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Still got those Blu-Ray blues
- Thread starter newtech
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Blu-ray and 10.5.2 on Rush Limbaugh today?!?!?!
I heard something today that might perk you up. I heard Rush Limbaugh on earlier today and he is a big Mac user - he has Macs for the entire work environment. I had been paying close attention because he was discussing 10.5.2 and said it had not addressed 2 bugs he'd been having. If he said what the bugs were, it wasn't when I heard, but I was surprised to hear anyone on the radio discussing the 10.5.2 release and so had been listening closely.
Anyway, he said that he ordered 6 Mac Pros, "fully equipped" with everything, "blu-ray" etc. 4 for himself at various locations and 2 as gifts. He specifically said blu-ray was part of the order.
Anyway, I thought it was interesting that he specifically said he'd ordered with blu-ray. I presume he meant some type of external support since he plainly didn't have any pull in getting the 2 bugs fixed. Perhaps it was a mistake, but I thought it was interesting.
It was a crazy long shot hope but 10.5.2 still does not address Blu-Ray movie discs
I heard something today that might perk you up. I heard Rush Limbaugh on earlier today and he is a big Mac user - he has Macs for the entire work environment. I had been paying close attention because he was discussing 10.5.2 and said it had not addressed 2 bugs he'd been having. If he said what the bugs were, it wasn't when I heard, but I was surprised to hear anyone on the radio discussing the 10.5.2 release and so had been listening closely.
Anyway, he said that he ordered 6 Mac Pros, "fully equipped" with everything, "blu-ray" etc. 4 for himself at various locations and 2 as gifts. He specifically said blu-ray was part of the order.
Anyway, I thought it was interesting that he specifically said he'd ordered with blu-ray. I presume he meant some type of external support since he plainly didn't have any pull in getting the 2 bugs fixed. Perhaps it was a mistake, but I thought it was interesting.
So yeah, back on the topic at hand, that sucks. I was hoping for support in 10.5.2. It doens't make sense to me that apple has yet to make a move, considering the war is pretty much over. I know they are usually not the first to jump on something, but I figured it would've been released with the pro machine. Oh well, looks like that's my next wait.
the blues are going to be around for a long time. Apple wants to make AppleTV the mainstream consumers preferred choice for HD video.
Here's a slight economic run down.
Slim-loading blu-ray drives cost $900 dollars. There's absolutely no point to trying to sell these in Mac Mini's and iMacs until that comes down to atleast a 1/3, if not a 1/4 of the cost.
Full-size blu-ray drives can be bought for cheaper than the price apple would be able to offer to install it in a Mac Pro, and at $300-$450 a pop, it's still a luxury rather than a necessity. Apple knows the majority of Mac Pro users know this as well.
From a business standpoint, the Apple TV is a signifigantly cheaper alt. to a blu-ray drive ($230 compared to $300 for the PS3). Apple also has every major studio signed for HD rentals and standard def, whereas blu-ray is still 2 short.
The Apple TV offers consumers a better transitional unit from standard to HD video. There's no need for a video library and no need to run out to the store or blockbuster to rent when you can download and start watching nearly right away. In essence, its much sexier choice then blu-ray.
As long as apple stays out of selling blu-ray drives, it controls the market and atleast gets consumers to consider the AppleTV.
There's three strong arguements against what I'm saying, which I'll rebute:
1. AppleTV is not fully HD (1080p)
AppleTV is a transitional product and resolutions above 720p only become signifigant (necessary) on HD tv's 30" or bigger. In fact, the difference between 1080p and 720p on a 40" screen is unnoticable to a person with 20-20 vision if they simply sit 2 feet further away from the TV when watching 720p
2. Need blu-ray for storage.
You're a minority, external hard drives and even ipods offer cheaper storage alt. at the moment. if you're producing and selling HD video, then you can afford to buy a 3rd party alt. however, if you're simply editing home movies in HD and want to put it on your tV, the you can use the Apple TV. 1080p support in AppleTV will come in the next iterations. The list of people that can economically support the decision to have a blu-ray drive in their computer is very short.
3. Apple is part of the blu-ray alliance.
Apple joined and helped support the develop of blu-ray long before they developed the AppleTV. Just because they are part of the alliance does not mean they will ever put blu-rays into apple computers.
