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I can't tell if you're joking or not -- don't understand what the smiley is supposed to mean.

But in case you're not joking: movie sales are small peanuts. High-end laptops bring in a lot more money. And if everybody else has the latest tech in their high-end and you don't, your customers stop paying you the big bucks.

Exactly. Also, as has been said countless times by myself and others, Blu-Ray does not compete with iTunes "HD". It just doesn't. Everyone should stop spouting this nonsense. The differences in quality are ridiculous and iTunes HD is only available to one subset of Apple's customers (Americans). iTunes is about convenience, Blu-Ray is about quality. Blu-Ray "competes" with iTunes in the same way a CD "competes" with iTunes. I only buy music from Apple when I just want it immediately (convenience) or when it's an "iTunes exclusive". I buy everything else on CD without even thinking about iTunes, because it does not offer that level of quality - the two products are simply very different; they don't compete at all. It would be the same with Blu-Ray.
 
Bring your digital copy (MakeMKV, see above)

In order to do this, I would first need to get a notebook that has a Blu-ray drive, wouldn't I? Sure, I could get an external drive, but then I'd be stuck with a completely useless internal drive.

Anyway, this thread is really mind-numbingly stupid. How can anyone with half a working brain claim that having fewer and inferior options be better than having more and better options available to you?
 
What does this even mean? The computer "pays for itself" if it is suited to the purpose I bought it for, no matter what that purpose is. Or do you think one should only be allowed to own Apple's "pro"-products if one actually earns one's living using them? A lot of students, myself included, would disagree - but you know, apart from using it for my university work, I'm actually earning some money with my MBP (I'm a freelance translator), so perhaps I'm worthy of owning it in your eyes...?

BTW, even the most professional professional might want to watch a movie every once in a whi- oh wait.

it was meant to be a joke.. the main reason i use a "pro" 17" laptop is because of it's screen size and portability (most of my stuff is done on a desktop but i also travel a lot).. i'd be fine with a lowend macbook for everything else as long as i can stuff a bunch of ram in there..

buy whatever you want or can afford (or even can't afford for that matter).. for whatever reasons you want... i really don't care..

it's a bluray topic and for some reason or another i felt compelled to state i don't want or need bluray.. that's all..

[edit] fwiw, i do understand if apple built a computer exactly as i want then they probably would sell very little of them.. (barebones w/ big screen & decent speed.. 17" macbook air anyone? probably not..
 
What you are proposing is equally worthless for a home theater setup. And an additional hassle for watching a movie on the go.

It's just a way to manage with the current situation. It's your loss if you're not interested in potential improvements to that situation. What I find "mind numbingly stupid" is thinking it's sooo important to have blu-ray movies on their laptop but not making use of a portable, external drive or a digital copy of a blu-ray, even when Apple has shown over how many years that they're not bringing blu-ray to their laptops.
 
What I find "mind numbingly stupid" is thinking it's sooo important to have blu-ray movies on their laptop but not making use of a portable, external drive or a digital copy of a blu-ray, even when Apple has shown over how many years that they're not bringing blu-ray to their laptops.

I don't think that it is "sooo important". I think that having the option of getting a fully supported Blu-ray drive is better than not having that option. How anyone could argue otherwise is truly beyond me.
 
Why does everyone keep making the same points over and over again in these Blu-Ray arguments, even after they've been countered?

The most significant points in favor of Blu-Ray have already been mentioned: complete digital distribution is still far off due to internet speeds and quality issues (even iTunes HD looks like utter crap compared to Blu-Ray). This last point, by the way, is the reason why Blu-Ray would not "compete" with iTunes at all if it were present in every Mac, and everyone who thinks about this for more than a second realizes this. The iTunes-store is all about convenience, and NOT about quality. If you want quality, you'll have to go with the optical medium, which offers you content in (near-)lossless quality. CDs don't compete with the iTunes store for this reason, and neither would Blu-Ray. If I truly want to see a movie at the best quality currently available, I will always get the Blu-Ray and definitely not the iTunes-"HD-version. If I'm just really in the mood for a movie, I might get the iTunes-version, because it's more convenient than going out and buying/renting a Blu-Ray. So, for now digital distribution and physical media cater to completely different needs; they do not actually compete, they COMPLEMENT each other. I wish Apple would realize this. They will only start competing once Apple offers their movies in true 1080p on the iTunes store.
Yaddyaddyadda. Oh, and BR would look awesome on the MBPs, IF Apple offered them with FullHD screens, like, you know, all their competitors do with their laptops.

