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Phil Schiller Claims Customers Aren't Asking for Built-In Blu-Ray Anymore

If you have a home theatre system, you know that blu-ray technology is far superior than streaming. Eg. uncompressed audio. I'm sorry, but with the money and time I've spent buying and tweaking my home theatre, streaming does not cut it for me, and I much prefer sitting in my home theatre to watch a blu-ray than going to a movie theatre.

I find it pointless to watch blu-ray on a laptop or desktop. The only advantage of having blu-ray on a desktop or laptop is to burn backups/media. I would rather burn my backups/media on a disk than use an external drive, just because the number of times i've went to plug in an old hard drive and its failed. If you take care of your disks, they will last longer than a hard drive (unless its steady state, but those are also a lot more expensive to use for the sole purpose of backups or holding media content).

I have a mini hooked up to my home theatre and would love it if it supported blu-ray disks. For the reason of clearing up an HDMI port on my receiver.

Now lets talk about IF streaming was able to have the same quality as blu-ray (video, but mostly audio). Well movie files would be HUGE, you would need a lot of bandwidth (big $$), unlimited data/month, as well as large external drives to hold all your movies (also big $$).

Until the day you can buy a 2 TB hard drive for the price of a blu-ray, streaming supports uncompressed audio (DTS HD Master, DD HD) and internet providers can supply HUGE bandwidth for CHEAP with unlimited data/month, I'll stick with watching my movies with blu-rays, and my senses will enjoy every moment!!
 
likemyorbs said:
Try again, i actually have an amazing TV. If the video quality were truly crappy i wouldn't use streaming services, but it's not. It's quite livable, it's not grainy at all. I love the convenience of browsing through all the available movies on my ipad and making a watch list and being able to watch them on my tv. It's worth the quality sacrifice to me, mostly because i don't feel that i'm making much of a sacrifice. I don't need to see every blackhead on an actor's face.
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Out of curiosity, why did you get an amazing TV then?

I bought a high end TV a few months ago, I'd never think of watching streaming stuff on it, it shows up all the artefacts (there are processing options to help but they add lag).
 
I can live with this but apple charges $25 for HD Movies. The cost of an actual Bluray is the same so why I would I purchase a lower quality rip?
 
kralnor said:
That's fine for most movies, especially if you don't care about them enough to wait for when, if ever, they show up on Netflix for streaming.

For movie buffs though having the actual blu-ray disc in your collection is important for certain movies. That being said, I could really care less if I'm able to watch it on my Mac right off the disc. I have an external drive to rip if I want to, and it cost me about 1/3 of what it would have it apple integrated one.
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Apple could offer a all-stuff-we-hate-but-consumers-like dock station. It would include a blu-ray drive, ethernet port, analog S-Video, MIDI, Display Port, VGA, DVI, deprecated iStuff ports and the older MagSafe.

"With this all-in-one adapter you can plug all the obsolete Apple hardware you owned over the last ten years and also the current technologies we hate. For just $299,99"
 
MacSignal said:
Not to worry. I just saw the rMBP 13 commercial and it said that computer is for the professional in all of us. Problem solved for professionals, possibly solved better if you will all buy an iPhone and then also buy movies to watch on it from the iTunes store. You might not get the best sound or image quality, but you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you are using Phil's preferred solution. What could be better (for Phil)?

Same for the rest of you whiners taking exception to second rate sound and image quality. Please purchase something from the iTines store for the convenience of it and watch or listen to it on an iToy instead of poking at the bubble of Phil's alternate reality with your complaints.
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Well said!
 
This guy is a total douche bag. Like Cook, he appears to live in a world where anything supported by Apple is absolutely "awesome", and then everything else is irrelevant. It makes me sick listening to keynotes these days when they spend half the time slapping each others back about how great everything is.

It reminds me of that time when a fan wrote to S.J. asking if the iPad 'mute switch' would, in the future, have the ability to lock the orientation, and he simply replied "Nope". Then in the next iOS update, the option was there and Schiller was fisting himself over what a great feature it was.

Blu-ray players aren't in Macs because of DRM issues - nothing to do with their physical nature. If Apple were so concerned about the nature of compacts discs, then they would have ditched DVD drives years ago because they're just as worthless now as what they were even 3/4 years ago. You can pick DVDs up for less than the price of a Pepsi.

