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Question about Blu-Ray
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Steve is a stubborn ass. No, really, that's the best reason I can come up with, because there's no reason to be holding back Blu Ray support. Even cheap PCs have Blu Ray drives and playback, I don't know why Apple can't have Blu Ray support for their pro models.
I've seen iTunes HD movies and I've seen Blu Ray, and there's no comparison. Anyone who says iTunes quality is as good as Blu Ray is blind.
I've seen iTunes HD movies and I've seen Blu Ray, and there's no comparison. Anyone who says iTunes quality is as good as Blu Ray is blind.
IMO, now that Apple is firmly entrenched in the media distribution business Jobs considers Blu-ray a competitor to the iTMS and Blu-ray is being kept at arms length. I think that's also why 
TV lacks a DVR feature. Jobs doesn't want customers to record TV shows for later viewing or pop in Blu-rays to watch movies on he wants everyone to buy/rent media from the iTunes store.
Lethal
TV lacks a DVR feature. Jobs doesn't want customers to record TV shows for later viewing or pop in Blu-rays to watch movies on he wants everyone to buy/rent media from the iTunes store.Lethal
A swing and a miss....
Streaming video quality is crap. Like I said, if you think streaming quality is close to Blu Ray, you're blind.
Unless you are a licensed Optician, I wouldn't be calling people blind unless they are, you know, actually blind.
There are plenty of possible reasons:
- Blu-ray Discs compete with the iTunes Store HD offerings.
- The Blu-ray Disc licensing terms require code in the OS kernel that parses the disc for decryption keys every second or so and is considered intrusive (i.e., Apple probably thinks the kernel should be off-limits).
- Blu-ray Discs have the potential of modifying the kernel code, also highly invasive.
- Blu-ray requires HDMI (which costs money to license for each Mac).
- Blu-ray audio would be handicapped on all current and past Macs because none have the hardware to passthrough DTS-HD or True-HD.
- Blu-ray requires HDCP for connection to external devices (though most discs do not implement it).
Are they buying them for home theaters though? Or are they buying them for computers. Very different applications here. Honestly, I wonder how many people are actually buying laptops with the intention of watching Blue Ray discs on a small screen. I would gamble that the biggest adoption for Blue Ray is where it works best - in a home theater which is nowhere near comparable to a laptop screen.
The OP specifically asked for the discussion to not go down this route...
First point - watching BR movies is NOT the only reason to have a BR drive. You can't be a content creation platform without a damn BR drive, it's THE means to distribute HD content.
It's the largest non-magnetic backup solution available.
Bandwidth, and data-caps are not going to allow anything LIKE the quality of BR to be streamed for a long time yet.
You can't take a download around to a friends house to watch together
And those asking why anyone would want to watch BR on a laptop? Because it's an HD screen, and because people don't want to buy two copies of a movie.
BR isn't going anywhere - and YES - Apple is losing sales as a result. I refuse to purchase any movie or tv episode from the iTunes store. I'll buy or rent a BR, and watch it via my PS3.
First point - watching BR movies is NOT the only reason to have a BR drive. You can't be a content creation platform without a damn BR drive, it's THE means to distribute HD content.
It's the largest non-magnetic backup solution available.
Bandwidth, and data-caps are not going to allow anything LIKE the quality of BR to be streamed for a long time yet.
You can't take a download around to a friends house to watch together
And those asking why anyone would want to watch BR on a laptop? Because it's an HD screen, and because people don't want to buy two copies of a movie.
BR isn't going anywhere - and YES - Apple is losing sales as a result. I refuse to purchase any movie or tv episode from the iTunes store. I'll buy or rent a BR, and watch it via my PS3.
OP was clearly baiting, or else was living in some fantasy world where debate doesn't exist.
It still comes down to the same points that have been raised by both sides many times before. If the OP can't stomach that then that's tough.
How many sales and when? Based on what numbers? All we're seeing is record quarter after record quarter in Mac sales. Mac sales were absolutely phenomenal in 2009 - easily outpacing the rest of the industry in growth. And Apple's off to a strong start for this year:
https://www.macrumors.com/2010/02/16/npd-strong-mac-and-ipod-sales-in-march-quarter-so-far/
Blu Ray is not a factor. Never has been. Cheaper "laptop hunter" alternatives were not a factor, either (Apple ended up selling *more* Macs when those ads aired!)
The reason Apple does not have Blu-Ray is because of the giant stick up SJ rear. It is nothing more than the giant stick up his rear
Baiting? No. Though apparently, it doesn't matter, as we still get trolls on here talking about how Blu-Ray is obsolete compared to the "superiority" of Jobs' iTunes movies, or at least the idea of downloading movies instead of owning hard copies.
