Steve Jobs explains why there is still no Blu-Ray

[Mac'nCheese]

Because an external blu ray burner is the only way I can think of to easily share the hd videos I'll be taking of my kids... so I was just wondering if any of you could recommend a good one... any tips for burning would be nice too....

 

[tkingart]

I could be wrong, but I don't think that we'll ever see BlueRay drives on Mac's. What PC's have BR drives right now...Sony?

 

[Mac'nCheese]

I could be wrong, but I don't think that we'll ever see BlueRay drives on Mac's. What PC's have BR drives right now...Sony?

So how in the hell do we burn hd video if no computers have blu rays? WHAT THE HELL MAN WHAT THE HELL?

 

[409227]

So how in the hell do we burn hd video if no computers have blu rays? WHAT THE HELL MAN WHAT THE HELL?

Steve Jobs says "tough tits" to your problem.
I was looking forward to making Blu-Rays of my own video-recordings. Alas.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Are you kidding me? 4k/24 at at 5Mpbs is going to look worse than 720p24 at 15Mbps as well, does that mean that 720 isn't inferior to 4k? Bitrate is different than resolution, fyi.

Your argument is nonsensical.

I don't think the argument is nonsensical given that there are multiple factors to consider (codec, bit rate, CBR vs VBR etc.,). In a 'no holds bared' comparison 720p isn't going to look as good as 1080p or 4k but if all three are being acquired by, say, AVCHD at 17Mbps then the 720p could look the cleanest because it is being compressed the least relatively speaking.

I could be wrong, but I don't think that we'll ever see BlueRay drives on Mac's. What PC's have BR drives right now...Sony?

Toshiba, HP, Gateway, Lenovo, Dell and Acer all offer Blu-ray. It's not too hard to find Blu-ray on the PC side of things.


Lethal

 

[totoum]

From the doom9 forums (who are mainly a windows/linux community,so no fanboyism there)

About 1080p found on most commercial blu-rays:

Most of the time its 1080p movies are low passed and dont have enough detail to justify archiving in 1080p. (ie you cant tell the difference between upscaled from 720 and original 1080)

I agree. There are definitely exceptions, but I'd say "as a rule" most BluRay discs do not gain much from keeping them at 1080p.

 

[xStep]

So how in the hell do we burn hd video if no computers have blu rays? WHAT THE HELL MAN WHAT THE HELL?

You buy an external Blu-Ray burner and buy the appropriate software. For the MacPro towers you can buy drive to replace your DVD burner or insert into the second bay.

By the way, you can burn HD material to a standard writable DVD.

 

[kernkraft]

"There are lies, damned lies and statistics"

From what I gather Blu-Ray still is not complete.

Sony rushed it out unfinished to take out HD-DVD and from what I know they have done nothing since. Also licensing is still really expensive.

Add to that 75% of the Mac users I know remove any sony drives from their Macs first thing. Sony make questionable hardware.

Your sample must be relying on four people, three of which might be imaginary 'Sony haters', to be true to the spirit of many Macrumors readers. 😱

This incomplete thing is new to me. Licensing used to be considered expensive, but I still cannot see, whether you can differentiate facts, assumptions and things that sound that you made them up. The original article/post is about how - despite the fact that licensing became much easier - Jobs failed to readjust.



Jobs' explanation about not including some technology in their computers tend to be pretty lame. Remember Flash? Blu Ray? The world is wrong, it's only Steve Jobs and some fans believing in him more than common sense are right.

It has been always the case... ask Mr. Jobs!

 

[B.A.T]

Just give me a macmini with Bluray, HDMI output and USB 3.0 and I'll be happy.

 

[Mac'nCheese]

Just give me a macmini with Bluray, HDMI output and USB 3.0 and I'll be happy.

Shoot, I'll just take the bluray and usb3.

 

[B.A.T]

I guess I'm greedy.

If they ever upgrade the ATV to play 1080p I guess I'll just buy a windows machine for Bluray ripping, streaming to ATV and storage. I sure hope I don't have to go that route.

Mr. Jobs, I didn't buy a big screen tv to watch 720p. Wake up, give us what we want and we will buy it.

 

[hatetea58]

Jobs just thinks that only his Apple is perfect, others are just vestige.

 

[faustfire]

I don't think the argument is nonsensical given that there are multiple factors to consider (codec, bit rate, CBR vs VBR etc.,). In a 'no holds bared' comparison 720p isn't going to look as good as 1080p or 4k but if all three are being acquired by, say, AVCHD at 17Mbps then the 720p could look the cleanest because it is being compressed the least relatively speaking.
Lethal

Correct, but the origional comment was in regards to resolution only.

 

[akdj]

"Toshiba, HP, Gateway, Lenovo, Dell and Acer all offer Blu-ray. It's not too hard to find Blu-ray on the PC side of things."

However, most are readers only if stock...BTO options to get the BD burners. From there, blank media is still VERY expensive...at least 3 bucks for a single layer, and 10 bucks+ for double layer 50gig discs.

