Apple doesn't like the licensing and HDCP. While I haven't read too much into it, I don't see a change in the Blu-ray DRM policy any time soon. Perhaps it won't even happen until the 400GB Blu-ray disks are mainstream and we're watching Super Hi-Vision movies with them. Little segue here: Super Hi-Vision compressed to MPEG-2 is 600Mb/s. I don't want to get into all the conversions and size changes here, but this will be available as a release on Blu-ray disks FAR before the U.S. broadband network can manage something of this nature for downloads (much less STORAGE on a computer as Apple wishes!); heck, FIOS maxes out at only 50Mb/s right now! Now, when our televisions are 7680x4320 (Super Hi-Vision resolution), 1080p video downloads in iTunes will have just become available to everyone (available in terms of the affordability of broadband speeds fast enough to handle such a download in a reasonable amount of time, in addition to having computers with the storage to hold said videos in iTunes... We'll have seen the demise of the 20" iMac by then, because it would be bad marketing in Apple's eyes to make a screen below 1920x1200 resolution). But, as I said, the availability of 1080p for download on the fly (hard to imagine now) will be made somewhat insignificant by the onset of 7680x4320 movies on disks and such a download would take over 10x the time needed to go to Wal-Mart and buy a 400GB Blu-ray disk with said resolution movie on it.
So, in a roundabout way of saying it,
when Super Hi-Vision is the new standard for video resolution,
that is when we will see Blu-ray in Macs, because nationwide broadband will NOT be able to catch up in time barring the discovery of a true room temperature superconductor. And not the one they have right now. That thing just barely hits what scientists call "room temperature" (room temperature to them is "above the liquefaction point of nitrogen" so that the materiala ceramic, in this casecan be cooled to the point of superconductivity
very cheaply).
Wait... where was I going? Okay, Super Hi-Vision... 400GB Blu-ray disks... a room-temperature superconductor for nationwide broadband infrastructure... oh, yeah.
We'll see Blu-ray in Macs around 2015.
This date is based on the first adoption of Super Hi-Vision as a broadcast format (Japan in 2012 for TV), a cheapening of those 400GB Blu-ray disks (because of mass production), and TV manufacturers' greed toward the American people, because once we ALL have HDTVs, they'll break out the "Oh, 1080p sucks! Here! Look at 4320p!" argument and we'll start to see that resolution of TV come out. Of course, the first 7680x4320 Blu-ray movies will have to have 1920x1080 copies on the disk as well, for backwards compatibility for people without Super Hi-Vision TVs yet.
But... we MIGHT see it earlier. I just think my argument has a decent level of merit. I hope it wasn't too confusing!
Whoo! More typing! Okay, Blu-ray isn't the "little guy". Blu-ray is the next majority. Blu-ray is the next tyrant. Blu-ray is the next DVD. Blu-ray will be the format for disks for YEARS to come, thanks to its continued expandability. Sure, we have 25 and 50GB disks now, but there are 400GB disks (read the above for more) in the works, as well as a 1TB version later on (for those longer Super Hi-Vision movies
).
