Could you stream me Avatar in BR quality, please? Apple might be ahead of the game but Apple fans clearly are not. By using iTunes they are still watching sub-DVD quality movies whilst the world moved on to BR quality.
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Steve Jobs Suggests Blu-ray Not Coming to Mac Anytime Soon
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Could you stream me Avatar in BR quality, please? Apple might be ahead of the game but Apple fans clearly are not. By using iTunes they are still watching sub-DVD quality movies whilst the world moved on to BR quality.
I think you need to compare like with like:
The purchase experience:
I can purchase and stream a move from iTunes, much faster than you can get to Blockbuster and back.
The watching experience.
And I can press play, to play a movie off my media server, much faster than you can insert and spin up a disk.
Not to mention negotiate all those un-skippable ads.
C.
best experience doesnt always mean best looking - best experience would relate to how fast the movies stream/download, etc.
im sure they do, they offer SD and HD currently which is giving them a slight choice. imagine the confusion on the majority of users if they had to choose between 3 different HD versions?
ive no problem with the issues thus far, i rip my BDs to mkv - which works out better anyway, streaming them is MUCH easier then going upstairs to the cabinet to find the discsthe world is slowly going digital - but i most certainly agree that apple should have adapted BD players etc.
lol my iMac has no yellowing, watching movies is divine - i can actually see the flaws of full 1080p rips @1440p
most certainly not! i was using the PS3 for a while there, until they stopped me ripping them off
Best experience is subjective I agree but givn the length of time it takes to download a true HD movie (iTunes HD doesn't count) then I'm sure I could go to the store buy a BRD and start watching it before it had finished downloading.
Funny, but at D8, iCon said the future was consumers being able to watch what they want, whatever they own on whatever device they want to... hmmm. so to watch a iTunes suedo HD film on my TV I need Apple TV..never gonna happen or a machine hooked up to my PC??
Thanks for the choice....! I'll stick to my more clued up providers...
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There wouldn't be 3 versions....there would be SD and proper HD..... like I said before iTunes suedo HD wouldn't count.
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Ripping a BRD to MKV is technically illegal and a breach of more than 1 law...even over there in the 'outback' so in its' current guise and whilst many people may do its not a feasible forward solution...so a non point in this debate.
er...no...and no...
playing a ripped movie from a media server is common but still against the law. I think this debate needs to concentrate on legal solutions (currently)
BRD quality is far superior to any download quality (although Zune HD on 360 is ok) iTunes "HD" is an embarrasment to anyone who values AV quality..a bit like iPods are to anyone who truly appreciates Music.
You can certainly download a nice 1080p 12GB version of Avatar - which is very difficult to distinguish from the BluRay.
Not legally of course.
The quality issue is a valid point. But I think it is a point for collectors and enthusiasts, more than it matters for the mass market.
I work a lot with images, and I can tell the difference between 720p and 1080p - but *only* if I sit within 6 feet of the screen.
But I don't find that comfortable or natural. I prefer a 10' viewing distance. And at that distance, the two are indistinguishable. A double-blind test shows that human vision just is not that good.
So all those extra pixels, when viewed from a normal viewing position, are a bit like homeopathic medicine. After being diluted, they are not really there.
C.
Really?!!!! wow how fast is your connection? it takes about a 10 minute drive to my local dvd store, I can buy or rent multiple blu-ray movies at the same time and for 2-3 days, at the cost of AU$8 . 10 minutes later i can be back home and watch the whole movie without worrying about how long or fast it will take for the movie to buffer, stream, download etc. Not only that but the movies are of amazing quality compared to the dross you get from the itunes store (which is dross if you compare).
at the moment buying and renting physical discs is FAR better than downloading, for most people around the world who don't have super fast internet or capped broadband.
Without mentioning the size of the TV, viewing distance of course if meaningless. For any given TV size, you will see the difference in quality at the optimal viewing distance. You will hear it too no matter where you sit
The simple truth is that BR is the only legal option today (and I'd say the only viable one too) to watch movies in good (by today's standards) quality. Steve Jobs just denies his customers this option for the sake of profits without offering any alternatives.
Did you hear about the Mac owner who wanted to buy a BluRay player? - Steve Jobs leapt out of the bushes and stabbed him in the eyes outside Best Buy.
Jobs was reported to be screaming. "No alternatives!"
C.
