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

[janstett]

The PS3 was an unmitigated financial disaster for Sony. They took the best brand in gaming and turned it into a loss making money pit. There were two reasons for this. One was the cell processor. The other was BluRay.

C.

Being an actual PS3 owner, I'll tell you why Sony took the best brand in console gaming and flushed it.

The reason is neither the cell processor nor Blu-Ray. In fact Blu-Ray playback is one of the things encouraging people to buy. In fact I know people who are mulling over buying one primarily because it plays Blu-Ray and for the money they spend over the $100 Blu-Ray players on the market they can also get games.

The PS3 stinks because: games, games, games. The flagship Gran Turismo 5 still isn't out. Former exclusive game franchises are moving to X-Box 360. And when a game comes out on both consoles, the XBox 360 version is better. Most PS3 games are only 720p, and XBox Live is a far superior online experience.

Sony could come out with a $150 PS3 that drops Blu-Ray and it still wouldn't sell, because the games aren't there.

 

[Reddkryten]

It needs one that allows small innovative companies to start and grow alongside established well capitalized businesses.

I see your point and agree with it. Although I think it remains to be seen if the download business model will (in the long term) allow small companies to grow and thrive.

At the moment, certainty it is allowing newcomers to make it big. For example that game Angry Birds, I've no idea who developed it but I'm sure it wasn't a big company. Isn't it the most popular game in the app store?

However the thing about the app store is, it is a relatively new territory. Companies haven't had a chance to create a monopoly yet, so everyone is starting at the ground floor. The real question is, in five years time, will the app store still be a democratic place, or will it transform and conform to a mini version of the game industry as it stands today. Is the app store democratic by nature, or just a monopoly waiting to happen?

I'm not a big gamer (although the iPad version of Monkey Island takes me back ) but if you look at the history of games platforms it is fascinating, there used to be hundreds of consoles when the industry first started, however now there are what....three, a Wii, X-Box and PlayStation?

Isn't that the story of any new industry really? At first there are hundreds, but eventually it is whittled down to a handful. I'm not saying weather that process is right or wrong, just an observation about all new things.

 

[janstett]

I like Apple's stance. Discs, to me, remind me of the ultra tacky days of people having a tower of DVDs on display in their living rooms like they were bragging about how many American Pie sequels they owned.

I'm glad discs are dying. They're a waste of space. I'd rather have one box housing all of my media rather than shelves of multicolor plastic jackets making the house look like an episode of "Hoarders".

So would I -- as a secondary concern.

Quality being the first concern.

I once tried to rip (whole disc structure) my 300-some-odd DVDs to my brand new 5 disk NAS and ran out of space. Then I realized I'm wasting disk space on something I may never actually watch or may not watch for years.

If you've got 5 movies (or are a pirate and don't have discs to begin with), then go ahead put them on disk. If you're a home theater enthusiast with hundreds of discs, it doesn't work.

And I won't sacrifice quality for a crappy 720p badly-encoded DRM laden experience.

 

[diamond.g]

Servicing thieves. Apple. Nice.

I guess. That is what I was told.

I guess it would be like saying Apple should remove FW, I don't know anyone that uses it. The extra space could be used for an additional USB port...

 

[Carniphage]

Being an actual PS3 owner, I'll tell you why Sony took the best brand in console gaming and flushed it.

The reason is neither the cell processor nor Blu-Ray. In fact Blu-Ray playback is one of the things encouraging people to buy.

The PS3 stinks because: games, games, games. The flagship Gran Turismo 5 still isn't out. Former exclusive game franchises are moving to X-Box 360. And when a game comes out on both consoles, the XBox 360 version is better. Most PS3 games are only 720p, and XBox Live is a far superior online experience.

Sony could come out with a $150 PS3 that drops Blu-Ray and it still wouldn't sell, because the games aren't there.

You are right about games. But *why* are there fewer games?

The reason that many game developers abandoned Playstation was the cost of developing for cell. Developing for PS3 costs developers more. It's a nasty platform to make games on.

