Where the heck is Blu Ray?

[Wolfpup]

Random rant...any notebook I buy now has to have three things:

-A decent GPU (at LEAST an 8600GT class MINIMUM)
-An LED backlit screen, both for brightness, health/safety, and longevity reasons
-Blu Ray playback support.

Two out of three... (Hopefully the next models in a few months will add Blu Ray, AND a bumped up GPU, AND a removable hard drive...at least I'll keep dreaming )

 

[PlaceofDis]

the MB/MBP won't have Blu ray until after the Mac Pros have Blu-ray. simple fact. also i don't know if there are any Blu-ray drives that would be small enough and are slot loaded for the MB/MBP

 

[kabunaru]

Random rant...any notebook I buy now has to have three things:

-A decent GPU (at LEAST an 8600GT class MINIMUM)
-An LED backlit screen, both for brightness, health/safety, and longevity reasons
-Blu Ray playback support.

That's an intense standard.

Maybe next year the MacBook Pros will have Blu-ray. The Mac Pro might get Blu-ray at MacWorld 2009, then the MacBook Pros/MacBooks will follow.

or

Maybe we don't need a Blu-ray drive. It's all about digital media at Apple.

 

[Hellseeker]

I thought a bit about the Blu ray thing, and I think I'm just getting an external blu-ray burner. Yes, a burner, not just play-back. Might as well future proof yourself for as long as possible. Anyway, that way you don't have to go for a specific laptop or desktop just for the blu ray drive - since you can just swap it from computer to computer.

( + that way I won't have to wait another year or two before Apple actually start putting those things in their computers )

 

[nick9191]

Dead and buried like the rest of physical media.

In all seriousness, if Apple don't introduce it at Macworld then I can safely assume they're skipping it completely. And I'm sure they would have included it by now had it made any dent in their sales.

By the way if they do include it, it will only be included on the 17" MBP, and the hi-def 17" at that (although I can assume the nehalem 17" MBP will be hi-def standard.

 

[zioxide]

Dead and buried like the rest of physical media.

********. Physical media isn't going anywhere. Until everyone has at least 50mbit fiber lines to their homes, digital downloads aren't going to take off. Good luck downloading a 50GB blu-ray quality 1080p video on a ****** DSL line.

Apple should have added Blu-ray to Mac Pros 2 years ago. I wonder how many content producers they have driven to PC because there is no way to easily burn high-definition content on a Mac.

 

[PlaceofDis]

********. Physical media isn't going anywhere. Until everyone has at least 50mbit fiber lines to their homes, digital downloads aren't going to take off. Good luck downloading a 50GB blu-ray quality 1080p video on a ****** DSL line.

Apple should have added Blu-ray to Mac Pros 2 years ago. I wonder how many content producers they have driven to PC because there is no way to easily burn high-definition content on a Mac.

3rd party drives work fine. not for playback, but burning is there afaik

 

[nick9191]

********. Physical media isn't going anywhere. Until everyone has at least 50mbit fiber lines to their homes, digital downloads aren't going to take off. Good luck downloading a 50GB blu-ray quality 1080p video on a ****** DSL line.

It depends where you live, in Japan for example where 20mb up/down is less than a gallon of unleaded.

I did say all seriousness afterwards, I know that digital media will be around for a bit, but Apple ridding the MBA of an optical drive marked the beginning of the end for me.

Apple should have added Blu-ray to Mac Pros 2 years ago. I wonder how many content producers they have driven to PC because there is no way to easily burn high-definition content on a Mac.

None at all. As I said had it made a dent in Apple sales they would have included it, as it stands 90% of people who want blu-ray simply want to watch movies, and 90% of those will still purchase a Mac because they love the computer, its not a selling point for most. Professionals will still purchase a Mac for the superior film and audio suite, namely FCS.

Apple aren't stupid. Everything they do is for a reason, whether or not we can understand it.

 

[Wolfpup]

A Blu Ray drive seems even more useful in a laptop then a desktop, since for a lot of people their desktop would be at home where they could just watch a stand alone player.

I agree that Apple should have introduced this quite a while back. No latter then the updates early this year. They've probably already started losing sales from it, although not as badly as they will.

There are slot loading Blu Ray drives, though they are (or were?) more expensive than the typical type. Seems to be falling as Dell charged $500 for it initially in once system, then $400, and now $200 in a different model.

The problem with adding an external drive of course is that OS X can't play it back. I would have assumed 10.5 was going to add that as a big feature...

Regarding downloads, huge problems there:
-as mentioned, broadband penetration
-even bigger, no one to date actually sells any video content online. So far it's just activation laden rentals.
-the video quality of online stuff is at best a bit better than DVD, nowhere near Blu Ray quality.
-There aren't extras
-Prices just to rent many titles are worse than BUYING stuff on DVD or Blu Ray
-selection is terrible.