Also, I have made this point before, but I seem to have to make it once again: the major reason I believe digital distribution is still quite far from taking over is that it's currently only really available in the United States. It's arrogant to presume that every Apple-customer lives in the US. I'm European and I can't buy or rent movies on the iTunes store, let alone stream Netflix. We. Do. Not. Have. That. Over. Here. We are tied to physical media. So stop arrogantly proclaiming physical media dead, give me Blu-Ray and come back when the iTunes store offers movies all over the world at Blu-Ray quality and I have a 2 TB SSD and 1GB-internet. Seriously.

Well said (although the 17 inch MBP is over full HD at 1920x1200 of course).

I find it hilarious how many threads there are now featuring numerous posts trying to tell people why they don't want Blu-ray... when they do. From people who clearly haven't read the reasons, and continue to make to same irrelevant or more-than addressed arguments.

...all of which I could regurgitate once again, but basically it comes down to:

I love films. I love blu-ray. I love macs. And it's a shame Apple can't help me enjoy those things together better. If they gave me an option for a blu-ray drive in my next mac it would be like the day there was a Star Wars Lego video game all over again. If you think you know better than me and would suggest downloads instead then I think that is a suggestion that lacks any credibility or realism, unless I stop watching films altogether for a few years. As a film fan that is not an option to me. I love Apple's products, but on this, they suck for trying to force me into doing something I can't even do if I wanted to, which I don't.

And although I admire him tremendously I am sorry to say I think on this issue Steve Jobs is a big hypocrite, both for having Apple on the Blu-ray Association's board of directors(not even just contributors or members!) and a job at Disney, who sell wonderful blu-ray titles (just watched 'Up' this week, great stuff, had to wait to get home to watch it in HD though - my macbook can't play the Blu-ray).
 
What you are proposing is equally worthless for a home theater setup.

You want to watch a blu-ray disc on a home theater setup. Ideally you'd put the disc in your blu-ray player and watch, but you have a mac mini without a blu-ray drive so you stick the disc in your external blu-ray drive, open MakeMKV, click "Make MKV" and 15-30 minutes later you're watching your blu-ray through Plex(which was the whole point). It may not be ideal, but "worthless"?

P.S. There's a Plex plug-in that's in development that will let you skip the step of opening MakeMKV at all and just allow you to watch you're blu-ray, making it just that much easier do deal with the current lack of internal blu-ray on Macs
 
I don't think that it is "sooo important". I think that having the option of getting a fully supported Blu-ray drive is better than not having that option. How anyone could argue otherwise is truly beyond me.

I'm not arguing with that. I'm trying to help people who genuinely want to watch their blu-ray movies on their Macs. I'm saying you don't have to wait for Apple if what you want is to watch a blu-ray on your Mac.

BTW, I have many Blu-rays, I enjoy them, and I watch them on my Mac-based Home Theater.
 
You want to watch a blu-ray disc on a home theater setup. Ideally you'd put the disc in your blu-ray player and watch, but you have a mac mini without a blu-ray drive so you stick the disc in your external blu-ray drive, open MakeMKV, click "Make MKV" and 15-30 minutes later you're watching your blu-ray through Plex(which was the whole point). It may not be ideal, but "worthless"?

I don't have a Mac mini, because they lack support for Blu-ray and HDMI. And because of that, I can't enjoy the HD-audio that I'm paying for when buying a Blu-ray movie. Not to mention the money that was invested in an audio system that let's me take full advantage of said HD-audio.

So no, MakeMKV is not an option. In fact, it is a totally worthless solution to me. It might have some benefit as far as watching movies on the go, but in order to do that I would have to have notebook with a Blu-ray drive in the first place. Which obviously would make all of this a non-issue.
 
I think that having the option of getting a fully supported Blu-ray drive is better than not having that option. How anyone could argue otherwise is truly beyond me.

I think the argument is that Apple are seeing themselves like some sort of benevolent drug rehab advisors 'helping' us off the physical media of blu-ray, like they want to 'help' the industry off Adobe flash.

The thing is, flash is like crack, it might make the users feel good, but it has bad repercussions for society and the people around it. Blu-ray is like chocolate. And if I want chocolate it doesn't hurt anyone else who wants a health bar from the iTunes Store instead.
 
I think the argument is that Apple are seeing themselves like some sort of benevolent drug rehab advisors 'helping' us off the physical media of blu-ray, like they want to 'help' the industry off Adobe flash.

The thing is, flash is like crack, it might make the users feel good, but it has bad repercussions for society and the people around it. Blu-ray is like chocolate. And if I want chocolate it doesn't hurt anyone else who wants a health bar from the iTunes Store instead.

