I don't agree with this. First of all, no one can argue that B-R isn't a much higher quality than DVD. Not only is it sharper, but the color is better as well. On a good Tv this is pretty obvious.
That is actually is what I said was the major advantage of BR.
Quote:
And honestly, I couldn't care less about the DRM. That's not a real issue. All downloadable movies, Tv shows, and videos are already DRM heavy. If the ability to use DRM for B-R is implemented, it would only affect B-R playback. And what DVD isn't full of DRM? The OS already needs to recognize that, so don't kid yourself about DRM.
Apple does care and has expressed resistance to adopting BR DRM. But it sounds like the BR group is working to resolve those issues.
Quote:
I doubt we'll see that for a long time, if ever. I can't see any advantage to that at this point. In order to hold a movie at the quality level of a B-R movie, the stick will need to be 25 GB at least. Until those sticks, with packaging, drop to $1 apiece, about what it costs to do a DVD with artwork and jewel case, it won't be competitive. And the cost of producing B-R movies is dropping rapidly with the construction of new plants in China and elsewhere. It will be at that level in another couple of years at the latest.
You don't see any advantage to using SD cards? They are smaller and faster than optical discs. You don't need to buy a stand alone player the use them.
Yes I know 32GB SD cards are not price competitive today. That is why I said its only a matter of time. The prices will come down. I remember when a 2GB USB flash drive was $40. Now they are given away as key chain promotional items. At the same time their is little business incentive for electronics manufacturers to use flash storage. They prefer to keep us locked into the current player/physical media business.
In all you are saying the prices of Blu-ray are quickly dropping while the prices of solid state storage will take years to drop. Isn't that going out of your way to stack the deck.
Quote:
It will also take a good 8 years or so for downloading to be practical for most people. At least a 10Mb/s connection will be required, and that's a minimum. 50 Mb/s is more practical. If we want to see a movie on our increasingly larger sets, we're going to need less compression as time goes by. how long would it take you to download a full quality B-R movie? What about the extras that they give, and people like?
Spontaneity goes out the door with downloads unless the speed is good enough, or you also have the bandwidth for streaming. When will Apple. or others stream a full quality 1080p with 5 channel sound over the internet?
Broadband use among active internet users is at 94.7%, broadband penetration over all in the US is at 63%. So at least 63% of households should have a 10Mb/s connection.
That's the straw man that most BR advocates throw into the argument. Most people don't want/need Blu-ray quality video. Their is little need or demand to stream/download Blu-ray quality video.
First of all, B-R has not "lost". It's growing faster than DVD did at the same time after its introduction. It hasn't been very long since Toshiba gave up the ghost with HD-DVD. That's the actual beginning of the format. In fact, Toshiba finally admitted that they will be making B-D themselves, after first saying that they wouldn't. Too much money being left on the table they've said.
In addition, we're in the middle of the worst recession around the entire world since the Great Depression of the 1930's. Bringing out a new format during that time is very difficult.
You can now get B-R players for $250, and by the holiday, it's expected we'll see them for $200, possibly less. Movies on the format have dropped considerably in price as well.
Downloaded HD movies look terrible when compared to the same movie on B-R. That's very easy to see.
I for one think physical media will be around for a very long time. BD, DVD, chips, whatever. there will be physical media. you just can't get past the fact that:
I agree, I have not said that physical media will die anytime soon. At the same time it will never again see the growth it had ten years ago.
Quote:
1. maybe less than 1% of users actually back up their stuff on a secondary hard disc; or even own a 2nd hard drive.
2. people don't want to re-purchase what they already have digitally. Hopefully Apple is working on this.
3. hard drives last up to 5-7 years on most normal computers. so once that crashes, you're screwed. Optical Discs from the factory (meaning the movie quality ones) typically can last up to 100 years.
4. transferring of digital licenses is a pain, from what i've read, i've never had a problem transferring music from one computer to another but we'll see.
5. No additional features or content on digital. Physical copies have way more special features. No commentaries on digital copies.
6. BD is coming down (see my post about "Watchmen" extended copy for $19.99 at Best Buy, vs. the iTunes copy standard HD version for the same price.)