These days, on sale, it's 10 or 15 bucks for 50 DVD-Rs and CDrs...cheap as dirt, and as mentioned, VERY easy to burn HD content to DVD! Why the need for BD?

I agree, it's pretty impressive from the studios...lossless, 7.1 DTS Master Audio, True DD HD, AVC, etc. But who of us are burning discs with this much info? If you're putting together the next Hollywood Blockbuster, there are plenty of workarounds to burn to an external drive with Premier, Toast, etc.

At the prices blank BD media is, you're almost better off putting your data on a HDD! 320gig drives are going for 50-60 bucks these days...320gigs of BD dual layer discs would be about the same price😉

It has NOT caught on as some in this thread would lead you to believe, at least on the "archive" end...while I do agree that it has continued to grow on the consumer end...with a BIG thanks to the PS3! However, in comparison with DVD, there is still a HUGE difference in sales! The recent (6 month or so) drop in pricing has helped a bunch...as well as the drop in price for decks and their ability to use the internet to hook into youtube, Netflix, etc.

I think physical media is definitely in it's waining days...at least in the form of a 5" disc. We're getting to the point 32gig thumb drives are reasonably priced...and you get put a lot of info on that much space. If we continue to see physical media, I believe it'll be the size of my son's Nintendo DS games or his handheld Playstation cartridges. This will also eliminate the need for moving parts in the hardware...and get us closer to the computer being the center piece of home entertainment, etc.

My cent and a half

J

 

[LethalWolfe]

Correct, but the origional comment was in regards to resolution only.

But it wasn't an accurate comment because you can't just make the blanket statement that 1080p is better than 720p especially when you are talking about it in terms of downloads or streaming where you are trying to cram the most quality into the smallest space using a codec that won't choke the end user's computer all at a price that won't break the bank of the company. Yes, w/o any restrictions 1080p is going to look better than 720p but we live a world full of restrictions.

"Toshiba, HP, Gateway, Lenovo, Dell and Acer all offer Blu-ray. It's not too hard to find Blu-ray on the PC side of things."

However, most are readers only if stock...BTO options to get the BD burners. From there, blank media is still VERY expensive...at least 3 bucks for a single layer, and 10 bucks+ for double layer 50gig discs.

These days, on sale, it's 10 or 15 bucks for 50 DVD-Rs and CDrs...cheap as dirt, and as mentioned, VERY easy to burn HD content to DVD! Why the need for BD?

BR's path is no different than the life of CDs and DVDs. I remember when a 4x CD-R burner was blazing fast and blank DVDs were $5 a piece. I think it's odd that you call a 50gig BR VERY expensive at $10+ yet a 32gig thumb drive for $70+ is reasonably priced. The thumb drives do have an advantage in that USB is so ubiquitous where as BR requires burners and readers but on the other hand I don't see thumb drives being sold in packs of 100 for $25 at Best Buy even though I think that price point, and lower, is inevitable for BR. Sony's broadcast wing just announced quad-layer versions of their XDCAM disc format (which is basically just a professional grade blu-ray disc in a protective cartridge) so we are starting to cross the realm from what Sony theorized BR could do when they first launched the format into what BR is actually capable of. Do I really have to say what advantages a 50gig BR has over an 8gig DVD?

It has NOT caught on as some in this thread would lead you to believe, at least on the "archive" end...while I do agree that it has continued to grow on the consumer end...with a BIG thanks to the PS3! However, in comparison with DVD, there is still a HUGE difference in sales! The recent (6 month or so) drop in pricing has helped a bunch...as well as the drop in price for decks and their ability to use the internet to hook into youtube, Netflix, etc.

I think physical media is definitely in it's waining days...at least in the form of a 5" disc.

It's only natural for physical media sales to decline because it has only been recently that there has been an alternative to physical media but I think the decline isn't as doom-n-gloom as the internet-echo chamber makes it out to be. There are still billions of people world wide w/o broad brand, miles of red tape to get through for international distribution (how many countries are *not* serviced by the iTMS?), the fact that some people prefer hard copies, etc.,. Is the 'golden age' of physical media over? Yes. Is physical media going to disappear? No.

Since '99/'00 I've been hearing about how the CD was dead and while CD sales have been steadily declining and legal downloads have risen CD sales still generate more revenue. Digital sales, which can't even make up for the drop in CD sales, slowed down significantly from '08-'09 compared to '07-'08. Link Downloadable/streaming movies are getting a lot of buzz but download/streaming revenue makes up less than 1% of a movie studio's annual revenue. Link.


Lethal

 

[nuckinfutz]

I have a Blu-ray player and plenty of discs. I've got little desire to watch movies on my computer though.

What I'm waiting for is the next codec for online downloads. What needs to happen is a couple of things.

1. We need on avg a 50% reduction is size with quality staying the same or actually improving. Thus a 3GB download today would halve to 1.5GB and this would create the extra room to start supporting 1080p content.