It's 55" and I do watch BR
Regardless of Steve Jobs motives I consider Apple position as being unfriendly to its customers. There are many customers who want BR on their computers (and why not with today's low prices) why not to give it to them? Perhaps this is just another indication that Apple is slowly abandoning computer domain altogether and simply does not want to invest in developing a software that would be required for playing BR in OS X. In any case, it's unprecedented. Could you imagine HP or DELL CEO crusading against something as widely accepted as BR and banning it from their products? It's not visionary it's just plain childish and disrespectful of the customers.
You definitely get the Oscar for Drama Queen of the Day!
No one is campaigning or banning. I think the right word is "ignoring".
http://store.apple.com/uk/product/H1394ZM/A?mco=MTY3ODQ5OTY
When Dell brought out their Dell Ditty MP3 player. Did they support the Mac?
Of course they did not. Companies choose to support technologies as they see fit.
If they get those decisions wrong, then the magic of market forces will punish them.
C.
Cool.
Welcome to the wonderful world of 720p.
How do those homeopathic pixels look to you?
C.
ive no problem with the issues thus far, i rip my BDs to mkv - which works out better anyway, streaming them is MUCH easier then going upstairs to the cabinet to find the discs
Wait, why are your Blu-ray discs upstairs and your Blu-ray player downstairs ?
And why would you accept to sacrifice video and audio quality to save 2 minutes while wasting tons of HD space for things you already have on a longer lasting and more reliable storage media ?
People saying all 1080p video is the same are wrong. Blu-ray quality 1080p and ripped and re-encoded 1080p video is not the same quality, even if both use the same h.264 codec. There is a thing as bitrate and compression artifacts. The less compression the better. When you squeeze a Blu-ray video into a file 1/4 its original size, you lose quality even if you keep resolution.
I'd rather go upstairs and get the disc for full quality. Same with DVDs.
But this isn't about going upstairs. This is about being able to take your movies with you on the road, lend them to friends to watch. Stuff digital downloads don't permit right now because of the quality of Internet connections and DRM.
People saying we've moved on to downloads are being disingenious. Even for Music, which is much easier to stream/download, people are still in a big majority buying it on physical media. If physical media is dead, why is it still the dominant format for digital media distribution ? CDs, DVDs, Blu-rays are all better sellers than digital downloads/streaming. It seems people do worry about quality and most people don't find paying for bits of data to be worth it, they'd rather own something physical (I know I do).
Not for music.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/04/apple-passes-wal-mart-now-1-music-retailer-in-us.ars
The difference between music and video is just file size. And Moore's law is doing to bandwidth pretty much the same as it did to transistor count.
C.
You did not just post this. Seriously. Physical media is still king for Music. It is still the majority player. Look up your own stats in your own article. Downloads make up about 38% of the market, CD sales the rest.
Are you like that other guy who doesn't understand what majority means ? Apple may be the #1 vendor, but they don't have a majority stake in the market, they have about 27%. Majority is 50%+1 last time I looked.
It doesn't matter that Apple is the #1 music vendor, because when looking at the entire picture, they are still a minority player, other download/streaming services don't make up for that minority with their piddly share and CDs are still sold in vaster numbers.
want some help working the stats in that chart...?
by the way heres another link for ya..
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/39857/64-prefer-discs-to-digital
A very good point.
But is is significant that Apple are now the largest vendor - and it achieved that without the burden of having to sell physical disks.
There is a year on year trend, as the market shifts from physical to electronic distribution. You are correct to point out that electronic sales of music is not in the majority, but surely that point will arrive in a year or two.
Rightly or wrongly Apple is banking on movie distribution to be next. Which is why it's stance is understandable. You might not like it, or agree with it. But that appears to be Apple's position.
C.
So even you admit that physical media is still 1 or 2 years away from being dead for Music, something that is easily downloadable and storable. Now you're saying Apple is banking on video being next, which it probably will.
Except the Music download industry as been at it for quite some time, and they still haven't killed off the CD. How long do you think video is going to take ?
Apple really thinks the Mac it sells today are still going to be in use in a common fashion when this transition does take place ? Steve is either very detached from reality on this or delusional.
That is about videogames. And I am not surprised that customers say this. Game customers like to buy games, and then sell them back to the store.
This is really pissing-off game developers. Because it means one disk, is effectively shared between three or four users. The shops make profits, but the developers see only a single sale.
This is why Microsoft, and Sony are moving towards more and more electronic distribution.
C.
if you can't read then I give up...
the link actually explains that c. 50% of consumers in music /video are shunning downloads..
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