The point of my post was more thinking out loud than anything else. And by the way, to suggest that every post HAS to have trolls and contrarians on it, regardless of the topic, is pretty sad.
My point was that people will still want hard copies of their media, and I don't care whether they're on Blu-Ray, or on a USB 3.0 Flash Drive down the road. Digital downloads and streaming media are still cluttering up hard drive space, and in one fell swoop with a hard drive crash, it can all be gone.
My point was that the trend is towards better/higher quality. Jobs is going out of his way to preserve the crappier/lower quality of iTunes movies. It would be like Sony or Zenith embracing VHS in the wake of DVD's in the 1990's. "No! No! You can't take away my crappier quality stuff!"
Don't rely solely on market numbers at this point. Use your brain first.
Also, people shouldn't ask "why" people need this that or the other feature. Someone will always need something that someone else views as obsolete.
Personally, I think it's ridiculous to put an SD card slot on computers. You mean you're THAT lazy that you can't connect a little cable from your camera to your computer? You have to have a slot on the computer so you can stick in the SD card?
The point of this post was to HYPOTHESIZE (I know, a tough thing for people at this day and age) WHY exactly Jobs feels fine in not even offering people the OPTION of a Blu-Ray drive on a higher-end iMac, etc.
The latest iMac has EVERYTHING going for Blu-Ray: a 16:9 ratio screen. LED lit display. Better sound. Better image. Nice big, clear screen. But no Blu-Ray. Not even an OPTION, when customizing the iMac before checkout.
THAT was the question I was posing. WHY no option?
I think comparing DVD to VHS is not the best example.
A counter (and better example) for streaming vs Blu Ray in quality is to look back at BETA vs VHS. Beta had better picture and sound quality than VHS and yet VHS won out due to the fact it was cheaper and was good enough. Beta was better in every way but in cost than VHS and yet VHS won out.
I do not think will will want to give up physical media for digital download/Streaming but I do see the end of optical media already in sight. Flash memory as it comes down in price I think will be what will finish off optical media like bluRay/DVD. It will have more room for data than bluRay and start being at a cheaper price.
Here is a question for you. When you need to give some one a fill under 600 megs do you burn it to a CD any more. For most people the answer is nope. We put it on a flash drive and call it good. Hell flash drives cost are reaching the point were blank DVD for burning data is no longer worth it. My little 8 gig flash drive I paid 30 bucks for 7 months ago works great and I stored multiple CD worth of data I need for class on it. I just copy the cds that came with some of my books straight to the flash drive. quicker and easier to access them.
I still optical media will be with us for at least the next 10 years if not more whether it be CD/DVD/Blu-ray.
Just going on the fact not everyone is on a high speed lan and hell some places have restrictions on how much you can download/upload. Until that changes then there will be optical media.
That is interesting re: flash drives..... Wonder who is going to take the plunge and start offering their product on flash drives instead of the normal optical drive?
Just going on the fact not everyone is on a high speed lan and hell some places have restrictions on how much you can download/upload. Until that changes then there will be optical media.
That is interesting re: flash drives..... Wonder who is going to take the plunge and start offering their product on flash drives instead of the normal optical drive?
Movies on Flash Drives would be awesome...
No more movable parts.
No more damaged stuff.
High Definition (1080p) movies on more durable little Flash Drives.
Sigh... What a lovely thought.
Let's hear it for future use of USB 3.0 as a media device.
Blu-ray licensing requires code in the kernel. That's off limits to everyone but Apple. (With Windows, it was introduced by Microsoft in XP SP2.) So Apple would first have to agree to put that code in before any third-party app could play Blu-ray Discs.
You can't press flash memory. Optical media are here for quite a while to come, especially given the bandwidth limitations in the major market.
Citation needed.
Which of these specs cite these "kernel code" obligations :
http://www.blu-raydisc.info/format_spec.php
Judging from the Public spec and general requirements, it would seem only UDF 2.5 or UDF 2.6 support is required :
http://www.blu-raydisc.com/en/Industry/Specifications/PublicSpecs.html
Seriously, until you drop some serious proof that this requirement is more than just a figment of Apple defenders imaginations to try to justify Apple's laziness about the whole thing, I will have to go with : BS.
The biggest "bag of hurt" in the whole Blu-ray spec is BD-J and Xlets. Apple's support for Java has always been mediocre, and fixing it and adding hooks to DVD Player to support these Java bindings is probably the only real hurdle here. Again, laziness more than actual engineering complexity.
One more thing, before you try to claim it is about UDF support. UDF 2.5 has been supported since OS X 10.4 and 2.6 since OS X 10.5 :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Disk_Format