Until all of that gets fixed-especially until they remove activation from "purchases", and get MUCH better prices and selection, downloads are pretty worthless by comparison.

 

[Wolfpup]

That's an intense standard.

Kind of. Not many systems fit it yet, but that'll change. Probably fairly quickly. I just don't see how I can compromise on any of it. I play games, so I need a decent GPU. I watch movies and TV, so I need Blu Ray. And I want LED backlighting for health, longevity, and 'cause it looks cool' reasons

Right now I only know of two systems that meet all that...though Apple just needs to throw in Blu Ray support and they're there.

 

[mikeyPotg]

I agree. I was really hoping to hear Bluray drives announced for the next set of MBP's. I'm still holding out on hope, as I was planning on selling my Mac Pro for a Bluray capable MBP, as I need the mobility... but we'll see.

 

[Tallest Skil]

A Blu Ray drive seems even more useful in a laptop then a desktop, since for a lot of people their desktop would be at home where they could just watch a stand alone player.

Apple will include Blu-ray drives in their laptops when the drives allow the laptops to have longer than 30 minutes of battery life.

Because that's what Blu-ray does right now. It's a useless power hog. Apple cares more about power consumption than features; hence, inch-thick notebooks. There will not be Blu-ray in an Apple notebook until the drives allow two hours of battery life. Plain and simple. At this point, Apple will include a feature that allows you to shut off the drive itself to save power and get your battery life back to the usable 5 hours of current notebooks.

 

[nick9191]

A Blu Ray drive seems even more useful in a laptop then a desktop, since for a lot of people their desktop would be at home where they could just watch a stand alone player.

How exactly? For starters the Blu Ray option would only be on the 17" model since this is the only Full HD screen, and then only if you hand them more money, and who wants to drag around that, and who wants to watch movies on a 17" screen, regardless of whether its high definition. And of course not to mention you have to spend $2799 for the 17" model.

I agree that Apple should have introduced this quite a while back. No latter then the updates early this year. They've probably already started losing sales from it, although not as badly as they will.

They havent lost anything. People vote with their wallet, and Apple would have included it had they lost sales. If you look at the sales of notebook computers overall, 90% of them are the cheap Acers, Dells, and etc. all with a cheap 15" screen, none with blu ray players, no one wants to watch movies on their laptop screen, no one wants to pay out their ass for a computer to watch blu ray when they could hook up their PS3, or a Blu Ray player to their TV for peanuts.

There are slot loading Blu Ray drives, though they are (or were?) more expensive than the typical type. Seems to be falling as Dell charged $500 for it initially in once system, then $400, and now $200 in a different model.

Again no demand, except for those who have a valid reason for a blu ray drive such as burning disks. Most likely not going to be done on a laptop as the main target market of burning blu ray disks is professionals, none of which would be working from a laptop other than light work whilst away.

And of course you can burn blu ray under OS X

Or of course those who buy a bastardised Alienware $3000 laptop with the blu ray drive to watch movies, then realise it sucks on a 17" screen, then realise the laptop sound sucks. Then realise they could have bought a far faster desktop for half the price, or connected a player to their huge TV, and all the stuff they bought the laptop for, such as gaming and watching movies are performed in their house anyway, on which they have a far faster desktop computer with a larger screen, and a flat screen TV.

The problem with adding an external drive of course is that OS X can't play it back. I would have assumed 10.5 was going to add that as a big feature...

Again no one cares except for this extremely niche market. You seem to be under the impression Apple cares about you? No offence intended of course, thats just how it is in the corporate world.

Regarding downloads, huge problems there:
-as mentioned, broadband penetration
-even bigger, no one to date actually sells any video content online. So far it's just activation laden rentals.
-the video quality of online stuff is at best a bit better than DVD, nowhere near Blu Ray quality.
-There aren't extras
-Prices just to rent many titles are worse than BUYING stuff on DVD or Blu Ray
-selection is terrible.

Until all of that gets fixed-especially until they remove activation from "purchases", and get MUCH better prices and selection, downloads are pretty worthless by comparison.

They will get rid of all that as soon as the ISP's eventually are overcome by demand and are forced to start improving their infrastructure. Again look at Internet speeds in Japan and Hong Kong. Every month new applications and web services are popping up, and raping them for bandwidth. They can't avoid it for ever.

 

[stainlessliquid]

Apple didnt skip it, bluray drives are still very expensive. They will include them at some point, they have to, when they get cheaper they will. Even if they dont care about bluray movies they have to care about bluray storage. DVD wont be around forever with its pathetic 9gb storage capacity (4gb is more realistic, since DL-DVD's are so hard to find). It isnt any fun trying to back up your files with 4gb dvd-r's, it feels just like it did 5 years ago trying to back up files with cd-r's. Plus HD camcorders are getting a lot more popular, if they really care about HD iMovie then they need to get on the bluray train (whats the point of even having a 1080 option in imovie? Someone needs to ask Apple what people are supposed to do after they made a 1080p movie).

