Steve Jobs Suggests Blu-ray Not Coming to Mac Anytime Soon

[JAT]

Side point

"Anti-apple" people (are there really such a thing ? Not agreeing with Apple on some aspects of their business/products doesn't mean you're "anti-apple")

Oh, yes. A large subset of IT guys fall into that group. These guys generally have no idea about any part of business, it's not even in the picture. They just work on networks or PCs, and mock and ridicule Apple and Apple users based on hearsay and stupidity. It's comical, really.

Interestingly, these also seem to be the bitter guys who thought working on computers would be fun. After a few years of 9to5, they found out work = work.

 

[xbjllb]

This is not news.
There is nothing "new" here.
It's just a honeypot for whiners.

So why does it still stink up the "news" page?

BD ain't on the Macintosh menu.
Deal with it... or say something NEW and interesting.

Else bury this redundant garbage in the Archives where it belongs.

You know what the word is for people who try to censor what other people see because it irritates them?

Totalitarian. Or Steve Jobs, either are synonymous.

Totalitarianism: Not welcomed here.

 

[archipellago]

I have concluded that all the anti-Apple people here have to be MS spokespersons of some sort. I mean, how else can it be explained that people without Macs would waste their time here (on a Mac specific forum) calling us "fanboys" and what not. I am a self employed IT professional and have several colleagues in IT that run their own show whether it be in the commercial photography/videography business, IT consulting, DBA's etc and all acknowledge the superiority of OSX over Windows. I have used Windows for almost two decades so I am not blindly saying that Windows is bad - it just is. I am not buying the garbage MS people are spreading here.

Here is a prophetic article from 2007.

Microsoft Is Dead
http://paulgraham.com/microsoft.html



BD will be replaced by streaming. The writing is on the wall like the aforementioned article from 2007.

4% worldwide market share.....

you have no idea.

 

[toke lahti]

BD will be replaced by streaming. The writing is on the wall like the aforementioned article from 2007.

Like tv replaced movies?
Like magnetic tape replaced radio?
Like dvd replaced cd?
Like cd rplaced vinyl?
Like internet replaced broadcasting?
Like wlan replaced ethernet?
Like ssd replaced hdd?

 

[KnightWRX]

Oh, yes. A large subset of IT guys fall into that group. These guys generally have no idea about any part of business, it's not even in the picture. They just work on networks or PCs, and mock and ridicule Apple and Apple users based on hearsay and stupidity. It's comical, really.

Interestingly, these also seem to be the bitter guys who thought working on computers would be fun. After a few years of 9to5, they found out work = work.

I'm an IT guy, I thought working on computers would be fun. I found out it is and love my 7to3 job to death, work tons of overtime and even do the whole "Unix systems administrator" gig in my own house, administering my own just for the heck of it. I also write code as a hobby, keeping my programming skills sharp in a few languages.

I just love my Apple laptop. And you know what ? We're 6 on my team at work and we all have Macs and love 'em. The Windows guys keep coming to us and telling us how much they would love Macs. There's another team where two of our guys were sent, Macs there too. Macs get a lot of love from people in IT. Just because you don't see them in corporate environnement doesn't mean the guys working the trenches don't like the platform.

I think you and linux2mac are really just seeing this as black and white. The world is never so polarized, there's a lot of grey out there.

Please read my quote carefully on my reference to MS spokespersons. No where do I say that people that don't agree with me are MS spokespersons. I refer to the MS spokespersons as "people without Macs" who "would waste their time here (on a Mac specific forum) calling us 'fanboys' and what not."

Seeing how you're accusing some people of being MS spokespersons based on their beliefs about Apple contradicting yours, my comment stands that you are basically calling them that based on disagreement.

BTW, this is not a Mac specific forum contrary to what the name suggests. There's a lot of iOS users here now, whether we Mac boys like it or not. And iOS users are PC/Windows users sometimes, not just Mac users. It's the way things are.

They have as much a right to be here as you or me. I sometimes reply in iPads threads, yet I don't own one and never will since the device is of no use to me. Am I an MS spokesperson because I don't own an iPad and spend time in the iPad threads ? Ridiculous claim is ridiculous.

Like tv replaced movies?
Like magnetic tape replaced radio?
Like dvd replaced cd?
Like cd rplaced vinyl?
Like internet replaced broadcasting?
Like wlan replaced ethernet?
Like ssd replaced hdd?

What our friend linux2mac likes to ignore and has for the last 100 pages is this tidbit of knowledge that comes straight from Steve himself (of course modified for the current situation) :

Blu-ray doesn't have to lose for streaming to win.

