I think it's time I pipe up here. I am one of those people who desperately wants blu ray support on the Mac and am extremely passionate about it. At the end of the day, I could sympathise COMPLETELY with the anti BD users in this thread IF there was a DL alternative that offered equal or better quality/features as BD disks. Unfortunately we are not there yet and in my estimation, it will be another five to ten years before we are. I can't wait till we're there, but for the moment, here are the main reasons why blu ray should be in Macs NOW.
1) People say that the quality of BD isn't that noticeable on laptops. Um, yes it is. I watch DVD's on my MacBook regularly and at full quality they take up about a quarter of my screen and look crap, therefore BD is a better option, and yes 720p from iTunes is a great option for some people too but I will explain why that's simply not good ENOUGH in my next points.
2) There's lots of folks out there who have 27" displays and large iMac's in their bedrooms and double them as their primary computer and also main video consumption mode. Why would you NOT want to be able to watch a blu ray film on a gorgeous screen that size? And before you retort and say that plugging a blu ray player into the display is a solution, that is not AS good as simply building in BD optical drives or at least supporting BD playback in OSX.
3) iTunes simply does NOT offer the same special features content that blu ray discs offer. I am a film collector. I love having all of the commentary tracks and special features that I can get my hands on. SOME iTunes movies have special features, but VERY few. iTunes is good for quickly watching movies while travelling etc. But NOT for the film collectors out there or anyone at all who takes film seriously.
4) At present, you can NOT download films that have a range of language subtitle options from iTunes. Apple is not only being stubborn and ridiculous by not supporting BD, they are being extremely ignorant of other peoples cultures. Ladies and gentlemen, people who don't speak English well DO watch movies outside of their own countries, believe it or not. Blu ray discs have huge amounts of subtitle options. This is the biggest concern for me as my GF is Chinese and we love to watch movies together while travelling. Apple has made this very difficult for us. Or, I have made it very difficult for us by sticking with Apple.
5) What about deaf people? How do you think they feel when they DL an iTunes movie and there's no subs? Blu Ray is better in this case AGAIN.
6) Seriously, how hard is it to build playback support into OSX? Ok so forget the drives for now, especially since blu ray drives that support 3D discs are becoming the new standard, and they don't exist in slot loading sizes yet, but at the very least there is NO excuse for Apple not having included playback support in OSX. I would gladly go out and buy an external blu ray drive just to have the option to play my film collection on my MacBook Air while plugged into my bedrooms 27" display. The question shouldn't be WHY include blu ray on Mac's. It should be WHY NOT?
7) This is probably the most important point. People who collect movies want ONE format that their collection is in. Not two. I don't want a massive collection of BD movies AND digital downloads on my Mac. Serious film enthusiasts ONLY want blu ray collections for the above listed reasons. We are not idiots. We understand that 720p movies on Macs is good enough for most people, BUT, the ease and convenience of having the simple option to be able to pop in my already bought BD movies either in my living room player OR my Mac is the draw. I primarily want BD for the living room, but it would just be damn convenient to have it on my Mac's too rather than being forced to do digital downloads by Apple. iTunes Australia is crap anyway, there's barely any film content on there compared to my local video stores. BD is the only way for now. Talk to me again in ten years when you can download 1080p films, full subtitle options, audio commentaries and special features.
