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How important is blu ray for the next imac (mac mini also?) update?

  • Critically important. I'll wait till Apple includes blu ray drives before I make my purchase.

    Votes: 11 13.6%
  • Somewhat important. I can live without it. Blu ray superdrive attachment anyone? (Yea right)

    Votes: 33 40.7%
  • Not important at all. Downloadable HD content will soon be common anyways.

    Votes: 37 45.7%

  • Total voters
    81
Perhaps a negative correlation.

If you assume that most of those people live in rural areas, you have to realize that it is MUCH harder for them to get broadband than it is to get a blu-ray player and blu-ray discs. You are apparently trying to say that these people are behind on technology in general, and I really don't buy that... atleast not to the extent that you do. Are you saying that the percentage of people in rural areas with a DVD player is less than those in urban areas? I think the difference is negligible.

To get broadband there would need to be a company which considers it monetarily viable to add service to their area... which is unlikely. To get blu-ray, they just need to get the mail (everyone in the U.S., UK, whatever) and have a Wal-Mart or other electronics dealer in there area. The retail saturation is much higher with Blu-Ray than with digital download mediums... obviously.

On the other hand, I personally feel that the war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD left an opening for digital downloads... and I think it is the wave of the future. I will maybe never own a Blu-Ray player for this reason. To me, physical media has next to no appeal... other than to rip content to my computer. :)

THX Scientist says it's too late for Blu-Ray

I was assuming a few things. First, I was spotting you on the broadband adoption rate at 40%. Then, I was assuming that of the 60% left, that most of them could have it if they wanted to. Does 60% of the US live in rural areas outside the reach of broadband? Does even 30% I doubt it. I may be wrong though.

Secondly, I was assuming that people who live in rural areas are generally less techie oriented than urban areas. No real evidence for that again - just an assumption. But it seems like a reasonable thing to me. I just don't picture most farm houses being decked out with an 1080P HD TVs and satellite dishes pushing HD to their TV (and having VOD for HD movies, BTW, from the dish companies), and then sitting around tapping their foot waiting for blue-ray to get affordable and be available in the new Mac that they want.

I think this next gen HD optical shot itself right in the foot.
 
I was assuming a few things. First, I was spotting you on the broadband adoption rate at 40%. Then, I was assuming that of the 60% left, that most of them could have it if they wanted to. Does 60% of the US live in rural areas outside the reach of broadband? Does even 30% I doubt it. I may be wrong though.

Secondly, I was assuming that people who live in rural areas are generally less techie oriented than urban areas. No real evidence for that again - just an assumption. But it seems like a reasonable thing to me. I just don't picture most farm houses being decked out with an 1080P HD TVs and satellite dishes pushing HD to their TV (and having VOD for HD movies, BTW, from the dish companies), and then sitting around tapping their foot waiting for blue-ray to get affordable and be available in the new Mac that they want.

I think this next gen HD optical shot itself right in the foot.
Lets say they have access to broadband and HDTV, how many of them really care about it yet. The average consumer doesn't care for higher speeds or a more expensive TV if what they have now is not broken they won't upgrade. Blu-Ray will rely on HD adoption, until that happens it won't matter what disk you use. DVD is fine for most people at the moment.
 
Lets say they have access to broadband and HDTV, how many of them really care about it yet. The average consumer doesn't care for higher speeds or a more expensive TV if what they have now is not broken they won't upgrade. Blu-Ray will rely on HD adoption, until that happens it won't matter what disk you use. DVD is fine for most people at the moment.

I totally agree. You said it better than I could. Fact is, HD adoption is dismal, and Blue-Ray is tied to that. By the time people actually really care about HD, blue-ray will have reached the obsolete point others have described. Blue Ray will be a great stop-gap for early adapters of HD, whereas DVD went absolutely mainstream. I am doubting blue ray will accomplish that.

Heck, the cable companies have a pretty decent VOD "on demand" service right now. Not in 5 years, or affordable in the future when prices drop. Right now. Included with your cable box. No Apple TV to buy, no blue-ray player to buy, no optical media to buy (and keep from scratching). I see a lot of people getting HD sets, getting their ears bent by the salesguy from their cable company about "on demand" and then scratching their heads wondering why anyone would ever bother with optical media again. Most people barely even care about DVD to HD, so I would find it hard to believe that they are going to say "gee, that 720p on demand from comcast just doesn't cut it - I want 1080p." That's just not likely.
 
Mac Mini? Pff, Blue Ray won't be in my baby for a while....Mac Pro will get it first, maybe at the game time as the iMac(kind of doubt it)


Apple may not make it a huge update, and just add the choice for people who want it on the Mac Pro.
 
Blah, I have no time to watch movies anyways...haha...and my current white iMac 24" serves my needs perfectly i.e. if the imacs were updated w/ BR I wouldn't sell the one i have now for it.
 
for teh mini? yeah in a coupel of years maybe not anytime soon, not until its starting to whipe out dvd i think, and for that we have some time to go i believe, the mac pro s will get it, as an option im guessing..
 
The Nehalem Mac Pro needs to have:
1 FireWire 3200
1 USB 3 (and the usual compliment of 2.0)
Wireless USB as a BTO option

Basically agree about Apple's disappointing techno-lag, but FireWire3200
is vaporware, while 3Gb/s eSATA is already here and well established in
the PC mainstream. (Not to mention that 6Gb/s SATA is on the way.)

