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

[bkspero]

In the word of Steve Jobs..."Nope"

wait, I need some help understanding all of this:

For my (hopeful because maybe Job's will kill this too) future MacPro, can't I just buy a Blueray burner and put it in the second bay?

What about us pro users who shoot in HD and want to burn a comp out to show a client on an HD tv? I thought the newest version of compressor had a setting for BD??

You can put the drive in the bay, but if you want to run it under OS-X, then the answer is "nope". You can try Boot-Camp and run Windows, and that would work. But if you're going to do that, spend a third of what you would on the Mac Pro and buy an i7 Windows computer with the 8 gigs of RAM, a kicking graphics card, and the BluRay burner built-in and fully supported.

 

[msw123307]

You guys saying that downloads are superior are crazy. Maybe in terms of convenience. But the picture is FAR different. Many people may be watching everything on their computer, that's fine. But many of us also own televisions bigger than 40'.

And there is a BIG difference for us. Also - I'd like to echo what someone else said about resale value. Downloads have none, and I'm stuck with it. I appreciate being able to buy a movie, and resell it if it sucks. The company either needs to drop the price DRASTICALLY - or offer full 1080P and some sort of ownership for the end user.

The companies may want you to think it's about convenience, etc etc but really it's just about saving money on production. The broadband infrastructure is also to blame - we would have to have a major shift and advancement to be able to stream/download all of this content that is supposedly 'the future.' The music industry is already to the download stage - but movies are a different story.

This post has spun a little off topic but I think we are heading in the wrong direction..we've got CEO's pushing inferior technologies down our throats, while at the same time data providers are raising rates across the board, cutting us off from viewing these inferior technologies/movies, publishing companies are charging MORE for digital vs. paper subscriptions...ugh...

I don't buy any other physical media except Blu's. And at the end of the day, even if you're too cool for physical media, it doesn't matter. The fact is MILLIONS of people use Blu-Ray, and would like the convenience of being able to watch their movies on their Macs.

 

[Ironduke]

shirley this makes steve = SIlly Sausage Number 1

SHirley?

 

[ten-oak-druid]

Collectors items - physical media

Physical purchases of movies should include Blu-ray, DVD and digital copies.

They should also include soundtracks.

The packaging should be attractive and possibly include small booklets or other paraphernalia.

 

[Reddkryten]

I hate optical discs and can't wait for Blu-ray. Seriously. Downloadable movies are superior in almost every way.

Apart from image quality?

 

[faustfire]

It's the future... for the relative few that live in the areas of a first world nation w/a fast, affordable, uncapped and robust broadband connection.

The heyday of physical media is over but physical media itself will be w/us for a very long time.


Lethal

Short, to the point, and most importantly...correct.

 

[sdornan]

Nice Sarcasm, But i rarely watch movies at home anymore. I'm always out somewhere so i to have movies portable. I watch more movies on my iPhone and iPad than i ever have at home.

Now it may not work for you. But it works for me and if your a fan of blu-ray then find a product that fits your need. We have choice in america the same way you have the choice to watch Blu-ray. Steve has the right to decide what apple does and what apple doesnt.

First, the argument isn't whether or not Steve has the right to decide Apple's direction. I think it's pretty clear that a CEO is fully allowed to perform his job as a CEO. The argument is about the decision itself.

That said, you might watch more movies on your iPhone/iPad than you ever do at home, but I guarantee you, no I swear to you on my grandmother's grave, that is not true for the majority of people.

 

[matticus008]

It doesn't have anything to do with hardware costs or licensing fees or iTunes. It has to do with the requirements of licensing, the complexity of joining the necessary organizations and trade groups, and the need for end-to-end DRM support at the OS level for the sake of a format that offers nothing of value.