The second reason that developers abandoned the platform was the smaller user-base. That was caused by being late to market, and being more expensive. Late-to-market and more-expensive were both side-effects of BluRay.

These two factors meant western developers led on the 360.. and only did ports to the PS3. Often as not they didn't bother with the port.

This is why I say that BluRay and Cell together harmed PS3. These innovations resulted in fewer titles and worse games. The fact that many people bought PS3s solely as BluRay.

C.

 

[toke lahti]

Has anything actually changed from the Steve Jobs acknowledged situation where Apple want to get BluRay movie playback in OS X, but the licensing authorities don't want to give them favourable terms? And not seeing the point in having BluRay as a shipping hardware option without movie playback?

Jobs made "bag of hurt" comment in Oct 2008. Bd licensing changed in Jan 2009.

Not even Microsoft got favourable enough rights licensing to put BluRay in, even on 'Ultimate' versions. You have to shell out an extra $100 for something like Power DVD Ultra to get a BluRay video player.

You can get PowerDVD9 for $60 or Lite-On's bd-rom with PowerDVD8 for same $60.
So I guess bundled Pdvd8 is about $10.
I just can't imagine how that is so expensive or why Apple couldn't sell bd-playback software for anything between $10-$50 if they wanted.

The conspiricy theories about iTunes and so on are based on this being a choice for Apple. It's not.

The licence terms for offering a free-to-end-user BluRay movie player bundled with an OS are prohibitive, not even Microsoft can do it. The few software bluray movie player companies are uninterested in multi-platform bluray development.

Remember how long it took to get a Bundled DVD Movie Player on a Mac? Remember when you had to buy mpeg decoding?

How long? Try "from the beginning".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_Player_(software)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_OS_X_v10.1
If you had to pay few bucks for it is irrelevant.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Developing for PS3 costs developers more. It's a nasty platform to make games on.

Actually, the Cell SDK and Sony Hypervisor enforces proper programming practices. Developers don't like being told they can't take shortcuts but still try take them anyway which gives a performance hit. Its not a nightmare its just laziness. But there is a reason why PS3 exclusives have better performance than 360 exclusives at the time.

 

[wreckshop]

The second reason that developers abandoned the platform was the smaller user-base. That was caused by being late to market, and being more expensive. Late-to-market and more-expensive were both side-effects of BluRay.

C.

You do realize that big developers like EA predicted that PS3 would eventually overtake 360? The ONLY reason that PS3 had a lack of games was because of Sony's POOR PS3 development tools early on. Only big shops like EA could afford to make PS3 games.

Being late to market or blu-ray has absolutely nothing to do with weather or not a developer made PS3 games.

 

[cheesymogul]

If Apple were to provide BluRay Movie Playback, they would be required by MPEGLA to charge you for it as a separately purchased premium value item with a ~$100 price point.

These 100 bucks are waiting to get spend for several years. Heck, Apple could even sell me a Mac OS 10.6 Pro or something. I'll bet all genuine BD fans would be willing to spend that amount too. Unlike with iTunes crap the quality of BD is worth its price!

It's still much cheaper and more convenient than buying a copy of Windows 7, VMware Fusion or Prallels plus a workable Win software solution and dealing with a platform I absolutely hate!

For Christ's sake at least give us a software and BTO hardware option!

 

[Carniphage]

Actually, the Cell SDK and Sony Hypervisor enforces proper programming practices. Developers don't like being told they can't take shortcuts but still try take them anyway which gives a performance hit. Its not a nightmare its just laziness. But there is a reason why PS3 exclusives have better performance than 360 exclusives at the time.

The performance difference between well written PS3 and 360 games is too small to measure. In most cases the 360 has a slight edge. In all cases the 360 requires less developer time.

You can call it laziness but it's just economics. The bizarre engineering of the PS3 results in longer development time. Which is equal to more expensive development.

The objective of rational games developers is to make profit. Having to invest man-years in co-processor code undermines profitability and slows development.

