 - $300 without a slim enclosure to put it in.

Seems to me some entrepreneurial sort might make some good money manufacturing such a device (unless of course the Blu-Ray laser mechanism's bulk is hampering this effort)

Cheers,

 

[mikes70mustang]

I don't need all the fanboys telling me why I don't need BR. Will optical media go away at some point? Likely. Will BR be the last major optical media format? Perhaps. However, BR is set to be a viable standard for years. The bottom line is no BR, no buy.

1. I want soft and hard backups. Time Machine is good as an interim backup solution, but I'll need to do periodic full backups of my media and other important files to be able to store permanently. DVD doesn't cut it.

2. I want to be able to burn HD content and read HD media and data from others as they adopt BR.

3. I'm starting my BR collection in the living room. When I'm packing for travel, I want to be able to take a disc from my living room and throw it in my bag. NOT take my credit card out of my wallet and hand Apple money for a slow-to-download, inferior quality, rental of a MOVIE I ALREADY OWN. Plus, what if I want to lend or sell a movie? What if I want to take it to a friend's house? What if I'm in a rush and can't wait for downloading?

The fact that Apple is on the BR Board of Directors makes the situation even more embarrassing for Apple. WWDC would have been a great venue to start offering Blu-ray. SL testers could have downloaded a new BR movie playback capable seed to use on their new MBPs with BR, tested BR movie playback over the summer, and helped Apple ready built-in BR movie playback support for the general public with SL in September. All Apple would have needed to do was put an asterisk next to BR in the feature list stating that movie playback support would be offered with the final version of SL.

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

No blueray, u no buy, me no care

 

[RiCEADDiCTBOY]

No blueray, u no buy, me no care

look! a chinese got through the great firewall of china!

 

[Techhie]

What would any of you do if you were in the Electronics Research division on Apple's main campus, with the world breathing down your neck for even better features? You would start making cuts that the majority approves of. If I was blessed enough to be on that team and saw that 1% of people used ExpressCard, I would get rid of it too. The fact of the matter is that the majority of people do not use blu-ray, or care about it enough to justify Apple putting it in their products. It's not only a matter of making people pay for what they don't use, it's Apple's strive to make their customers happy. That's why they innovate and add popular features they think the public will like, because it makes them money. Right now, at least, the numbers aren't telling them to add blu-ray, even if this thread is. Apple doesn't have time to release a product outside of the labs against the odds and hope people like it.