Just last night, me and my GF sat on the couch for 2 hours and watched a streamed movie from our cable provider's VOD service. There's no way in hell I was paying 30$ to see the Karate Kid with Smith's kid, but I wanted to see it nonetheless since I had just loved the original when I was younger. It was entertaining if not a bit overdone at times and I wouldn't rewatch it.

However, I did buy Scott Pilgrim on Blu-ray. That stuff is hilarious and I'll definitely give it a re-watch, probably a few times. Same for all other movies I buy on optical media.

I use both streaming and optical media and it works like a charm. Both products see my money. Both products win. Polarizing the world and the arguments in a constant "vs" battle is tiring. Republicans vs Democrats, Optical vs Streaming, Mac vs Windows, Android vs iPhone. Do we really need to play the highlander in every part of our lives, "There can be only one!" really doesn't work in the real world.

 

[toke lahti]

I'm annoyed by Steve's habit of declaring something dead, "a bag of hurt," "not taking off at this time," and so on, but I'm always comforted by the fact that it usually acts as a challenge to those that can figure out little hacks and tricks to make such things work anyway, in spite of him.

Especially when JS's one-liners are many times just marketing speak with at least later revealed transparency just to protect Apple's (forthcoming) products.
Like "who want's to read/watch movies from tiny screen", "we are not getting to phone business, "year of hd", "nobody reads anymore" "usb 3 not taking off", etc...
And many times these are pretty stupid and plainly wrong, but in fast paced context, many people don't question these things and when media starts to repeat them, they became "common knowlege".
Yeah, very classical advertising tactics, but far from truth.

Like last time JS was allegedly said that bd-authoring costs 6 figures amount of money. This may be so if you need to press million of bd-movies, but in real life you just get Premiere and a burner with less than $1k.

Or saying that usb3 is still very rare in overall, but almost all products in Mac price range have them.

 

[theLaika]

Like cd rplaced vinyl?

CD relegated vinyl to expensive niche pretty much replacing its usefulness.

 

[foiden]

True. Steve does throw marketing around, but that is one of his known talents. Still, he's not one to deny the market demand if it is devoutly against his idea for any given system. He said it himself, "If people want the product, they'll buy it. If they don't. They wont." He basically went on to say that people seem to be liking the iPad. So it goes to say that if the market shows that Apple products take a hit in sales due to lack of Blue Ray and the market drops, they'll change their tune.

Problem is, the average consumer really has not taken a warm welcome to any kind of HD disk format. It's catching on, but slowly. Sure, Blue Ray won specifically based on what production companies supported them, but not by the act of consumers. Plus, Blue Ray DVDs aren't exactly in that writeable state, for consumers. So it's kind of like Laser disk, right now. Throughout history, most consumers are generally happy with picture quality unless the update is like night and day.

They want quantity over quality. More content for less money. Who cares if there's a little less quality. Digital distribution is kind of winning out, at the moment, because renting or getting Digital copies is both more convenient and cheaper. DVDs are also cheaper, though not looking quite as good, still stocked with content and bonus materials. Completely writeable so people can store movies on them. And DVDs are still relatively sharp, with no noise/bad picture quality/or interference like the old Video tapes. (Of which Beta was better quality, but not as great for quantity and people could record 6 hours of video on a VHS).

I have Blue Ray as well, but only a few or so movies on it. I tend to only invest in Blue Ray only for the rare film which I know is a classic and I plan to watch it multiple times. But even with my Blue Ray-owning self, I know I probably put more money towards Digital, and watched it a whole lot more. It may not all be 1080p, but 720p is pretty darn good. A lot of movies don't take advantage of 1080p in a way you could tell the difference. Mainly the Pixar/CG cartoon stuff seems to really show that stuff in a way you can tell. Thanks to computer graphics showing a better difference in precise resolution than live scenes do.

 

[macsrcool1234]

I have concluded that all the anti-Apple people here have to be MS spokespersons of some sort.

I have concluded that you are desperate and completely out of ideas to grasp at these straws.

MS spokepersons? LOL! That kind of desperate post is just pathetic.

 

[Bishope1999]

True. Steve does throw marketing around, but that is one of his known talents. Still, he's not one to deny the market demand if it is devoutly against his idea for any given system. He said it himself, "If people want the product, they'll buy it. If they don't. They wont." He basically went on to say that people seem to be liking the iPad. So it goes to say that if the market shows that Apple products take a hit in sales due to lack of Blue Ray and the market drops, they'll change their tune.