2. We need efficient media playback. We've got hardware decoding for h.264 today and multi-core CPU in the computer. A properly threaded playback architecture can handle the increased grunt of a nextgen codec. In fact consumers are really seeing little reason to have a Quad Core computer when they barely stress fast dual core models.

3. Faster mobile processors. In a couple of years the high end for mobile processors will be dual core processing and potentially dual core GPU as well. Right in time to manage the larger files we need for improved video.

Apple doesn't want to support Blu-ray primarily one the reason that it locks consumers into subservience to a physical disc which locks Apple into keeping optical drives around and today optical drives are easting up a lot of space for mobile devices (Macbooks).

 

[oplix]

it's a ploy to get more Itunes sales.

 

[albusseverus]

Since '99/'00 I've been hearing about how the CD was dead and while CD sales have been steadily declining and legal downloads have risen CD sales still generate more revenue. Digital sales, which can't even make up for the drop in CD sales, slowed down significantly from '08-'09 compared to '07-'08. Link Downloadable/streaming movies are getting a lot of buzz but download/streaming revenue makes up less than 1% of a movie studio's annual revenue. Link.

What I noticed was that as people get older, they stop buying CDs and start buying DVDs. At some point, you don't hear any new music you like. That boosted DVD sales (along with the VHS upgrades), but once everyone had what they wanted on DVD, it's difficult to justify buying the BD, unless the screens get bigger and you care about quality.

There is a generation that can find stuff for themselves and they're not going to pay money for a disc that forces them to watch ads and calls them a pirate every time they make the effort to pay! That's another issue.

Downloads are like eBooks. Nobody wants to get rid of physical media more than the publishers. Look how much profit they can make with electronic distribution! It's public acceptance that's slowing the conversion. The new media has to be a significantly better experience than the old one. Digital wins on convenience but books and movies still 'look/feel' better with the physical media.

And you're right good 720p will beat bad 1080p any day. It all comes down to data rate and physical media will always be ahead on data rate. Convenience seemed to win for music, maybe it will for video, but the bigger the screen, the worse downloads will look compared to physical media.

Jobs doesn't believe in physical media anymore. His head is too far ahead of the reality of the technology. And it sells more iTunes…

 

[huntercr]

Hopefully FCS revamp will include Bluray authorship

I'll try to get this thread back on track since it has currently degenerated into nonsense and name calling.

Jobs has promised an evolutionary new version of Final Cut. He has stated that it will be very impressive. Now I know that Jobs tends to really squeeze the most out of features and call them amazing, but how on earth could he revamp Final Cut Studio without supporting Bluray?

There are a couple of things that IMHO, FCS simply must have to be a success:

1) 64bit
2) Cocoa + Core Animation ( and hopefully OpenCL! ) type performance enhancements
3) Unified UI between all Apps ( FCP, Motion, Color )
4) Bluray authorship

There are plenty more things that have been discussed to death but to me these are the 4 big ones.

They could leave out Bluray... but why?

 

[eastercat]

People don't go out and buy DVD players anymore, they buy Blu-Ray players.You can't demand that your customers do it your inferior way or the highway.

When my DVD player died a year ago, do you know what I got as a replacement? An upconverting Oppo DVD player. The same is true for my friends who own a 42" Sanyo flatscreen. My friends and I have a lot invested in our DVD collections. I'm not interested in Blu-Ray, until I see some proof it's not just a temporary placeholder.

Jobs doesn't believe in physical media anymore. His head is too far ahead of the reality of the technology. And it sells more iTunes…

+1 I still like my physical media and getting rid of it altogether is mind boggling. I have no doubt that it will be done. I'm just not ready for it to happen yet.

 

[Frazzle]

When my DVD player died a year ago, do you know what I got as a replacement? An upconverting Oppo DVD player. The same is true for my friends who own a 42" Sanyo flatscreen. My friends and I have a lot invested in our DVD collections. I'm not interested in Blu-Ray, until I see some proof it's not just a temporary placeholder.

How is that smart? You could have bought a BD player that does good upconversion of DVD's as well. Would have been more future proof. In fact, Oppo makes several good universal disc players, you could have gotten SACD playback in the same package. Dying format, sure, but sounds great and doesn't hurt to have the capability.

Everyone who thinks DVD can look as good as BD - buy some Pixar movies on both formats and compare. Wasn't Jobs involved with Pixar? Hmmm...

As to the original question, I also want a BD drive in my Mac. With all the iLife apps churning out lovely HD content, why make it so damn hard to just burn a quick BD-R or -RE to take downstairs and watch on the big screen?

The iTunes argument is nonsensical in the vast majority of countries outside of the US anyway. Even here in Europe, where in my country we have more than 3 broadband connections for every 10 people, Apple cannot be bothered to offer anything more than iTunes-U. Not a movie or TV show in sight.

No wonder then that the Apple TV is considered a joke here. The sales guy at my local Mac store admitted that they couldn't think of any compelling reason to buy one. The only people buying ATV's use gift cards for the US store with a made-up US address. Not worth the hassle IMO.

Apple makes a huge amount of money overseas. Maybe they should start serving those markets more seriously.