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Sandy Bridge iMacs Due Next Week

!¡ V ¡! said:
One argument that might not have been considered is the amount of data required to download a 720p/1080p movie from an online movie store. I believe this is hindering the digital copy model only and still has people buying Blu-Ray hard copy discs. People simply will not wait for hours or days (considering they internet connection limitations at present) to watch a HD movie. Once we have fibre at a cost effective price to deliver to the masses, Optical Discs has seen its end. However both your arguments are correct, its a matter or variables of timing and infrastructure at the moment. :)
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Good point. However, what is after 1080p? Once we go to 'superHD,' the bandwidth will be a problem yet again. There will always be technology to store and access high amounts of data. The broadband will ALWAYS be playing catch-up. So, unless HD ends with 1080p, then the successor to Blu-ray will occur and it will be physical media. However, by then, we can probably stream Blu-ray quality. There will always be people (myself included) that prefer to have the highest quality video, and for them broadband streaming will always be a sizable step behind.
 
shanmugam said:
with turbo boost in CPU and SSD in Hard drive, laptop and desktop performance gap is closing slowly

eventually death to desktop and iMac as well.
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Laptops will always lag behind due to heat restrictions. Desktops have much more room for cooling which allows them to use parts with higher TDP and thus higher performance. You can't stick a 95W CPU in a laptop but you can stick it in an iMac.
 
Hexley said:
Why can't Sandy Bridge not have USB 3.0?
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Because Intel doesn't care much about it (and so does Apple).
Ivy Bridge will have official support for USB3 and TB builtin, but it won't come out until 2012.

I understand Apple's reasoning (they want to keep the number of different ports to a minimum and TB is perfect for that, since - at least theoretically - you can run just about anything over it), but I don't understand Intel's point on this since they're in an entirely different position than Apple.
 
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KnightWRX said:
Why do you compare Blu-ray, an up and coming new technology, to legacy ports again ? I think this is part of the problem you are personally facing. Blu-ray is on the rise, not on a decline. It's not dead at all.
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Instant streaming, cloud-based storage, and on demand rentals all make Blu-ray a transition technology, and a clunky one at that (requires bulky optical drives, physical media). This is the consensus among media theorists, it will just take a little while for mid-level consumers (who own Blu-ray tech but aren't ready to take the next step yet) to get on board in practice.
 
rdlink said:
It won't be long before someone (probably Apple) releases an OS install on flash media.
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Mr. Retrofire said:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/20/new-macbook-airs-come-with-software-reinstall-usb-drive/
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KnightWRX said:
What's preventing them from doing that today, and have the customer "bring-their-own" Flash thumb drive?
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Although Microsoft doesn't ship it yet, Vista and Windows 7 can be installed from USB thumb drives.

Simple instructions to copy the Windows 7 DVD image to a bootable USB thumb drive can be found at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd535816.aspx.

No intention to start a Windows vs. Apple OSX debate - just mentioning in case someone who uses both Windows and Apple OSX might find it handy.
 
Intel ships tons of USB 3.0 equipped Sandy Bridge motherboards

Hexley said:
Why can't Sandy Bridge not have USB 3.0?
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sth said:
Because Intel doesn't care much about it (and so does Apple).

Ivy Bridge will have official support for USB3 and TB builtin, but it won't come out until 2012.

I understand Apple's reasoning (they want to keep the number of different ports to a minimum and TB is perfect for that, since - at least theoretically - you can run just about anything over it), but I don't understand Intel's point on this since they're in an entirely different position than Apple.
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Misleading.

Intel puts USB 3.0 on the huge majority of its Sandy Bridge motherboards - so saying that Intel "doesn't care much" is wrong.
 
MTD's Mac said:
Instant streaming, cloud-based storage, and on demand rentals all make Blu-ray a transition technology, and a clunky one at that (requires bulky optical drives, physical media). This is the consensus among media theorists, it will just take a little while for mid-level consumers (who own Blu-ray tech but aren't ready to take the next step yet) to get on board in practice.
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Tell that to ISPs. Your instant streaming won't be very instant unless you have a fast connection. Let alone what happens if you have limited amount of bandwidth.
 
Hellhammer said:
Tell that to ISPs. Your instant streaming won't be very instant unless you have a fast connection. Let alone what happens if you have limited amount of bandwidth.
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Agreed. If I want to watch an HD movie when my internet connection is bogged down, I need blu-ray.

If I simply want to watch an HD movie in the maximum quality my television can display it at ... I need blu-ray, regardless how fast my internet connection is, because downloadable 'HD' is almost ALL 720p, not full 1080 HD.

Until internet connections are so fast that full HD is available, and the connection is absolutely 100% reliable (and that will be a while) ... blu-ray will have a very important role in my home media setup.
 