What they need to do right now is make ACD's hdcp compliant though, theres no excuse for not doing at least that.

 

[26139]

Uh...

Why in the world would you want to watch a high-def Blu-Ray movie on a laptop screen? Isn't that really missing the point?

 

[Tallest Skil]

They will get rid of all that as soon as the ISP's eventually are overcome by demand and are forced to start improving their infrastructure. Again look at Internet speeds in Japan and Hong Kong. Every month new applications and web services are popping up, and raping them for bandwidth. They can't avoid it for ever.

Unless the telecoms get their way and net neutrality becomes a thing of the past. Throttled speeds, forced a la carte websites, and sites, once free, that have become pay-per-view.

 

[stainlessliquid]

They will get rid of all that as soon as the ISP's eventually are overcome by demand and are forced to start improving their infrastructure. Again look at Internet speeds in Japan and Hong Kong. Every month new applications and web services are popping up, and raping them for bandwidth. They can't avoid it for ever.

American ISP's arent forced to do anything they dont want to do. They do not compete with eachother because phone and cable companies own entire cities and do not allow other phone and cable companies to do business in those cities. We can demand all we want, but the fact is we have nowhere to go if the ISP doesnt meet those demands. Verizon FIOS is shaking things up a little since they are laying down their own wires, but they arent in many cities and they are just another monopoly who will own the fiber lines and not allow other companies to use them.

Japan has a very different way of handling ISP's, its a free market there, people have several choices of different ISP's since no single company owns the phone lines and has the power to block competitors. Thats why their speeds are so different, that will never happen in the USA until laws are changed.

 

[Wolfpup]

Apple will include Blu-ray drives in their laptops when the drives allow the laptops to have longer than 30 minutes of battery life....

AFAIK Blu Ray hardware doesn't affect battery life at all. Don't know why it would. Actually playing back a Blu Ray disc probably sucks battery power just because it has to hit the CPU and/or GPU so hard, but it's still longer than 30 minutes! And even if it was 30 minutes, not everyone uses their laptop unplugged exclusively.

How exactly? For starters the Blu Ray option would only be on the 17" model since this is the only Full HD screen

So? You don't need 1920x1080 or higher for Blu Ray to be useful. I don't even want that resolution in a tiny laptop screen.

They havent lost anything. People vote with their wallet, and Apple would have included it had they lost sales.

Maybe not much...yet, but they've been slow every single time there's a new optical technology. They sort of ignored DVD, CD-RW, DVD-RW, etc. Always late to the party, and it has always cost them sales in the past.

Also all kinds of people watch movies on their laptop. Probably MOST people watch movies on their laptops at least sometimes.

Again no one cares except for this extremely niche market.

People who watch movies and TV are not a niche market. Granted Blu Ray is just a sliver so far, but it's adoption has apparently been even faster than DVD, which was faster than VHS, etc.

Why in the world would you want to watch a high-def Blu-Ray movie on a laptop screen? Isn't that really missing the point?

How so? Presumably the point of watching something on a laptop is that you want to watch something and don't have your TV and full sized player available.

 

[Zwhaler]

I did say all seriousness afterwards, I know that digital media will be around for a bit, but Apple ridding the MBA of an optical drive marked the beginning of the end for me.

Ehh I wouldn't necessarily say that. Apple left the drive out of the MBA to keep it thin. It's still on every other Mac. Like others have said, I don't see digital media saying goodbye until it is more convenient to use downloads. So far, it isn't. When I say convenient, I mean 30+ GB downloads in ~5 minutes.

 

[Wolfpup]

Come to think of it, asking "what's the point of watching a movie on a laptop" is the same as asking what's the point of doing ANYTHING on a laptop. Whether it's playing a game or writing in Word, EVERYTHING could run better and look better on a "big" platform...obviously we're doing it because we need a portable computer.

 

[nick9191]

AFAIK Blu Ray hardware doesn't affect battery life at all. Don't know why it would. Actually playing back a Blu Ray disc probably sucks battery power just because it has to hit the CPU and/or GPU so hard,

You hit the nail on the head there.

but it's still longer than 30 minutes! And even if it was 30 minutes, not everyone uses their laptop unplugged exclusively.

Defying the point of a laptop.


So? You don't need 1920x1080 or higher for Blu Ray to be useful. I don't even want that resolution in a tiny laptop screen.

Maybe not, but thats all its available on. Again you hit the nail on the head. Why would anyone want that level of quality on a small ass screen with crappy sound? When they could buy a bargain bin laptop, and a 42" Full HD and blu ray player for the same price.