Very well put.
I think we've all grown accustomed to Apple offering slightly worse specs at higher prices than the competition. So far, the fantastic user experience and industrial design have made up for this. But Blu-Ray is different. This is not just a case of Apple offering a somewhat outdated GPU or skimping on the RAM, this is Apple downright IGNORING the current standard for optical media. Putting a Superdrive into a Mac in 2010 is like putting a floppy drive into an iMac in 1998. Pointless.
 
I think the argument is that Apple are seeing themselves like some sort of benevolent drug rehab advisors 'helping' us off the physical media of blu-ray, like they want to 'help' the industry off Adobe flash.

Yea, and that's up to Apple to decide. I realize that I have no say in that. What I can't understand, however, is the number of people in this very thread arguing that it actually is a good thing to not have the option of getting a Blu-ray drive.

It kinda reminds me of when the iPhone was launched without 3G, and how all the apologists argued how that was supposed to be good thing since you would just use WLAN anyway. And when the iPhone 3G finally was released, no one questioned the introduction of the vastly unnecessary 3G capabilities since everyone would be using WLAN anyway...
 
You want to watch a blu-ray disc on a home theater setup. Ideally you'd put the disc in your blu-ray player and watch, but you have a mac mini without a blu-ray drive so you stick the disc in your external blu-ray drive, open MakeMKV, click "Make MKV" and 15-30 minutes later you're watching your blu-ray through Plex(which was the whole point). It may not be ideal, but "worthless"?

P.S. There's a Plex plug-in that's in development that will let you skip the step of opening MakeMKV at all and just allow you to watch you're blu-ray, making it just that much easier do deal with the current lack of internal blu-ray on Macs

But wouldn't it be better to not have to go through all the hassle in the first place and just be able to watch a Blu-Ray movie natively. I am a huge fan of Plex, and I think it would be so much better with the inclusion in Macs. You can bet that somewhere in Cupertino there are macs with Blu-Ray drives. At the very least Apple should include Blu-Ray drivers for folks willing to hook up external Blu-Ray drives. It really seems to me that Apple is against the HDMI port, maybe it doesn't fit in with there design aesthetic seeing as they are championing MiniDisplayPort. Plus people must realize that there are other uses for Blu-Ray besides watching movies. It was understandable for Apple to sit on the sidelines whilst the optical HD wars were going on (between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD) but now that a format has been chosen, Apple should jump on the bandwagon.
 
Yea, and that's up to Apple to decide. I realize that I have no say in that. What I can't understand, however, is the number of people in this very thread arguing that it actually is a good thing to not have the option of getting a Blu-ray drive.

It kinda reminds me of when the iPhone was launched without 3G, and how all the apologists argued how that was supposed to be good thing since you would just use WLAN anyway. And when the iPhone 3G finally was released, no one questioned the introduction of the vastly unnecessary 3G capabilities since everyone would be using WLAN anyway...

Hehe, I remember that copy & paste on the iPhone also brought out the apologists (where are they now? :D)

I can assure you, once Apple finally adopts Blu-Ray, we will look back on this thread and laugh about the drones.
If they don't adopt Blu-Ray... Well, Windows 7 isn't that bad...
 
..........

If you rent something on iTunes in "HD" and you really believe it looks like a Blu-Ray movie, you're dead wrong.

well we play it on my PB G4 and play it through composite on my GF's 16" CRT tube TV with mono speaker. In that case there is no difference between Blue Ray and iTunes HD or anything else.......
 
It will still be around for a long time to come. Do you want to download a 25GB movie over the internet every time you rent something? I don't think so.

If you rent something on iTunes in "HD" and you really believe it looks like a Blu-Ray movie, you're dead wrong.

i must say blu ray is the prettiest picture and most immersive sound ive ever heard.
 
Yeah Drjsway, you pretty much lost all your credibility on this topic with your declaration that in the OP that the "MiniDisplayPort is not HDCP compliant. Only HDMI is HDCP compliant.":rolleyes:

Here's a tip for next time. If you're going to start a thread just to state what you believe is a factual claim, take the 15 seconds it takes to look it up on wikipedia to make sure you know what you're talking about. :)
 
Think before you say (or at least research). There are 1920x1440 4:3 CRTs. Despite that 33% of the screens would be black bars, they are fully capable of 1080p.

Why don't you read my post carefully before you tell me to think.

I'm not talking about monitors, but televisions. The highest resolution consumer CRT TV was Sony's 34XBR960 which was capable of around 1400 horizontal lines, much lower than 1920. Yet most A/V enthusiasts will tell you that the 34XBR960 produces a better picture than all current flat panels (with Pioneer's now discontinued Kuro coming close).