Apple doesn't want to do it, and the only downside is that you can't play Blu-ray films on a Mac. Big deal. BD-equipped PCs are still, three years later, in low single digit market share. BD-equipped households in the US are still hovering around 35%. Until it's ubiquitous in the living room and players drop well below $100 and DVD starts being discontinued for new films, there won't be a big push (and by then, the typical digital copy will have increased in quality and availability to replace it for convenience viewing on computers and mobile devices).

Putting the DRM path in the OS only encourages studios to demand further use of it. Linux won't do it for public distributions and Apple won't do it either. If only Microsoft would have refused as well. There's a certain amount of content protection that can be considered reasonable, and Blu-ray's requirements far exceed that. Humorously, it's often posters who have complained in the past about Apple and DRM now complaining about Apple refusing to cave on DRM. The only common theme is that it's an Apple decision. So much for principles.

As for the profit angle, you can happily get your content from Amazon or Netflix or Hulu or any other store, now or in the future, at varying quality levels. None of the money for that goes to "Steve Jobs' pocket".

 

[Scottsdale]

Well then, Mr Jobs., why not completely rid ourselves of the worthless optical drives? We don't need them bogging down our Macs. If downloadable files, SD cards, USB/FireWire storage are available, there's no need for an optical drive anymore.

That way, Apple can find room for a discrete GPU in the 13" Mac notebooks. Or an optional media bay that allows people to select using an extra SSD drive, or larger battery, or even extra FW/USB 3.0/Express Card ports, or even the worthless optical drive if they so choose? A lot of people could be really happy if Apple didn't require us to use the worthless and outdated optical drives that Apple forces upon us in the Macs.

Lastly, I don't understand why it cannot be optional? Heck, charge $500 for the option just like Sony does in the Vaio Z? Make money on it rather than bitching about it being a "Bag of HURT."

 

[Ctrl2k]

I've never bought or rented a single movie on iTunes yet I own about a hundred blurays. Why? 1080p and HD audio.

If I'm going to be spending my money on a film then I want to have it in the highest quality commercially available. I can tell the difference between 1080p and 720p very easily.

I honestly don't see downloadable films making optical discs redundant for a good while yet. Watching a movie is really a very different experience to listening to a song. Most people don't sit down to listen to an album - most people will take an album with them on the go and listen to it as they go around their day to day business. Most people will, however, sit down and watch a music - they will dedicate 2 odd hours to watching said movie. As such, walking to a dvd/bluray library is not a big deal.

The only way digital streaming and downloading can take over from optical disk formats is if the digital movies supersede the quality available on optical disks, take up a smaller proportion of standard hard drive sizes and can be downloaded in a matter of minutes using most people's internet connections.

h264 is in many ways a more efficient codec compared to those used on bluray discs and would be capable of superior quality to bluray discs whilst using a smaller file size so that's one hurdle out the way. The second biggest hurdle is a significant increase in hard drive sizes. While most computers come standard with only a 500GB drive, using up 8GB per film is too much to ask. At a guess, 5TB drives on standard machines would be necessary for 8GB films to be feasible to the masses. The biggest hurdle is internet speeds, that will take quite some time to overcome.

As far as streaming films go, the internet speeds are one major hurdle for superior quality but the second is that people don't like to pay money for streaming a film rather than owning it so a free distribution system would be needed that is advert or subscription based. One that is universal and has every film available to it.

None of this is going to be fixed within the next few years and then chances are in five years time we'll be looking at the successor to Bluray with even higher quality visuals and audio and 60" 3D capable TVs could well be mainstream with most upper-mainstream consumers buying 70+" displays at the cost of current 46" panels.

Amen. I agree 100%. In the meantime, Apple limits their products clearly because of an agenda. I don't doubt Steve is wrong 5-10 years or more out from now. But currently? No way. I have a pretty fat pipe to my house and can stream and download what I want and none of these movies hold a candle to Blu-Rays on big screens. Obviously they will someday but Steve is a little too forward on this one.