Problem is, the average consumer really has not taken a warm welcome to any kind of HD disk format. It's catching on, but slowly. Sure, Blue Ray won specifically based on what production companies supported them, but not by the act of consumers. Plus, Blue Ray DVDs aren't exactly in that writeable state, for consumers. So it's kind of like Laser disk, right now. Throughout history, most consumers are generally happy with picture quality unless the update is like night and day.

They want quantity over quality. More content for less money. Who cares if there's a little less quality. Digital distribution is kind of winning out, at the moment, because renting or getting Digital copies is both more convenient and cheaper. DVDs are also cheaper, though not looking quite as good, still stocked with content and bonus materials. Completely writeable so people can store movies on them. And DVDs are still relatively sharp, with no noise/bad picture quality/or interference like the old Video tapes. (Of which Beta was better quality, but not as great for quantity and people could record 6 hours of video on a VHS).

I have Blue Ray as well, but only a few or so movies on it. I tend to only invest in Blue Ray only for the rare film which I know is a classic and I plan to watch it multiple times. But even with my Blue Ray-owning self, I know I probably put more money towards Digital, and watched it a whole lot more. It may not all be 1080p, but 720p is pretty darn good. A lot of movies don't take advantage of 1080p in a way you could tell the difference. Mainly the Pixar/CG cartoon stuff seems to really show that stuff in a way you can tell. Thanks to computer graphics showing a better difference in precise resolution than live scenes do.

Well that is mainly do to how the director intended the movie to look. With a very good mastered Blu-ray movie, you get to see the movie as it was intended to be seen without the artifacts that show up on a DVD or streaming because of all the compression. As for animated movies, the amount of detail solely depends on how much fine detail the animators put into it. While Pixar does a great job and all of their movies look crystal clear because they were done digitally on a computer, I still enjoy the look of a movie that was perfectly shot on film. It captures far more detail than what is present on a pixar film. The main difference to the casual viewer is that a pixar movie's picture is clean while a movie shot on film will have some fine grain.

As for the difference between DVD and Blu-ray, it's really big. I'll try to avoid a DVD when ever possible, it just looks bad. The HD movies I've seen on VOD look much better than any DVD, unfourtunately they're not alway in their original aspect ratio. Truthfully consumers have taken a warm welcome to Blu-ray. Look at the Top 20 selling movies last week and see how many people actually like buying HD on a disc when compared to the DVD version.

In the end, and unless studios take control on how digital distribution is done, that will never be as profitable as DVD's were. Blu-ray's won't be as profitable as DVD's were either, but it will likely exceed the total revenue of digital distribution when all is said and done. Simply because with a $8 monthly subscription to netflix, the average person can stream unlimited movies, compare that to paying almost the same price to buy a movie digitally as to by a physical copy with all the bells and whistles. And even $5 per VOD movie compared to a $8 Netflix subscription will further reduce the revenue digital distribution will make if people only care about quantity over quality. Once all of that is done, the biggest competition digital downloads will have will be to illegal downloads, and as we've already seen it in the music industry. it's hard to compete against it.

Studios are also taking steps to slow down netflix and Redbox with the 28 day delay rental window. They will likely extend it.

 

[toke lahti]

CD relegated vinyl to expensive niche pretty much replacing its usefulness.

Some people estimate that vinyl will sell more in 2020 than cd.

 

[toke lahti]

So it's kind of like Laser disk, right now.

With the difference that there are more bd movies sold in one quarter than laser disks in their whole history.

 

[janstett]

With the difference that there are more bd movies sold in one quarter than laser disks in their whole history.

Seriously. BD is just a better DVD, it's not a radical change, it's the son of DVD. It's already outpacing DVD's growth year-to-year in the lives of both formats, and DVD was the fastest growing home format ever.

LaserDisc never sniffed that kind of success. (I have two LD players)

 

[wonderspark]

I think BD is dramatically different (better) than DVD, when viewed on a proper HDTV. On anything less, it's not as obvious. Obviously, hahaha.

I've watched about a dozen movies streamed, and so far, I'm not impressed. Maybe I'm a quality snob or something. I just have a problem with artifacts, buffer interruptions, and that "tinny" sound of badly encoded audio as well.

I know plenty of people who don't notice or care, though. It's true that both can win, but that means Steve has to allow Macs to play BD as well as stream HD. Otherwise, Mac users like me lose.

 

[wonderspark]

Also, 720 is not HD in my book. It's halfway there, actually.