C..

 

[SactoGuy18]

I still think we may see BD-RE Superdrives that support the BDXL 100 GB recording standard by the end of this year, if not early next year, on the iMac and Mac Pro computers.

Why? Because it would add at most US$150 to the retail cost of an iMac or Mac Pro, and Apple hardware is already fully HDCP compliant, including the Mini DisplayPort connection for video. Being able to master a Blu-ray disc on a Mac Pro easily is something a lot of video production companies want.

The problem with broadband in the USA is that many ISP's either don't have the download speed (the majority of users are under 5 megabits/second download speeds) or subject to monthly download capacity limits, both of which severely limit services like NetFlix streaming video or downloaded video from the iTunes Store. Until these limits are lifted, you can forget about Jobs' vision of large-scale downloaded or streaming videos, especially in HD!

 

[Carniphage]

You think it is broken because only a handful of devs make money?

Most developers are not making money.
EA is not making money.
Sony has lost it's shirt
Microsoft has lost a lot of money.

So I'd argue that the business model of the console boxed-game is well and truly broken.

C.

 

[iEdd]

So I was thinking today how incredible it is that my iPhone has a 1GHz CPU and 512MB of RAM. Just made me reminisce of the times when the Mac had awesome state of the art hardware features and specs.

When Blu-Ray finally gets added, it's going to be one of those quiet updates so that it's less embarrassing. Sigh.

 

[barberio]

These 100 bucks are waiting to get spend for several years. Heck, Apple could even sell me a Mac OS 10.6 Pro or something. I'll bet all genuine BD fans would be willing to spend that amount too. Unlike with iTunes crap the quality of BD is worth its price!

It's still much cheaper and more convenient than buying a copy of Windows 7, VMware Fusion or Prallels plus a workable Win software solution and dealing with a platform I absolutely hate!

For Christ's sake at least give us a software and BTO hardware option!

I only scratched the surface of the licence restrictions there.

It's not just the per-unit pricing. There's licence restrictions on how the software is implemented that makes it pretty hard for Apple. It would have to have it's own completely separate video rendering path, as MPEGLA do not want ability to capture the digital stream. And it would only be available on devices with HDCP.

 

[Reddkryten]

I only scratched the surface of the licence restrictions there.

It's not just the per-unit pricing. There's licence restrictions on how the software is implemented that makes it pretty hard for Apple. It would have to have it's own completely separate video rendering path, as MPEGLA do not want ability to capture the digital stream. And it would only be available on devices with HDCP.

But doesn't that secure DRM rendering path already exist within Mac OS, the same path that prevents users from taking screen shots of movies bought in the iTunes store?

 

[AidenShaw]

But doesn't that secure DRM rendering path already exist within Mac OS, the same path that prevents users from taking screen shots of movies bought in the iTunes store?

And the hardware is capable, since a dual-boot Windows installation on an Apple can play BD movies....

 

[MorphingDragon]

And the hardware is capable, since a dual-boot Windows installation on an Apple can play BD movies....

You can even play movies with a VLC workaround.

 

[barberio]

But doesn't that secure DRM rendering path already exist within Mac OS, the same path that prevents users from taking screen shots of movies bought in the iTunes store?

Not to MPEGLA's satisfaction. afaik, the video buffer on iTunes is still unencrypted, it's just that the user exposed tools to copy it are disabled for the iTunes windows. Someone dedicated enough could theoretically re-pipe that video somewhere.

 

[diamond.g]

Most developers are not making money.
EA is not making money.
Sony has lost it's shirt
Microsoft has lost a lot of money.

So I'd argue that the business model of the console boxed-game is well and truly broken.

C.

This is slightly OT...

EA (and most publishers) are having to make sequels for games because new IPs aren't selling to the masses all that well (see Mirrors Edge). A lot of that is probably due to game development cost and game price being too high. Then you have companies like Activision that have admitted they plan on running franchises into the ground (looking at CoD)...