 

[eleven59]

im not here to argue for or against either.... i do find it interesting that certain bluray players are capable of playing mkv's now... i think maybe even a tv or two??

i say that bc mkv is non physical too

 

[ten-oak-druid]

Apple should offer free upgrades to people who purchase a movie now only to see it upgraded when 1080p becomes available through itunes store later.

 

[macandipodfan]

I don't know what's wrong with Steve.


I can understand the appeal of downloadable content vs Blu-ray, but at this point, it doesn't come anywhere near the quality of Blu-ray.

The files would have to be at least 30GB each to look as good as a Blu-ray.
That's just not feasible at this point.

Blu-ray's not going anywhere.

 

[puckhead193]

Forgetting about watching movies, what about us in video production that customers/clients want Blu-ray.... not to mention storing files on it.

 

[longball11]

Another thing for the hearing disabilities, Not every downloadable movie or TV OR even podcasts have closed captions (CC) or subtitles for the hearing impaired (ENGLISH).
I'm one of them. Yes SOME downloadable contents have subtitles but NOT ALL. When I go to buy a BLU ray, which by the way is awesome in every aspect compared to downloading..., I KNOW there will CC or subtitles because it is required by LAW.
iTunes won't get my money for a long time until it is 1080p (not delusional) and can stream right away in 10 seconds like I can with a disc (not wait for download time).

 

[panzer06]

Until Jobs is gone from Apple there will be no choice, options or flexibility in Apple hardware. I've given up expecting anything else. I buy the minimum Mac hardware to perform my work and support my music collection. Beyond that I've move all video and gaming to my Windows PC.

Cheers,

 

[powers74]

Jobs

All these emails are really interesting. Any other CEOs do this kind of thing?

 

[IlluminatedSage]

As a Mac Pro user, I am just grateful that he remembered that his company makes computers. Now if only I could see some evidence that he remembers that they make professional computers....

Touche. Apple has been woefully absent in the professional zone.

In a perfect world, apple would

1- update the Mac Pro
2- introduce a mid range user upgradeable mid sized tower, where you can upgrade things like memory, hard drives and graphics cards, heck maybe even the cpu.
3- ADD BLU-RAY - as Superdrives that can read BD discs for movie playback, and hell... even option of burners. where???? across its ENTIRE model line, from HDMI Mac Mini, Macbook Pro (yes people who have BD discs travel!) Mac Pro, and iMac's.

 

[thejd]

2) (not related, but this really bugs me) A lot of Blu-Ray discs flat out wouldn't work until I hooked my mac up to the blu-ray player (doesn't have WiFi so I had to share my internet connection) and wait a full 20 minutes for the Blu-Ray player to update. This is, in my opinion, broken. I never had to download updates for my DVD player. I never had to download updates for my VCR. I never had to download updates for my CD player etc etc... Broken.

That's because DVD players don't need to be given new instruction sets for newer DVDs. BRDs are different in that respect. Newer discs may have been authored with updated codecs that not all BDs have in their software.

I author DVDs for a living and have spent some time doing basic Blu Ray work.. All I can say is Steve is right. Blu Ray is a terrible mess of a standard. The video looks great for sure, but Sony never made it accessible or even standardized the spec.

 

[AbSoluTc]

DVD top/Blu-ray bottom

Your download? Doesn't even compare. It's WORSE than DVD.

Credit to AVS Forum - HERE

 

[JediZenMaster]

That said, you might watch more movies on your iPhone/iPad than you ever do at home, but I guarantee you, no I swear to you on my grandmother's grave, that is not true for the majority of people.

But one day it will be true and that day is coming soon. My nephew for example is in middle school and him and most of his friends have their allowance downloaded to a pre-paid visa. And most of them have a device like the iPod touch and some have iPhones and they watch movies on them.

Generation Y and Z and alot of Gen X'ers like myself i'm 30 are using this method.

 

[jayducharme]

Very disappointing. I cannot understand his opposition to Blu Ray. Weren't Apple one of the parties supporting the standard over HD-DVD.