Hellhammer said:
Blu-Ray can offer up to 54Mb/s so 3Mb/s film is nowhere near the quality of a real BR. 10-15Mb/s is what you need for good quality 1080p.
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Problem is: The majority of customers always chooses convinience over quality.
That's not to say that BluRay is dead (or will die anytime soon). I think there will still be a market for it, just like there is for SACD etc.


Hellhammer said:
Laptops will always lag behind due to heat restrictions. Desktops have much more room for cooling which allows them to use parts with higher TDP and thus higher performance. You can't stick a 95W CPU in a laptop but you can stick it in an iMac.
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+1
Desktop machines won't die. There are always people who need the additional power (and larger screens).

But I think their popularity will continue to fall, simply because for most people's needs, a notebook is more convinient and also quite simply "good enough". Same with tablets. None will replace the other completely, but the market shares are shifting.

Still, I think the iMac and even the Mac Pro are here to stay.
 
sth said:
Yes, but there's nothing new to put into these machines later this year, at least not by Intel. Ivy Bridge won't come out until 2012.
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There doesn't necessarily have to be anything new to put into iMacs to do a redesign of the case. And sometimes an update may only include a speed bump by offering a slightly faster clock speed on the same chip.

sth said:
Also, the times they did several releases in rapid succession were either small intermediate speed bumps without a case redesign or (in case of 2005/6) caused by the Intel switch, where they released the last G5 iMac shortly before the first Intel one.
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Yes, an update in the iMac line up may only be a speed bump, or it may be a new chipset, or it may be a redesign of the case, or any combination of these. All I was saying is that Apple has released an update to the iMac line up (for any of these reasons) more than once in one year before; in fact, it's not unusual for them to do so. Thus, it is possible they may do so again this year, even if it's only a case redesign (albeit probably with a small speed bump).



sth said:
I do believe that the refresh after this one might be a complete redesign,
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I agree, that's all I'm saying...:)

sth said:
However, I think the chance of this refresh coming later this year is very slim, because that would give the current iMac design a lifespan of just two years. The average lifespan of iMac designs is almost precisely 2.5 years, except for the white Intel model (but the same design already ran 2.5 years in PPC form, so the redesign was overdue anyway).

So my guess for the iMac redesign is Early 2012.
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The aluminum iMacs came out in August of 2007. There were refreshes to these in 2008 and 2009. In October of 2009, there was a redesign that changed the case and screen dimensions. That's 2 years and two months between redesigns, not 2.5 years.

You may be right about early 2012, but the Fall of 2011 is still within the ballpark of Apple's iMac redesign timeline.
 
AidenShaw said:
Ummm - that was mentioned in the posts that I quoted....
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It was? I didn't see anything about making your own bootable OS X drive. My bad if I missed it.

budafied said:
Good point. However, what is after 1080p? Once we go to 'superHD,' the bandwidth will be a problem yet again. There will always be technology to store and access high amounts of data. The broadband will ALWAYS be playing catch-up. So, unless HD ends with 1080p, then the successor to Blu-ray will occur and it will be physical media. However, by then, we can probably stream Blu-ray quality.
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Movies will probably be getting larger sooner than you think. The Hobbit will be shot in 48 FPS which will increase the size considerably. It'll still fit on a bluray, but it'll be harder to stream.
 
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sth said:
Problem is: The majority of customers always chooses convinience over quality.
That's not to say that BluRay is dead (or will die anytime soon). I think there will still be a market for it, just like there is for SACD etc.
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They can coexist and actually they coexist as we speak ;) There will be people who prefer buying the physical copy instead, just like there is when it comes to CDs. You can get great quality from online stores and usually they are even cheaper but yet there are people who buy the physical copy.

Desktop machines won't die. There are always people who need the additional power (and larger screens).

But I think their popularity will continue to fall, simply because for most people's needs, a notebook is more convinient and also quite simply "good enough". Same with tablets. None will replace the other completely, but the market shares are shifting.
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Exactly. And again, there is no need to replace anything, they can, and will, coexist.

Cougarcat said:
Movies will probably be getting larger sooner than you think. The Hobbit will be shot in 48 FPS which will increase the size considerably. It'll still fit on a bluray, but it'll be harder to stream.
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The FPS does not matter. Only thing that counts is the bitrate. Of course, when the FPS goes up, the bitrate goes up too if the quality is kept the same. You can have 60 FPS movie that has lower bitrate than 24 FPS movie. For streaming purposes, the streaming company may encode the movie to have lower FPS to lower down the bitrate as the FPS does not really change anything (you won't notice much, if any, difference).
 