Sony more or less bet the farm on BD and Cell. BD has taken off, but Cell is basically being scaled back (outside of Toshiba using it in some of their TV's). Lots of places would rather buy PS3's because they are cheaper than the Cell blades (looking at the Air Force there). Plus the PS3 was/is expensive and the game selection really isn't all that great.

Microsoft is, as usual, a special case. They have crappy hardware (I assume the 360 Slim is finally decent hardware) yet great software (or bunches of it). They also need to work on making the hardware cheaper. Game prices is also an issue, plus having to pay for live is an issue (for some).

Nintendo is doing pretty well for themselves (of course they have to, they are the only company that only does video games). Which begs the question, why is Nintendo doing so much better than others. Why is Apple constantly rumored to be getting into the video game business (if it is so full of fail)?

 

[BiggAW]

I still think we may see BD-RE Superdrives that support the BDXL 100 GB recording standard by the end of this year, if not early next year, on the iMac and Mac Pro computers.

Why? Because it would add at most US$150 to the retail cost of an iMac or Mac Pro, and Apple hardware is already fully HDCP compliant, including the Mini DisplayPort connection for video. Being able to master a Blu-ray disc on a Mac Pro easily is something a lot of video production companies want.

The problem with broadband in the USA is that many ISP's either don't have the download speed (the majority of users are under 5 megabits/second download speeds) or subject to monthly download capacity limits, both of which severely limit services like NetFlix streaming video or downloaded video from the iTunes Store. Until these limits are lifted, you can forget about Jobs' vision of large-scale downloaded or streaming videos, especially in HD!

That may be the case, as I am sure a lot of producers want the ability to do Blu-ray.

However, they are already doing HD video distribution on a big scale. Apple had the iTunes store, and Netflix is streaming HD movies. While average broadband speeds are low, more and more people have services like Comcast's 12mbps service, and people in the Fios areas are getting 43/15 now on the 30/15 plan... That's plenty for HD video, albeit not at the same quality as Blu-ray.

 

[toke lahti]

Not to MPEGLA's satisfaction. afaik, the video buffer on iTunes is still unencrypted, it's just that the user exposed tools to copy it are disabled for the iTunes windows. Someone dedicated enough could theoretically re-pipe that video somewhere.

Do you really think that it would be hard for Apple to implement fully encrypted videopath, if they really wanted?

 

[toke lahti]

However, they are already doing HD video distribution on a big scale. Apple had the iTunes store, and Netflix is streaming HD movies.

Most countries on this planet has plain zero HD movies in iTunes. And Netflix is only in US.

 

[xbjllb]

If Apple were to provide BluRay Movie Playback, they would be required by MPEGLA to charge you for it as a separately purchased premium value item with a ~$100 price point.

Wow. $100. I know people who spent over $500 on the first generation of Blu-ray burners. And there's not a pro content creator on the planet that wouldn't still pay $500 extra for full Blu-ray implementation.

But $100? Seems a tiny price to pay for the privilege of once again being FULLY ahead of everyone else technologically, truly cutting edge, although it's doubtful at this point Apple could tout that four years late without being a laughingstock.

I guess. That is what I was told.

I guess it would be like saying Apple should remove FW, I don't know anyone that uses it. The extra space could be used for an additional USB port...

I don't know anyone who doesn't use firewire, nor do I care to.

Do you really think that it would be hard for Apple to implement fully encrypted videopath, if they really wanted?

No.

 

[MorphingDragon]

I don't know anyone who doesn't use firewire, nor do I care to.

It all depends on who you surround yourself with. I tend to hang out with the creative types, Macs are abaundant and Firewire is common.

 

[DoFoT9]

It all depends on who you surround yourself with. I tend to hang out with the creative types, Macs are abaundant and Firewire is common.

its the whole idea of FW that excites me, no extra CPU usage - so you are guaranteed the real world data rates (as opposed to USB which may incur speed limitations due to hardware), and daisy chaining is really nice