Aside from external HDDs (where eSATA is already the de facto standard),
what attraction does FW3200 have? Are there any present or near-future
applications for which FW800 is a bottleneck?

LK
 
"If you assume that most of those people live in rural areas, you have to realize that it is MUCH harder for them to get broadband than it is to get a blu-ray player and blu-ray discs. You are apparently trying to say that these people are behind on technology in general, and I really don't buy that... atleast not to the extent that you do. Are you saying that the percentage of people in rural areas with a DVD player is less than those in urban areas? I think the difference is negligible."


I live in a rural area in eastern PA, and I can tell you without a doubt that most people around me are fairly behind in technology. Sure, there are some people like myself, who have been to college, lived in the burbs or in a city and came to live in a rural area and desire that technology, but for the most part the majority of the people around me are behind the times technologically. This is not entirely their fault, as the technology isnt supported in rural areas 100%. The local cable company does not offer broadband or HD programming, there is DSL, but the DSL service in my area is pretty slow compared to the broadband service I had with comcast.
The rest is just do to some people either being too poor to own the thechnology, or too ignorant. I know some people in this area that are in their 30's-40's, dont even own a computer or dont have email ( a fact that amazes me), and dont even know what broadband or HD is.


"On the other hand, I personally feel that the war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD left an opening for digital downloads... and I think it is the wave of the future. I will maybe never own a Blu-Ray player for this reason. To me, physical media has next to no appeal... other than to rip content to my computer. :)"


I agree with this 100%. Ive been toying with the idea of getting a blu-ray player, or at least a PS3 since it has a built in blu-ray player, but I also think that digital downloads are the way of the future. Plus, from what I have seen in stores, blu-ray does not offer such a significant leap forward in picture qaulity that I can justify spending that kind of cash at the moment.
 
Do you not see the correlation between those without broadband and those who won't care about blue-ray?

I have broadband and I care about bluRay. Your correlation is based on a pathetic sized and inaccurate sampling, therefore making it the same.

For me it's about options. I'd like to have the option of using bluRay with my mac someday. The thought that I might be FORCED to use a windows machine in order to access a popular media makes me a little ill. More options are always good.

I don't like be at other people / services whims. If my internet goes out or my provider decides I'm slurping up too much bandwidth watching HD movies all night every night, or Apple pisses off studio X and they won't allow access to their flicks, etc, etc, etc.

I like holding the disc in my grubby little hands.

"On the other hand, I personally feel that the war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD left an opening for digital downloads... and I think it is the wave of the future. I will maybe never own a Blu-Ray player for this reason. To me, physical media has next to no appeal... other than to rip content to my computer. :)"

Ripping content to your computer gives you control. digital downloading takes control away from you.
 
Do you not understand the difference between correlation and anecdote?

Yeah I do. And that was exactly my point. You have an anecdote, not a correlation. Your sample size and verification of accuracy do not support a correlation.
 
Yeah I do. And that was exactly my point. You have an anecdote, not a correlation. Your sample size and verification of accuracy do not support a correlation.

Uhhhh - you had the anecdote: "I have broadband and I care about bluRay".

I think it is not a big leap to say that there is a correlation between rural areas and a less than average tech adoption. Are you really going to argue the opposite? Really? And then support it with you sample size = 1 anecdote that wasn't even to the point?
 
Uhhhh - you had the anecdote: "I have broadband and I care about bluRay".

I think it is not a big leap to say that there is a correlation between rural areas and a less than average tech adoption. Are you really going to argue the opposite? Really? And then support it with you sample size = 1 anecdote that wasn't even to the point?

yes, one sample is an anecdote, and so is the few posts on this thread.

No, I'm not saying there is no correlation between rural areas and a less than average tech adoption. However, I'm not using anything in this thread to draw that correlation. Nor is that the correlation you stated. You stated BluRay and Broadband. Not rural and tech adoption.

Many people that don't live in rural communities don't want to have to pay someone to rent a favorite movie over and over. It's as simple as that. There is more than one benefit to physical media.
 
yes, one sample is an anecdote, and so is the few posts on this thread.

No, I'm not saying there is no correlation between rural areas and a less than average tech adoption. However, I'm not using anything in this thread to draw that correlation. Nor is that the correlation you stated. You stated BluRay and Broadband. Not rural and tech adoption.

Many people that don't live in rural communities don't want to have to pay someone to rent a favorite movie over and over. It's as simple as that. There is more than one benefit to physical media.

I think you are off in a different direction than me in that second paragraph, but we are basically saying the same thing. That's great that some people that don't live in rural areas don't want to pay for what you said. I was respond to another poster who wrote about the rural farm areas not having access to broadband downloads.

My logic on the correlation was pretty simple: rural areas have a less than average broadband adoption rate. They also have a slower than average tech adoption rate in general, which will also include the adoption of blue-ray players. Therefore, there is a correlation between people who don't have access to broadband and those who won't care about blue ray. I don't think that stating that rural areas are going to support blue ray adoption because they don't have access to HD downloads is a valid stance, because of that correlation. In fact, I think it is entirely more likely that they won't care about both, and the adoption rate will primarily be driven by techies who already have access to broadband. I think you will agree.
 
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