Here's reasons why apple won't be seeing blu-rays anytime soon.
1. The war was won!!!! and with monopolies come high prices. Before december, HD DVD player prices were falling fast, whereas blu-ray players were rather stagant (slight decreases). Gotta love competition. However, without HD DVD to compete against, the price of blu-ray players will only decrease slightly based on manufactoring efficiency. Even with the switch over to HD signal next feb(and therefore all HD TVs basicall), its in manufactors favors to keep blu-ray player prices high so they can profit exhorbitantly. There only really competition is AppleTV and to a small extent, xbox 360.
2. Apple loves being on the cutting edge. They were the first to go all USB, they adopted DVD players early and droped floppys long b4 everyone else. Yet it's 2007, and other companies have been offering blu-ray drives for sometime. Infact, the only 2 recent cutting edge things apple's done is upgrade the appleTV and drop the optical drive from the MBA.
Here's a slight economic run down.
Slim-loading blu-ray drives cost $900 dollars. There's absolutely no point to trying to sell these in Mac Mini's and iMacs until that comes down to atleast a 1/3, if not a 1/4 of the cost.
Full-size blu-ray drives can be bought for cheaper than the price apple would be able to offer to install it in a Mac Pro, and at $300-$450 a pop, it's still a luxury rather than a necessity. Apple knows the majority of Mac Pro users know this as well.
From a business standpoint, the Apple TV is a signifigantly cheaper alt. to a blu-ray drive ($230 compared to $300 for the PS3). Apple also has every major studio signed for HD rentals and standard def, whereas blu-ray is still 2 short.
The Apple TV offers consumers a better transitional unit from standard to HD video. There's no need for a video library and no need to run out to the store or blockbuster to rent when you can download and start watching nearly right away. In essence, its much sexier choice then blu-ray.
As long as apple stays out of selling blu-ray drives, it controls the market and atleast gets consumers to consider the AppleTV.
There's three strong arguements against what I'm saying, which I'll rebute:
1. AppleTV is not fully HD (1080p)
AppleTV is a transitional product and resolutions above 720p only become signifigant (necessary) on HD tv's 30" or bigger. In fact, the difference between 1080p and 720p on a 40" screen is unnoticable to a person with 20-20 vision if they simply sit 2 feet further away from the TV when watching 720p
2. Need blu-ray for storage.
You're a minority, external hard drives and even ipods offer cheaper storage alt. at the moment. if you're producing and selling HD video, then you can afford to buy a 3rd party alt. however, if you're simply editing home movies in HD and want to put it on your tV, the you can use the Apple TV. 1080p support in AppleTV will come in the next iterations. The list of people that can economically support the decision to have a blu-ray drive in their computer is very short.
3. Apple is part of the blu-ray alliance.
Apple joined and helped support the develop of blu-ray long before they developed the AppleTV. Just because they are part of the alliance does not mean they will ever put blu-rays into apple computers.
Here's reasons why apple won't be seeing blu-rays anytime soon.
1. The war was won!!!! and with monopolies come high prices. Before december, HD DVD player prices were falling fast, whereas blu-ray players were rather stagant (slight decreases). Gotta love competition. However, without HD DVD to compete against, the price of blu-ray players will only decrease slightly based on manufactoring efficiency. Even with the switch over to HD signal next feb(and therefore all HD TVs basicall), its in manufactors favors to keep blu-ray player prices high so they can profit exhorbitantly. There only really competition is AppleTV and to a small extent, xbox 360.
2. Apple loves being on the cutting edge. They were the first to go all USB, they adopted DVD players early and droped floppys long b4 everyone else. Yet it's 2007, and other companies have been offering blu-ray drives for sometime. Infact, the only 2 recent cutting edge things apple's done is upgrade the appleTV and drop the optical drive from the MBA.
Since Apple is giving us a nudge in the direction of downloading films from iTunes rather than rushing to support Blu-ray, what is the likelihood of them providing 1080p content? What kind of problems would they run into bandwidth-wise? If they want us to download instead of watching Blu-Rays shouldn't we expect comparable quality?
TV to work they need to partner with broadband cable modem companies to rollout DOCSIS 3.0 and get some real bandwidth on the streets.