Maybe not much...yet, but they've been slow every single time there's a new optical technology. They sort of ignored DVD, CD-RW, DVD-RW, etc. Always late to the party, and it has always cost them sales in the past.

Again if it starts hacking at sales, they'll introduce it, it isn't so they wont yet.

Also all kinds of people watch movies on their laptop. Probably MOST people watch movies on their laptops at least sometimes.

Yes, DVD's or downloaded content.

People who watch movies and TV are not a niche market. Granted Blu Ray is just a sliver so far, but it's adoption has apparently been even faster than DVD, which was faster than VHS, etc.

Yes its a big adoption because Sony shove it down your throat when you buy their console. No one could care less about computers though. Apple's main customers are those who are technically challenged, they have a HD TV and Blu Ray player, they don't want to watch movies, let alone blu ray on their small computer or laptop screen.

How so? Presumably the point of watching something on a laptop is that you want to watch something and don't have your TV and full sized player available.

Again, they wouldn't care about Blu Ray.

 

[dukebound85]

AFAIK Blu Ray hardware doesn't affect battery life at all. Don't know why it would. Actually playing back a Blu Ray disc probably sucks battery power just because it has to hit the CPU and/or GPU so hard,

You hit the nail on the head there.

but it's still longer than 30 minutes! And even if it was 30 minutes, not everyone uses their laptop unplugged exclusively.

Defying the point of a laptop.


So? You don't need 1920x1080 or higher for Blu Ray to be useful. I don't even want that resolution in a tiny laptop screen.

Maybe not, but thats all its available on. Again you hit the nail on the head. Why would anyone want that level of quality on a small ass screen with crappy sound? When they could buy a bargain bin laptop, and a 42" Full HD and blu ray player for the same price.

Maybe not much...yet, but they've been slow every single time there's a new optical technology. They sort of ignored DVD, CD-RW, DVD-RW, etc. Always late to the party, and it has always cost them sales in the past.

Again if it starts hacking at sales, they'll introduce it, it isn't so they wont yet.

Also all kinds of people watch movies on their laptop. Probably MOST people watch movies on their laptops at least sometimes.

Yes, DVD's or downloaded content.

People who watch movies and TV are not a niche market. Granted Blu Ray is just a sliver so far, but it's adoption has apparently been even faster than DVD, which was faster than VHS, etc.

Yes its a big adoption because Sony shove it down your throat when you buy their console. No one could care less about computers though. Apple's main customers are those who are technically challenged, they have a HD TV and Blu Ray player, they don't want to watch movies, let alone blu ray on their small computer or laptop screen.

How so? Presumably the point of watching something on a laptop is that you want to watch something and don't have your TV and full sized player available.

Again, they wouldn't care about Blu Ray.

ok i want blu-ray for:

backup mediums and movies

and yes i should be able to watch the latest movies on blu-ray if i want scaled down to the resolution of my laptop. studios are not going to be creating dvd movies forever

those that argue againt blu-ray in laptops are delusional imo

 

[Wolfpup]

Defying the point of a laptop.

Not really. The point of a laptop is having a portable computer-in many cases it's a primary computer and needs to do everything you want to do with it.

Maybe not, but thats all its available on. Again you hit the nail on the head. Why would anyone want that level of quality on a small ass screen with crappy sound?

For the same reason people use Microsoft Word, Firefox, play games, write code, watch DVDs, etc. on a laptop.

Again if it starts hacking at sales, they'll introduce it, it isn't so they wont yet.

That's pretty backwards thinking for a company like Apple. They HAVE already lost sales because of it, so what, they're going to wait until it hits double digits or something?

Yes its a big adoption because Sony shove it down your throat when you buy their console. No one could care less about computers though. Apple's main customers are those who are technically challenged, they have a HD TV and Blu Ray player, they don't want to watch movies, let alone blu ray on their small computer or laptop screen.

Says who? Apple's customers don't like movies? That's just silly.

 

[26139]

That's pretty backwards thinking for a company like Apple. They HAVE already lost sales because of it, so what, they're going to wait until it hits double digits or something?

Riiight. How many sales, yours? I SERIOUSLY doubt that more than 1% of Apple buyers would ever NOT buy from Apple solely because of the lack of a blu ray player. I don't, of course, know this any better than you do, however.

And why would they rush to get blu ray drives on the market? How many new releases don't out on both DVD and blu ray?

 

[zioxide]

Professionals will still purchase a Mac for the superior film and audio suite, namely FCS.

If FCS is superior then why does Avid (their Adrenaline systems and stuff) still have the most market share.

Apple could have put blu-ray in the pro systems 2 years ago and blu-ray support in DVDSP4 when FCS2 came out at NAB07. This would have helped get even more adoption for FCS.