This thing about low-bit-rate 720p being 'good enough' is ludicrous. Why even bother with Apple's selection of psudeo-HD at all then? Why not just buy standard def downloads or DVDs if you don't really care about quality? I think that's what annoys me about Apple's political stance over this the most, the idea that they can't be happy selling standard def movies as downloads and supporting Blu-ray for those who want quality, rather they think that by selling slightly higher resolution movies they can call them HD and essentially trick the general public into thinking there's no real difference between a 'HD' iTunes movie and a Blu-ray in terms of quality, then use that as an excuse that low-bit-rate 720p is 'good enough'. And it's just all about market positioning, not providing customers with quality products.
I think there's an inherent danger for Apple in following a 'good enough' policy when it known by many as a luxury, quality, 'better than plain 'good enough' ' brand. If all of Apple's products came from a place with that attitude of settling for mediocrity then maybe we'd all be using Windows PCs.
I haven't used optical drives in 11 years. I always replace whatever optical drive comes with any computer I've owned with a second hard drive for more capacity. Don't need or want Bluray
or DVD. I've only ever streamed/downloaded. If I could do something about my iMac's Not-so-SuperDrive, I would. It will never see any use and I watch approx. one movie per day, i.e. hundreds every year, most in 1080p or 720p Bluray.
That's nice for you. I have no problem with what you do. But why shouldn't people who want to have Apple support Blu-ray get that if that's what they want? If Apple were to make optical drives BTO in the Apple Store I'd have no problem with that either if the BTO options included OS-level supported Blu-ray drives and movie playback. But Jobs is obsessed with his rubbish iTunes movies and serving mediocrity now instead just waiting a few years to sell quality. And the willing guinea pigs (the ones with fast connections and fairplay compatible devices at least)) are running to him saying 'yes please uncle Steve, serve me rubbish downloads now so I can buy better ones again for an upgrade fee later!!'
Bluray is optical technology, is already old.
Says the user with "Amiga News.it THE italian Amiga portal" i their sig :lol: (no offence, I loved the Amiga).
Yes, optical technology is old. But so is the internet. So we're just talking about newer versions of old technology. Great.
Love 'em or hate 'em, the Holy Grail of movie franchises, the one that makes or breaks a format in many people's eyes --
Star Wars was just
announced for release on Blu-Ray.
But fret not, I'm sure they will look just fantastic in 720p from the iTunes Movie Store.
As much as I'm in the Blu-ray supporting camp, I think this news should not necessarily be used to support either side of the debate. As a fan of the films I am hugely excited that some of my favourite films will be for sale in the highest quality widely and realistically available. However, it could (and probably has been) noted that Lucas has likely calculated that the end of 2011 is the point where Blu-ray market share reaches the point that will make him the most money from a release. Star Wars on DVD took a while. Widescreen Star Wars on VHS took a while. But Star Wars was also available on Laserdisc and VCD, so by itself it isn't an argument to say the format has made it.
However, I think Blu-ray has already made it, and is already much bigger than Laserdisc or VCD ever was - indeed in many ways Blu-ray has come remarkably close to the performance of DVD at the same point in its life.
Having said that, direct comparisons are not fair ones between those two formats (DVD and BD) because of several key differences - there is the knowledge that downloads will eventually take over, however premature Jobs is being about it, but there's also the fact the Blu-ray players are almost all backwards compatible with DVDs, meaning that they are likely to remain as both legacy media players as well as serving those who want quality sometime into downloads rise as the dominant format.
So it's great that Star Wars has been announced for Blu-ray, and it further makes Jobs' comments about Blu-ray being some niche product utterly daft, but at the same time it perhaps isn't in itself a sign that Blu-ray has proven itself, other than to Lucasfilm. I expect it will shift a lot of Blu-ray players though, and then there's still the extended editions of Lord of the Rings to come. I still think Jobs will do a U-turn on Blu-ray before we ever see 1080p downloads in the iTunes store as standard.