The other side to this of course is that they have more control over music/movie sales through their own iTunes store. But as others have said, iTunes HD movies simply don't stand up to Blu-ray, and the worst part about it is that they cost more. And yet Apple expect the customer to pay more for the convenience of not having a disc? What a joke.
 
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likemyorbs said:
Try again, i actually have an amazing TV. If the video quality were truly crappy i wouldn't use streaming services, but it's not. It's quite livable, it's not grainy at all. I love the convenience of browsing through all the available movies on my ipad and making a watch list and being able to watch them on my tv. It's worth the quality sacrifice to me, mostly because i don't feel that i'm making much of a sacrifice. I don't need to see every blackhead on an actor's face.
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What TV?
 
Swift said:
Which is why it's a crappy technology. And the truth is, you can't have any security that works in a fixed medium. 50 million players have to be out there. All the same. It took little more than a month to reverse engineer it.
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No one talked about AACS being crack proof nor the need for it to be. It's a way to assure proper licensing in mass-market devices, not a way to stop film pirates.
 
Dagless said:
I bought a high end TV a few months ago, I'd never think of watching streaming stuff on it, it shows up all the artefacts (there are processing options to help but they add lag).
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Yup, my wife and I bought a high end LCD LED TV as well....Streaming is NOWHERE near the quality of blu ray...The difference is HUGE...When we first watched blu ray on it the picture quality was so good it almost looked fake...Or as if you were watching a live play instead of a movie..
 
I think the best way to enjoy an HDTV is to watch a Bluray on it. Regular cable is so compressed. Prometheus is so beautiful. But I don't see the point on a computer.

But I do find it hypocritical to brag about Retina but diss Bluray. Fanboys.
 
miniroll32 said:
The other side to this of course is that they have more control over music/movie sales through their own iTunes store. But as others have said, iTunes HD movies simply don't stand up to Blu-ray, and the worst part about it is that they cost more. And yet Apple expect the customer to pay more for the convenience of not having a disc? What a joke.
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I know it's crazy.
 
mr jnvii said:
How the heck is Blu-ray expensive? It costs around $25, and you usually get a Blu-ray/DVD combo with that, as well as a digital copy.

I love Blu-ray for any movie with action in it. It looks amazing on a HDTV.

I never buy movies directly from iTunes since I don't have an Apple TV, and if I did I may not always have one and/or something else that's better may come along. I'll always have something that plays DVD's/Blu-rays.
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I've been buying up Blu-rays religiously for a while... I've never spent $25.
$4 - Pulp Fiction. $15 - Deathly Hallows pt2 3D.

iTunes and Amazon are BS $$ for purchases and rentals.
$1/episode, $2/HD @ 20+ episodes is retarded.

Nobody is ASKING for Blu-Ray anymore BECAUSE THEY HAVE GIVEN UP ON YOU.

Why have a beautiful screen when you have to use a data provider as an intermediary to compression heaven?
Idiots.
 
Who are we supposed to ask?

Who are we supposed to ask about this and who at Apple would listen to us anyway?

I've always wanted a blu-ray drive in my macbook pro, and I've always wanted an optical drive in my computer, and will for quite awhile. I don't think that blu-ray has had its day yet; it's still just getting started. Sure, for desktop software, discs might be obsolete, but not for watching movies or playing video games. The quality of blu-ray content is far more superior to anything else--plus, for those of us who enjoy a 3D movie now and then, there's no (legal) alternative. Also, if you don't have a blu-ray player in you're home, then you are obviously not a gamer. For now, blu-ray offers the highest quality video gaming experience. It would be nice if I could take some games with me when I travel and play them on my MBP because, let's face it, PS3 games are WAAAAY better than iPhone or iPad games.

Optical drives still offer the most storage and that is the main reason I want one in my machine. I would have liked to have seen the fusion drive introduced with the 15" rMBP earlier this year.
 
I'd have to agree. I'm sure it doens't apply to everyone but it does to the vast majority of people. I don't know about you guys, but I dont know anyone who says, "hey babe, lets stay in and watch a bluray on the 13" tonight"
 
No one's asking any more because we've given up. The thought of Blu-Ray coming to Apple computers was the one positive thought I had a year ago when I heard Steve Jobs had passed. Alas, his successor chose to uphold Job's anti-disc stance.

