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Why Apple will never support Blu-Ray
- Thread starter drjsway
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I'd wager that quality is identical and availability greater for downloads, and that's been true since the first BR copier software became widely available.
One might be inclined to agree if you add "legal", but that's simply because the companies have invested so much in BR and aren't willing to walk away from their sunk costs yet. Instead, they continue to limit availability on alternate media and thus keep feeding the pirates new customers.
There is a video store directly across the street from me. Walking to it, selecting a movie, getting the disk, returning home and starting it takes a minimum of 5 minutes.
Starting a 720p movie on the Apple TV takes about 1 minute, using my 10 Mbps connection. Increasing the bit rate to full 1080p would reduce this to perhaps 2 to 3 minutes on the existing connection, and I can already get 50 Mbps.
Uh huh.
http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2009/0...tion-slower-internet-movie-streaming-adoption
Maury
You're quoting the 2009 Futuresource report, which was spread around the blogosphere far more than its obviously inaccurate previous predictions would suggest. And it's important to stress this, those were their predictions, made long ago, based on the sales rate of the PS3.
I prefer hard data, measured post-facto. That data shows a relatively slow growth rate, and shows that DVD's still outsell/rent/etc BR by an enormous margin that isn't shrinking very quickly. In January 2009 BR had 12% market share, in December it peaked at 18%. Sony wanted 50%.
http://forums.highdefdigest.com/hig...eoscan-hmm-charts-ratios-bestsellers-etc.html
Total combined revenue for Blu-Ray in 2009 was just over $400 million. Digital downloads were $968 million last year alone. People are flocking to digital downloads far faster than BR.
Maury
You're comparing 12 year old DVD to 3 year old Blu-ray. Of course DVD is still ahead. VHS was way ahead of DVD in 1999. Do you want to compare them now ?
If you compare DVD's 3rd year, 1999, and Blu-ray's 3rd year, 2008, Blu-ray is now ahead. This is not industry speculation, this were hard numbers shown during CES 2009.
As for your quality/availability argument for pirated material : No. Pirated Blu-ray discs do not match the quality of Blu-ray. They are usually re-encoded to save space and thus sacrifice quality. Not all 1080p is equivalent.
And as for streaming, no. I would rather go to the store than have a movie cut out half way du to network issues. This has happened to me using my cable provider's Video on-demand service, which is a local service on their network. I wouldn't want to have to depend on other exterior factors.
Blu-ray is the evolution of DVD. You can't compare it directly to digital downloads. You have to compare physical media vs digital downloads in order to get an appropriate picture. With DVD+blu-ray numbers, you can see downloads/streaming are a very small part of the market. Exactly what is called a Niche. Hence my use of the word.
And your iTunes 720p rental doesn't match Blu-ray quality, sorry.
Not to mention all the added DRM which effectively means you don't have garanteed access to your purchase in the future.
I don't condone piracy of any kind, but you can find FULL blu-rays of almost any popular movie online. Not re-encoded, but full blu-ray images.
Even if you do find perfect rips, driving down to the store will take much less time then downloading it. Not to mention caps on Internet connexions. Best Buy doesn't have a Blu-ray disc cap.
Downloads are not yet at the point where quality and convenience is equivalent. No one in their right mind can claim so.
Yeah, you can def get porn on blu ray. Porn usually drives visual media forwards. Well it did with VHS iirc.
Someone else did too... who was that? Oh right, it was you:
Blu-ray had a higher adoption rate than DVD had in its 3rd year
It's generally not a good strategy to argue against the claims you made in your very last post. One might conclude you have no real understanding of the topic at hand, and are just throwing out the very first thing that comes to mind.
A non-sequitur if I've ever seen one.
A pirated BR disk is a rip of a BR disk. Why are you changing topics again?
So you're abandoning your "quicker" argument too? Ok....
VOD's not based on the internet, which is what we're talking about.
Like a snowstorm on the way to the store? Or you car breaking down? Or the store being closed at 12 when you're pulling an all-nighter and suddenly want to watch MST3K? "Exterior factors" can be applied to any delivery mechanism.
I couldn't agree more! Total physical sales for DVD+BR is growing much, much more slowly than digital downloads. Go ask Neilson.
And when you step on your BR disk, they give you a new one for free, right?
Pretty weak arguments from someone who spends so much time calling people names.
Maury
I know I find the product of quality and convenience of my Apple TV to be so much greater than going to the video store, that I stopped going to the video store even though it's literally across the street.
I find it amusing how often you talk about other people's right mind, idiocy or other ad-hominem arguments, while posting obvious opinion pieces as statements of fact.
Maury
I honestly can't follow either one of your respective arguments.
So here's a picture of a duck eating from a woman's purse.
Attachments
Exactly. Here in Sweden we have neither TV shows nor Films in the iTMS. You lot don't know how lucky you are.
I wish every studio would stop their DVD support and go exclusively to blu ray. Then that stupid apple will learn. Next year, I'm updating my work and home computer. No blu-ray no apple for me.
I fail to see where I argued 3 year old Blu-ray vs 12 year old DVD. I specifically used numbers that compared 3 year old Blu-ray with 3 year old DVD.
Don't try to project your failure on me. Blu-ray is gaining support faster than DVD was gaining support. And look how DVD turned out.
I was talking pirated BR disks. Don't think I don't see what's available for download. Most Blu-ray Rips are re-encodes. My argument was precise on this point, your selective quoting doesn't change this.