Resolution is a distant fourth behind color, black level, and contrast in terms of importance.
 
I guess what I don't understand about BluRay is that even if our laptops had them, watching BluRay on the laptop's screen, or an external monitor would still look like crap/regular DVD, would it not?

Admittedly I haven't downloaded anything HD from Apple but I have a feeling that on my ACD it wouldn't look any different at all from regular non-HD content...correct me if I'm wrong.

I watch Blu Rays on my home theater. But if I'm traveling, I can't exactly take a 42" LCD and Blu Ray player on the plane with me, it would be nice to bring a few Blu Rays along and watch them on my laptop, even if it's 2 channel audio and not on an HD screen. I shouldn't have to buy the same movie twice.

who needs blueray on a notebook anyway?
watching movies on my 13" macbook is a pain in the ass

The old "Since I won't use it, that must mean that no one else will use it" line. Same was said about copy/paste and MMS on the iPhone.

Why would anyone watch a movie on their iMac? There are two usage scenarios for watching HD movies:

1. At home on your HDTV
2. On your laptop while traveling. More likely the more portable ones (13" and 15"), which are not 1080p anyway. You are not going to bust out your 17" MBP on a plane, especially if you sit in economy.

Who watches a movie at home at their desktop?

I have a Blu Ray drive in my Mac Pro. It's hooked up to a Dell U2410 (1920x1200, so HD) display. I've watched Blu Rays in Windows 7 boot camp before, and the quality is amazing. I prefer watching on my 1080p 42" LCD with a surround system, but if I didn't have that TV, I would certainly watch Blu Rays on my monitor. Blu Ray on a monitor still beats the crap out of DVD on an old SD CRT TV.

iTunes has 720p.

The only thing 720p does for iTunes movies is make the compression artifacts more clearer. iTunes "HD" is garbage.

1. More battery life on laptops.
If I want to run down my battery in 30 minutes, that's my choice. But maybe I'm on a plane with a power port and don't have to worry about a battery

2. Keep all your movies conveniently on your hard drive.
You might be on to something if we were arguing for LaserDisc support on Macs, but Blu Rays are small enough to carry around

3. No need to carry around physical discs.
See point above

4. No need to go to the store or plan in advance to watch a movie.
Netflix. I haven't been to a video rental store in years

5. If you get an SSD and remove disc drive, no moving parts in your laptop. Ideally, any portable device should have no moving parts.
Laptops have had moving parts in them for years, it's not a big deal

You need 5Mb/s to stream great quality 720p, which is not out of most people's reach. If you only have 2.5Mb/s, you can still download a 90 minute movie in 3 hours, or start watching it after an hour and a half.
In an hour and a half, I can go to Blockbuster, come back and be finished with half the movie. Give me another hour and I can be back at Blockbuster returning it.

And a Blu Ray has a bit rate of somewhere between 30 and 50mbps variable, depending on what's going on in the scene. The fact that Blu Ray requires 6-10 times the bandwidth of iTunes should tell you how much better Blu Ray is.

Yes, blu-ray still delivers the best home theater experience but if you wanted the best home theater experience, you wouldn't be watching on a computer anyway.
I don't want the best home theater experience, I want to be able to watch my movie collection on the go without having to buy it again or waste time and space ripping it, or risk getting busted by the MPAA on a torrent tracker.

well we play it on my PB G4 and play it through composite on my GF's 16" CRT tube TV with mono speaker. In that case there is no difference between Blue Ray and iTunes HD or anything else.......
Are you joking, or are you seriously trying to insist that there's no difference between iTunes and Blu Ray because you couldn't tell a difference when you hooked up a Blu Ray player via composite to a 16" CRT?
 
Yeah Drjsway, you pretty much lost all your credibility on this topic with your declaration that in the OP that the "MiniDisplayPort is not HDCP compliant. Only HDMI is HDCP compliant.":rolleyes:

Here's a tip for next time. If you're going to start a thread just to state what you believe is a factual claim, take the 15 seconds it takes to look it up on wikipedia to make sure you know what you're talking about. :)

I made a mistake. However, you lost all credibility a long time with your lack of understanding of video and audio technology.
 
Uh huh, sure I'm the one that doesn't understand video and audio technology. Not the guy that continues to insist there are no advantages to blu ray over heavily compressed 720p iTunes HD with lossy audio in stereo. :rolleyes:

Also, it's one thing to make a mistake. It's another to create an entire thread centered on a mistake that a 10 second google search could've avioded, and refuse to correct the mistake in the OP.

I'm out. Have fun in this thread.
 
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