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Where Is The Blu-ray Support Apple?

H

HitmanX

macrumors regular
Original poster
March 10, 2005, Apple had announced there support for blu-ray by joining the Blu-ray Disc Association (Click Here To View It).

Here we are over 2 years later and no blu-ray drive option has been announced for the mac line of desktops or notebooks. Other desktop and notebook manufactures have already added this technology into their products, so what is the delay?
 
To create a winner more products need to be released. Apple has announced there support for Blu-ray and not HD-DVD, so I think they need to show some support.
 
I hope Apple doesn't support either Blu-ray or HD-DVD Because if Apple supports the one that loses then all we will hear is bitching and whining from the people who perchased the machines with the supported disc format.
 
Can someone please explain why you'd even want a Blu-Ray drive on a laptop? I read all these posts whining about it, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what it'd be good for. 😕

Why would you need or want to watch an HD movie on a small screen? Standard DVD quality looks plenty good at that size.

If it's a burner, it's pointless now anyways because the disks are too expensive ($20+ for a single disk), and even if you did burn one, no one has the players to play 'em on.

So.... ? Is it just a novelty thing? Is it just because other companies do have them, so you think Apple should follow suit? Do you use your laptops as DVD players in your HTs?
 
xfiftyfour said:
Can someone please explain why you'd even want a Blu-Ray drive on a laptop? I read all these posts whining about it, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what it'd be good for. 😕

Why would you need or want to watch an HD movie on a small screen? Standard DVD quality looks plenty good at that size.

If it's a burner, it's pointless now anyways because the disks are too expensive ($20+ for a single disk), and even if you did burn one, no one has the players to play 'em on.

So.... ? Is it just a novelty thing? Is it just because other companies do have them, so you think Apple should follow suit? Do you use your laptops as DVD players in your HTs?
Click to expand...

Took the words right out of my mouth. 😉
 
xfiftyfour said:
Can someone please explain why you'd even want a Blu-Ray drive on a laptop? I read all these posts whining about it, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what it'd be good for. 😕

Why would you need or want to watch an HD movie on a small screen? Standard DVD quality looks plenty good at that size.

If it's a burner, it's pointless now anyways because the disks are too expensive ($20+ for a single disk), and even if you did burn one, no one has the players to play 'em on.

So.... ? Is it just a novelty thing? Is it just because other companies do have them, so you think Apple should follow suit? Do you use your laptops as DVD players in your HTs?
Click to expand...


Just like everything else- the price will come down for blank discs. That being said, they should hold on a while- it is one thing to be the leader, but another to be a leader of failed tech like mentioned above. That is exactly why I am not buying a PS3 right now- don't want blueray to lose and be stuck with it if Sony had to end up putting in a combo drive or something in the future. I really think we will end up with combo drives in many devices, but for laptops that might be too bulky to do so who knows how this will end up. Maybe an agreement in the future between all parties as it looks like many are holding their ground and the sales numbers don't seem to be making a clear winner. Maybe tech will soon allow us to have one laser to read both instead of two lasers?
 
I belive apple is waiting to introduce both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD support in Mac OS X Leopard and in recent builds of leopard there were text entries that indicted both bluray and hddvd was to be supported, so if your waiting for a Bluray drive shipped by apple as standed then you will be waiting till at least October.
 
xfiftyfour said:
Can someone please explain why you'd even want a Blu-Ray drive on a laptop? I read all these posts whining about it, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what it'd be good for. 😕

Why would you need or want to watch an HD movie on a small screen? Standard DVD quality looks plenty good at that size.

If it's a burner, it's pointless now anyways because the disks are too expensive ($20+ for a single disk), and even if you did burn one, no one has the players to play 'em on.

So.... ? Is it just a novelty thing? Is it just because other companies do have them, so you think Apple should follow suit? Do you use your laptops as DVD players in your HTs?
Click to expand...
For the past 6 or 7 months I have only been purchasing blu-ray movies and will never again purchase a DVD, do to the night and day difference. There will be a difference on the MBP even if its only a 17" screen and it will be able to play the new movies I own.

The price of blank media always comes down in price, so a burner would be nice to have aswell.

"no one has the players to play 'em on." I don't understand why some people don't want to move forward and want to remain in the past, because some people do have the players and that number increases everyday.
 
HitmanX said:
For the past 6 or 7 months I have only been purchasing blu-ray movies and will never again purchase a DVD, do to the night and day difference. There will be a difference on the MBP even if its only a 17" screen and it will be able to play the new movies I own.
Click to expand...

I wonder how much better it will be though- I have heard that unless you get to a certain sized screen certain HD resolutions are really not noticably better (I am not an expert though- I just read that this was true for certain resolutions of HD...not sure if it was 720i or p or 1080 i or p or what.

So many people have invested so much into DVD's they don't necessarily want to make the jump- especially if they dropped a load on a 6-1,000 dollar blu ray player for their 1-2,000 HD Tv. Why invest another so many hundred dollars just to play a handfull of your movies on your laptop. In a year or two they will be much more popular but still not wide spread so I would expect Apple in 2008 to jump to one of the formats.
 
Eidorian said:
Neither party is a clear winner still...
Click to expand...

I disagree. As someone who owns both formats (RCA HDV5000 HD-DVD, XBox 360 HD-DVD, Sony PS3 Blu Ray), HD-DVD has lost, it's a matter of when will they surrender.

I would refer you to this article at The Digital Bits, who has finally chosen sides:

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/soapbox/soap060107.html

In short, only one Hollywood studio supports only HD-DVD (Universal); five support only Blu-Ray (Sony, Fox, Disney, et al). The rest support both, including Warner which is one of Toshiba's staunchest allies. Only Toshiba makes HD-DVD hardware (RCA oem's their player and then there is the XBox 360 add-on). Several manufacturers make Blu-Ray players. HD-DVD releases have slowed to a crawl (the only big recent release is the Matrix boxset, which will come out on Blu-Ray later as well). As someone who rents both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray from Blockbuster, the number of new hit releases on HD-DVD is slowing to a drizzle.

The two formats are identical from the media standpoint if you ignore the physical format differences, with only two exceptions -- (1) the interactivity layer, and (2) an extra level of DRM. They use the same codecs (MPEG2, H.264, VC1, Dolby True HD, etc.).

I hate to see Sony win, because IMO they torpedoed the DVD forum and caused this format war, but it's pretty clear that HD-DVD needs a miracle to win.

And since I won't buy a standard DVD if the HD-DVD or Blu-Ray exists, how else would I play the movie on my laptop when on the road? Do I have to buy two copies?
 
xfiftyfour said:
Can someone please explain why you'd even want a Blu-Ray drive on a laptop? I read all these posts whining about it, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what it'd be good for. 😕

Why would you need or want to watch an HD movie on a small screen? Standard DVD quality looks plenty good at that size.
Click to expand...

I cringe at standard DVDs now. Unless you have a 720x480 screen, you're scaling up which means artifacts and softness. But I'm picky and deal with digital video for a living.

Plus, Apple just came out with a 17" Macbook Pro with a 1920x1080 screen 🙂

HTPC is definitely another use.
 
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