To me, Digital Downloads will be the new rental service, but not the be-all, end-all of home entertainment. It's just a large piece of the Home Theater Puzzle.
Again you are only looking at this from the stand point of owning media. A large percentage of the market are perfectly happy to rent, watch cable, or video on demand.
Broadband use among active internet users is at 94.7%, broadband penetration over all in the US is at 63%. So at least 63% of households should have a 10Mb/s connection.
I think it's highly unlikely that every broadband user will automatically have a 10Mb/s connection. Especially when a 128kb/s connection is already advertised as broadband since it's faster than dial-up.
Still it has to compete with a growing list of options where you don't have to buy a stand alone player at all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
We're already seeing sales of B-R players drop below $200. I just got this e-mail from J&R. By Christmas, when player prices are expected to drop to $200 as the regular price, we'll see even lower sale pricing. And after that, it will move even lower.
OK yes I was wrong about that one. But I've never seen anyone whose had broadband and was not able to stream video. 10 Mb/s are not required. If Mel is talking about downloading and watching Blu-ray quality in real time then, yes it will take a lot more than what we have now. But that's not really an issue, as few people expect Blu-ray quality.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ltcommander.data
I think it's highly unlikely that every broadband user will automatically have a 10Mb/s connection. Especially when a 128kb/s connection is already advertised as broadband since it's faster than dial-up.
That is actually is what I said was the major advantage of BR.
I didn't get that. It seemed as though you were saying that the difference wasn't that great when compared to the earlier advances.
Quote:
Apple does care and has expressed resistance to adopting BR DRM. But it sounds like the BR group is working to resolve those issues.
I think Apple has been using it as an excuse. None of the player manufacturers seem to have a problem. None of the other computer manufacturers who provide B-R with their their towers or portables seem to be having a problem with it.
I just think that Apple has been holding off as long as possible because they think it doesn't coincide with their business interests, which are downloads, though I think they're wrong.
I know that Apple is trying to sell the aTv, and according to one analyst, they've sold about 6.6 million, which to me, would bring it out of the hobby section of the store.
But at what cost to computer sales? Apple would have to sell 11 aTv's to one computer in order to equal their average MSRP. I doubt that will ever happen.
And if they make no more profit on a percentage basis selling or renting movies or Tv shows than they're expected to be making on music sales, that's not worth it either.
Quote:
You don't see any advantage to using SD cards? They are smaller and faster than optical discs. You don't need to buy a stand alone player the use them.
Yes I know 32GB SD cards are not price competitive today. That is why I said its only a matter of time. The prices will come down. I remember when a 2GB USB flash drive was $40. Now they are given away as key chain promotional items. At the same time their is little business incentive for electronics manufacturers to use flash storage. They prefer to keep us locked into the current player/physical media business.
In all you are saying the prices of Blu-ray are quickly dropping while the prices of solid state storage will take years to drop. Isn't that going out of your way to stack the deck.
It isn't whether there's an advantage, it's the cost. Remember that whatever the cost of the physical media and packaging is, that cost is tripled to the consumer. That's the way it is, or the manufacturer actually loses money, because of the costs of distribution and retail. If it only costs $1 for the DVD and stuff, and it costs $4 for the stick and stuff, that's $3 to the consumer vs $12 to the consumer.
No, I'm not stacking the deck. Pressing Cd's, DVDs, and B-R is a well known technology, and it's just a matter of having the plants in place. The actual costs of the media, e.g. the polycarbonate disks, are exactly the same.
With flash, or whatever they would use for the stick, it's the price of the media itself that has to come down. That takes new generations of process technology.
For example, Intel is now manufacturing their flash for their SSD's on 34 nm. That's brought the cost down for high speed flash memory, but its still pretty expensive memory. Regular stick Flash is much cheaper of course, but still is far more expensive than a pressed disk.
Don't forget that we can buy high grade recordable CD's or DVD's for $0.15 apiece, and on some sales, for much less. The cost of an actual disk for pressing, without the cost of the pressing itself being done, is less than a penny.
We can't go by the price of recordable B-R disks because they have nothing in common with the pressed disks. The disks themselves also cost less than a penny.