I would pay $100 for an official Apple app in the Mac app store that provided native Blu-Ray playback (with full picture and audio quality). I'll acquire my own external Blu-Ray drive purchased separately, but I wouldn't object to a more expensive Blu-Ray enabled Super Drive, either, on top of the software purchase price.

The fact is, streaming just isn't very good. It's convenient, but not good. Clearly, most people only care about convenient. I get that. I have an iPad; I know lots of people with iPads. I also have a $10,000 home theater; I know very few people with nice home theaters.

And in my home theater, it's quite easy to tell that "HD" streamed video is, at best, but usually not, on par with DVD quality. No streaming source comes anywhere near the quality of Blu-Ray. Not. Even. Close.

I'd still like a Mac mini HTPC running only natively Apple apps that also plays Blu-Rays. But I've given up on that dream.
 
brdeveloper said:
apple could offer a all-stuff-we-hate-but-consumers-like dock station. It would include a blu-ray drive, ethernet port, analog s-video, midi, display port, vga, dvi, deprecated istuff ports and the older magsafe.

"with this all-in-one adapter you can plug all the obsolete apple hardware you owned over the last ten years and also the current technologies we hate. For just $299,99"
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:d
 
Maybe im wrong in this but wont most 4K movies be on some physical format considering that the internet speeds needed wont be realistic for most any time soon?
 
What, you mean an actual DISC that is rotated by a motor and read by a laser? Just to watch a movie? lol and can I has a VHS with that please?

Yeah, the internet isn't fast enough, but a disk reader in every machine is a huge waste of space, not to mention that it's the first thing to fail in most Macs. For the few people who really want it, you can get an external drive that will perform much better than the one that would be built in, and it won't die on you after 3 weeks of occasional use, and replacing it is easy if it does.

Apple is about minimalism, stripping out things you don't necessarily need in a computer. Of course they're going to strip out the CD drive, since the only use for it is BluRay, pretty much, and many people have never even seen one.
 
CaneCollegeboy said:
Maybe im wrong in this but wont most 4K movies be on some physical format considering that the internet speeds needed wont be realistic for most any time soon?
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Yup, I'm also sure it'll be distributed in a physical form in the first 1-2 years. I'd bet iTunes Store won't have 4k support at all in the next five years. (And when it starts to have, there won't be a free 1080p => 4k update of previously purchased content.)
 
I for one still use a dvd burner for things such as making dvd's of seminars. Over the last few years I have always used the built in unit to make the original and a backup and then changed over to my external to create copies. While I agree usb drives are nice people here in this forum need to accept that outside this forum they should consider the real world, which seems to be to great to do here at times as most people still do and will have a dvd player at the very least.

I could argue that online services are great but not right now for Blu-Ray discs as it stands (unless someone can provide me with professional grade Blu-Ray). Most of my clients want the physical media and when they do it is very cost effective and of course very lucrative.

To go back to all those that download stuff, most areas don't have really fast internet and yet somehow most fail to grasp that. In my area, there is a mix but it is still an area where not everyone is on high speed and sharing family videos or events just isn't practical.

Now for all the nay-sayers there are plenty of places that sell the dvd's and Blu-Ray's from what I do and one client orders 200 dvd's at a time quite often which has been really nice $$$ for him over the long run and short term for others. Events are or have orders placed and after a recent poll asking if they wanted a usb drive of the event or dvd, Blu-Ray, the answer was 98% wanted a dvd.

I think overall if Apple actually installed a quality drive that would be great but why not a BTO. I agree with a few others, I didn't ask for a thinner iMac but I did ask for HDMI, USB 3.0, SD Card reader and not that mine matters but the new less reflective glass is a nice touch and about time.
 
CaneCollegeboy said:
Maybe im wrong in this but wont most 4K movies be on some physical format considering that the internet speeds needed wont be realistic for most any time soon?
Click to expand...

Internet speeds can already hardly keep up with Blu-ray bitrates. Sustaining 40-50 mbps is quite the feat except in very few key geographical areas.
 
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