Blu-ray rips are not Blu-ray. They are re-encoded to save space. You end up with a 6-8 GB download that is not even close to the quality of the original release. If you do find a straight rip, it is in the region of 12-15 GB. Not exactly what I call convenient.
Exactly, thanks for making my point. VOD is not based on the Internet, it's on a closed network of which the provider has much tighter control... and they can't get it to work reliably. Once you go out to the Internet, you're subject to much greater risks of service failure, because you're not just depending on your service provider anymore, you're depending on him, your vendor's service provider and any backbone provider in the middle.
The problem with comparing growth is that you need to base your observation on current market numbers to see how good "growth" actually is.
If digital downloads go from 1 to 10, they just had a whopping 900% growth. If DVD+BR goes from 100,000,000 units to 150,000,000 units, they just had 50% growth.
Guess in which market I'd rather be ? 9 more units vs 50,000,000 more units. Who cares about growth percentages quoted out of context now ?
You're arguing in bad faith.
Although it failed this time, as the porn industry originally went with HD-DVD.
I think the failure of the porn industry to drive sales of formats has a alot to do with what we ar arguing about here: downloads vs. a physical disc.
Porn is so widely available online both legally and illegally, that hard (LOL)copies are not selling nearly what they used to. More and more consumers of porn are doing so through an internet connection.
Although it failed this time, as the porn industry originally went with HD-DVD.
I think the failure of the porn industry to drive sales of formats has a alot to do with what we ar arguing about here: downloads vs. a physical disc.
Porn is so widely available online both legally and illegally, that hard (LOL)copies are not selling nearly what they used to. More and more consumers of porn are doing so through an internet connection.
Except most people probably really couldn't care less about watching porn in 1080p. However, many people, myelf included, would like to, for example, watch "The Searchers" in 1080p on their Macs, and with good reasons.
You are right about porn viewers, but I think you will find a lot of people right now don't really care too much about the quality. Heck, I like watching YouTube videos on my AppleTV and that quality leaves a lot to be desired. LOL I think you would be dismayed at how many people out there with 1080p TVs have never seen 1080p content and have no real desire to...nor do they know what they are missing.
Heck, you probably have a lot of folks who have a DVD player hooked up to their HDTVs via S-Video or even RCA cables and are fine with the output!
There are certainly differences in porn vs. regular movie viewers, but I thought it was interesting to note the change that has taken place in that industry as it does indeed mirror what happens in the general film industry (as with VHS vs. Beta and DVD sales.)
Ok... and then you followed up that with...
First you defend your argument by comparing numbers from different decades, and then only a few sentences later specifically state that such comparisons are invalid.
Lets see you can stay on target this time...
Apparently not. First you deny that rips are the same thing, then say that they are.
I'm sorry to hear your VOD experience isn't up to your expectations, but that doesn't address the fact that my Apple TV lives up to mine. Maybe you should try that before dismissing internet delivery based on a comparison to the half-assed implementation of an entirely different technology?
I rent HD movies from iTunes about once a week. It has a 100% success rate. I used to rent from the store across the road, which had a 70% success rate or less. Our DVD player simply refused to play some disks for whatever reason, typically large scratches. I got better results from larger stores where they rotated their stock more frequently, but then suffered longer drive times and a lack of selection. This experience appears to be typical, given that over 50% of the video rental places in this area have closed in the last two years.
According to Adams, the very company who's report you quoted from CES 2009, BR disk sales for 12 months running until the start of December 2009 were $1.5 billion. In that same period of time, the same report states that digital sales were $1.6 billion. So digital out-sold BR.
In that same period, digital download systems increased in number by 86%, down from 100% the year before (it was 250% in Europe). BR had 67% growth during that period. So digital is out-growing BR.
Both Adams and Futuresource clearly stated that BR will never reach the same acceptance rates as DVD, specifically because of digital downloads. The Wall Street Journal reports that digital is expected to overtake BR+DVD sales in 2014-15, and then rapidly displace it from that point on.
So, comparing BR and digital, apples to apples, using the latest numbers available, BR is worth less as a market, has less growth, and is expected to quickly disappear after 2014.
I don't care to guess which market you'll rather be in, my crystal ball isn't that clear. But I know I'm not investing any money in any company that is betting on a BR play. That's worked rather well for me, having sold Sony and bought Apple.
How droll. Look, if you don't like downloading video over the internet, fine, but you don't have to call people names because they do.
Maury
Although it failed this time, as the porn industry originally went with HD-DVD.
I think the failure of the porn industry to drive sales of formats has a alot to do with what we ar arguing about here: downloads vs. a physical disc.
Porn is so widely available online both legally and illegally, that hard (LOL)copies are not selling nearly what they used to. More and more consumers of porn are doing so through an internet connection.
Exactly.
Piracy is so rampant in the porn sector the sales have been driven down. However, the industry changed from primarily disc based media to downloads.
Eventually the mainstream entertainment sector will have to do the same thing.
My main problem is repurchasing albums I already own. Remember the switch from cassette to CD? People had to rebuy their music.
I'm not doing that again.
You still haven't acknowledged that for most people (i. e. everyone who doesn't reside in the US) this is not a question of whether or not they "like downloading video over the internet". They just can't, at least not legally.
The EU banned streaming video? Maybe they should implement a tax similar to the Canadian "blank media tax" that covers piracy.
What are you talking about? My country is not even a member of the EU, and I doubt such a measure would be legal anywhere. No, I'm pretty sure Apple just hasn't managed to secure the rights to distribute movies in Europe, or maybe they simply don't care.