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Ooh 3rd may is approaching fast .... I will check the apple website first thing in the morning ..... I can just imagine the joy ..oh wonderful joy ..... will be my first mac as well .. Ŵòô
 
Hellhammer said:
For streaming purposes, the streaming company may encode the movie to have lower FPS to lower down the bitrate as the FPS does not really change anything (you won't notice much, if any, difference).
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Jackson disagrees. He says the difference is striking:

We are indeed shooting at the higher frame rate. The key thing to understand is that this process requires both shooting*and projecting at 48 fps, rather than the usual 24 fps (films have been shot at 24 frames per second since the late 1920's). So the result looks like normal speed, but the image has hugely enhanced clarity and smoothness. Looking at 24 frames*every second may seem ok--and we've all seen thousands of films like this over the last 90 years--but there is often quite a lot of blur in each frame, during fast movements, and if the camera*is moving around quickly, the image can judder or "strobe."*
*
Shooting and*projecting at 48 fps does a lot to get rid of these issues. *It looks much more lifelike, and it is much easier to watch, especially in 3-D. We've been watching HOBBIT tests and*dailies at 48 fps now for several months, and we often sit through two hours*worth of footage without getting any eye strain from the 3-D. *It looks great, and we've actually become used to it now, to the point*that other film experiences look a little primitive. I saw a new movie in the cinema on Sunday and I kept getting distracted by the juddery panning and blurring. We're getting spoilt!
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Looking forward to getting spoilt myself!
 
I see that the BluRay topic people have split into their three usual components. There are those who like BR and would pay extra for it (like me) and those who don't like BR for various reasons and therefore don't want to pay for it. And finally there are those who don't want BR because if Apple (Steve) says it's no good then BR is as no good as everything else that Apple (Steve) says is no good.

The first two groups are thoughtful users who tend to promote their favorite hardware/software configurations. The last group is just pathetic.
 
budafied said:
Good point. However, what is after 1080p? Once we go to 'superHD,' the bandwidth will be a problem yet again. There will always be technology to store and access high amounts of data. The broadband will ALWAYS be playing catch-up. So, unless HD ends with 1080p, then the successor to Blu-ray will occur and it will be physical media. However, by then, we can probably stream Blu-ray quality. There will always be people (myself included) that prefer to have the highest quality video, and for them broadband streaming will always be a sizable step behind.
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Pretty much this. A lot of people are speculating that Apple TV and other DD methods will kill blu ray, but i have to respectfully disagree. While Apple TV's 720p streaming is nice, blu ray still looks noticeably better. Until itunes is able to provide 1080p streaming, Blu ray will always have a place.

While itunes and other DD are spelling the end for physical CDs for music, I don't see this happening for tv's and movies in the next 5 years. One of the main benefits for downloading mp3's on itunes rather than buying physical CDs is the convenience factor and affordability. For music, portability is a huge necessity; consumers loves accessing their music on the way to work, at the gym, while waiting in line, etc. Mp3s allow consumers to easily access their music on the go and through different mediums (laptop, desktop, ipad, ipod, etc). Also, consumers can choose to download singles at an affordable price from artists rather than buying entire albums for $15.

iTunes for movies doesn't have these same benefits (or they're simply not as important). Convenience isn't as big a benefit for movies, as it isn't something consumers access spontaneously like music. Movies and TV shows are not something the general public views on the go. iPads may change this over time, but at the current storage space limits (16gb, 32gb, 64gb) good luck fitting more than a few HD movies on your iPad. Until there is a dire need to access movies on-the-go instantly and an easy practical way to do so, convenience won't be as big a priority for movies as it is for music. Secondly, tv shows/movies on itunes (or other sources) just aren't well competitively priced. New released HD movies on itunes are costing $20. Most blu rays on amazon are priced around this same range (sometimes even lower than itunes). In addition to having a higher resolution, many blu rays are shipping with digital copies as well.

If apple really wants digital distribution to beat out blu ray, it needs to give consumers a good reason to pick it over blu ray.
 
KnightWRX said:
Oh god, all of this was discussed at length in the 5000+ post "Blu-ray thread". Go read it and peruse through it. All the links/graphs are there.

I don't really care if you do or don't believe it.
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Dude I think you need to stop being so defensive. I am not sure about the US, but I know over here in the UK Blu-ray has not picked up. Most stores do not even have a section for it (my local Tesco doesn't). I like Blu-ray but I can understand why people are starting to think it a bit pointless. Although, saying that - I think Apples reasons for not adding it are more selfish (as they will loose profit from iTunes).

In regards to certain posts about Thunderbolt. Yes, there are little uses for it now. But 3rd party manufacturers releasing products before they can be used?? Not very sensible is it? :confused: It is still a MDP so if you are not keen on it, then it is not a problem. Just ignore it.

Personally, i am very much looking forward to my new iMac, as it will be my first :apple: computer! :D They look stunning, are well priced, and everyone I know who has one - they are very happy with it! To think, I have never been excited this much about a new desktop.
 
Well, I very much hope they don't forget about the extremely overdue Macbook and Mac Mini...they don't even have the first gen Core i, so this would be a good time to update the whole bunch to SB CPUs.
 
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