I had thought it was just the opposite, that Apple had backed HD DVD. If they had originally supported Blu-Ray, why wouldn't they now?

I like Blu-Ray. And I'm old-fashioned -- I like to own the physical media that I pay for. If a company could guarantee me unlimited streaming of a movie I buy, so that they "held" it like a library but I could watch it anytime I wanted to; and if it was 1080p; and if it streamed without a problem and had all the extras that the disk packages have ... well, then I wouldn't mind giving up the packaging. But that's not possible right now, so the disk will have to do. But if Jobs is correct (and he often is), the future will bring a huge change in media consumption habits.

 

[spyda]

and this is why I use Windows 7. What the **** kind of computer refuses to run Blu-ray. No one wants to watch dated DVDs.

 

[wayland1985]

I haven't read anything here yet, so excuse me if this post is a dupe:


I hesitate to upgrade my early 2008 MBP, just because it's not THAT inferior to newer MBPs. For the web-browsing I do, i could have gotten away with a simple Macbook, so new processors aren't much of a reason.

The new trackpads are nice, as is the unibody design, but until something like Blu-Ray is installed, I'll be holding onto this puppy!

I see what Steve is saying. I just started Netflix, and I too firmly believe that streaming movies is the future. Once companies figure out how to give you DVD/Blu-Ray features (subtitles, extra scenes), it'll really put an end to movies as we know them. For $10 a month, I have access to thousands of movies (hopefully they'll get newer movies streaming soon).

However, I do see the benefit of Blu-Ray. For one, we wont always have internet connections (I know... you can download the entire version for rent through iTunes... but no way I'm paying that much for a rental anymore), and also, I have a bunch of Blu-Ray movies already!

Plus, there's the data side of things: More storage on a blu-ray disc (until that new DVD encoding system is worked out).

I'm not sure what Steve has against blu-rays, but I don't see why it can't be implemented on a next-gen laptop... even if it soon will be obsolete!

 

[DakotaGuy]

The thing here is that he's only interested in Apple's Revenue Stream, he won't sell Apple Lossless Downloads because they will take too long and he's decided that the World does not need them, and, he won't add BluRay to his Computers because he's offering an alternative and again won't go for the fully Hi-Rez option, he compromises on both counts, we get screwed, and he makes the money...

BluRay is not just about the Picture Quality, it's also about Non Compressed Audio...

First of all Steve does not want to pay to anyone if he doesn't think it is going to benefit Apple. Benefiting the consumer comes second to benefiting the corporation. By introducing BD as another option only the consumer wins, not Apple. Steve is not going to put anything other then a DVD drive in the computers because adding a high quality format like BD creates competition against his own iTunes store. Adding BD is a lose lose for him because not only does it compete against downloads, but Apple would also have to pay Sony and other companies royalties to use it.

Second for the average consumer who just bought a new 1080p HDTV picture quality will be most noticeable. Uncompressed audio really only matters if you have a high end system that is capable of reproducing every frequency and your hearing is good enough to tell the difference. I'm not saying that lossy is better, but the difference in the sound pales to the difference in the picture quality.

Last, I would love to know the bitrate of the Dolby Digital 5.1 track on the iTunes downloads. I'm thinking it is probably pretty low. DVD is 480 kbit/s and Blu-ray is 640 kbit/s. I'm guessing that BD will give a better audio performance even without using the advanced audio formats. I find the standard lossy formats to be quite acceptable, however people who spend thousands on high end equipment won't. You are not going to invest 3-4K into a home theater system for a low bitrate iTunes DD track. Dolby Digital+ is a much improved lossy format, but its file size is also larger. I don't think Apple will adopt it unless enough people complain about audio quality. Uncompressed formats like Dolby True HD and DTS HD Master Audio are out of the question for downloads unless people want to download gigabytes of audio data on top of gigabytes of video data.