 

[Porco]

As Bishope1999's post above, amongst others, intimates, the facts just don't support this idea of Blu-ray as some niche format that isn't selling to anyone but uber-geeks. It would have been a silly comparison to make a year ago, it was even sillier when Steve Jobs made it last July in the story that started this thread, and to make it now I think it's bordering on ludicrous. Blu-ray is doing very well, especially considering the state of the global economy, competition from DVD and online video etc. Blu-ray is an established format, the hardware is cheap and people are continuing to buy HDTVs, which are also dropping in price all the time. I don't see the internet infrastructure improving at a similar rate, certainly not in the universally accessible manner you can pick up a BD player wherever you live.

I wouldn't be surprised if Blu-ray will be up year on year this time round again with the likes of the Star Wars saga (confirmed) and The Lord of the Rings: Extended Editions (expected) on the way this year.

The facts: the average consumer buying a HDTV is going to understand 'buy this, it plays those HD discs that are the best quality you can put on that TV you've just bought' much more easily than deal with downloads, even if they have the ability to do so. And it's not even better. The convenience argument is over-baked. Apple is trying (very trying... ) to make it more simple, but there are still people who barely know how to turn a computer on but like buying movies.

Blu-ray will gain and keep a large chunk of the home video market for quite a while. Downloads will grow slowly over time. I agree with the 'for downloads to win, Blu doesn't have to lose' - the two will co-exist for some time to come. Back to the GWB fish quote again...

 

[iEdd]

+1 Porco.

Also funny that those claiming that BD is for "uber-geeks" fail to realise that the average person usually watches TV on a TV instead of their computer, like an uber-geek might.

 

[Hal Itosis]

You know what the word is for people who try to censor what other people see because it irritates them?

Totalitarian. Or Steve Jobs, either are synonymous.

Totalitarianism: Not welcomed here.

If you're gonna push so hard for Blu-ray, better get your vision corrected to fully enjoy its magnificent resplendence. Recategorizing a topic (maybe to page 2 of the news discussions, if not further down to match its overall level of irrelevancy) has absolutely nothing to do with censorship. Paranoia perhaps?

 

[wonderspark]

If you're gonna push so hard for Blu-ray, better get your vision corrected to fully enjoy its magnificent resplendence.

No such problem exists. Depending on how sleepy I am, I vary between 20/15 and 20/13 uncorrected. I can see the difference, and Blu-ray wins.

 

[Winnychan213]

You know what the word is for people who try to censor what other people see because it irritates them?

Totalitarian. Or Steve Jobs, either are synonymous.

Totalitarianism: Not welcomed here.

Don't take me wrong, I also think Job should at least offer blu-ray as an option for those who needs it, instead of making such weak excuse not to include them. However, this is the reality we must face and I decided to protest with my wallet instead of wasting time to argue with those who doesn't want blu-ray, not that i don't like download either, i just think both download and blu-ray could co-exist. If there is no blu-ray on the next macbook refresh, then i am buying a window laptop.

Ipod and Iphone on the other hand, still attracts me.

 

[lPHONE]

Be careful what swords you choose to wield. The same article portends the death of the Macintosh.

Yea, you heard him! The same article portends to Apple!!!

(fail, noob. that won't happen for at least 10 years)

 

[Hal Itosis]

No such problem exists. Depending on how sleepy I am, I vary between 20/15 and 20/13 uncorrected. I can see the difference, and Blu-ray wins.

Way to totally miss the point.
[no wonder this thread lingers on]

 

[xbjllb]

Some people estimate that vinyl will sell more in 2020 than cd.

Fascinating prediction. Possibly true. And very strange, but there is definitely an emotional attachment to LP's that goes beyond digital lack of surface noise like incessant static ticks and pops and groove distortion even on brand new records with new needles. And CD's probably will be downloadable in full fidelity by 2020.

If you're gonna push so hard for Blu-ray, better get your vision corrected to fully enjoy its magnificent resplendence. Recategorizing a topic (maybe to page 2 of the news discussions, if not further down to match its overall level of irrelevancy) has absolutely nothing to do with censorship. Paranoia perhaps?

Nice backpedal. Watch out for that pit!

Way to totally miss the point.
[no wonder this thread lingers on]

I know. We're just all so unbelievably and incredibly inferior to you and your judgment.

Steve.

 

[wonderspark]

Way to totally miss the point.
[no wonder this thread lingers on]

I guess I did miss the point, if you say so. You said if we're going to push for Blu-ray, we should get our vision corrected to enjoy it in all its resplendence, right? What was your point, then? My point is that I can see the difference between crappy streaming and resplendent Blu-ray.

 

[Hal Itosis]

You know what the word is for people who try to censor what other people see because it irritates them?

Being that several posts i wrote to you weeks ago were deleted (at your behest no doubt), i believe the word you're searching for is "moderator".