Quote:
Broadband use among active internet users is at 94.7%, broadband penetration over all in the US is at 63%. So at least 63% of households should have a 10Mb/s connection.
That's the straw man that most BR advocates throw into the argument. Most people don't want/need Blu-ray quality video. Their is little need or demand to stream/download Blu-ray quality video.
I have no idea what "active" means. Is this some standard I don't know about?
Most people have internet service that no greater than 1Mb/s. In some areas, it's even 256Kb/s. That's called broadband, but it's useless for this purpose.
It's just a small fraction of internet users that have more than 1Mb/s.
you also seem to miss the point with Netflix. They RELY on DVD and BD for business. If BD and DVD die, then so does Netflix.
EVEN netflix see's with their instant watch program the future . AND its free.
million upon millions of discs coming and going >>>>>>
compared to trillions of 1's/0's cruising the lighted fiber optic way with zero carbon foot print and much lower prices and no more pirates.
Flash stick movies with the best digital standard will pass dvd by so fast . So i wonder how all your BR-hd discs will look with all your laser discs collection ??
Bruce, you are really out of it. It was all over the news last year that HD-DVD died. And good riddance!
I did 7 ,months of chemo radition last year . So HD lives on with itunes and amazon DL ??? NO br DL ???
BOY i feel stupid now .
fcuk
9
Quote:
Originally Posted by antkm1
The "bonus content" for the extended edition was kind of cool because it was like you were watching the feature with the director right there. he would pause the movie to talk about particular scenes, focus on areas you might miss. The bonus features on the added disc were just OK, i think the first one was the best, more about he history of the Graphic novel.
The extended scenes are seamlessly integrated and if you read the graphic novel, you'll appreciate the added content. Much like LotR extended editions. Nothing compares to the quality of the bonus features on LotR. I've yet to find anything as comprehensive.
I'm running a year old iMac with 2gb of RAM and a 250gb hard drive. This should have nothing to do with my specs. i know I'm not alone in complaining about the speed. Doing a search on this yields a ton results. As for my apps I do have lot. Some in the vicinity of 150 or so and since they all fit on my phone I'm pretty sure I'm not doing it wrong.
VHS is still in production, hate to break it to you; even though stores don't sell them, they still exist and people are using them.]
Dude.. what are you talking about. You cannot buy Brand new released movies on VHS. Even if there are a FEW titles available, the majority of stuff is DVD only meaning that if you want to be able to watch the latest movies.. you can't on VHS. Thus VHS is Obsolete.
I didn't get that. It seemed as though you were saying that the difference wasn't that great when compared to the earlier advances.
No, I'm not stacking the deck. Pressing Cd's, DVDs, and B-R is a well known technology, and it's just a matter of having the plants in place. The actual costs of the media, e.g. the polycarbonate disks, are exactly the same.
With flash, or whatever they would use for the stick, it's the price of the media itself that has to come down. That takes new generations of process technology.
For example, Intel is now manufacturing their flash for their SSD's on 34 nm. That's brought the cost down for high speed flash memory, but its still pretty expensive memory. Regular stick Flash is much cheaper of course, but still is far more expensive than a pressed disk.
Don't forget that we can buy high grade recordable CD's or DVD's for $0.15 apiece, and on some sales, for much less. The cost of an actual disk for pressing, without the cost of the pressing itself being done, is less than a penny.
We can't go by the price of recordable B-R disks because they have nothing in common with the pressed disks. The disks themselves also cost less than a penny.
/s.
MELL i can use this post 6 months from now and argue the other way .
The disc is a way to control their profits
when flash sticks become cheap or re-usable
bring your used 100g flash card dongle and pick up 3 top quality movies for 6.99 each
the studios can make a killing because the whole brick and mortar dvd infrastrucure will die
the studios will make a killing because the pirates are dead with such a low price/high quality
AS i stated before i have watched star trek on a flash card given to me /and it opened my eyes to the tiny SD card universe coming . IMAC MBP ROKU on and on can play instead of a dvd player TODAY IT CAN this
6 yrs from now cutting out all the stores plastic gas oil trucks factories players on and on that it takes to keep the disc world alive will be fast fading away , Our carbon foot print will get smaller
mayne i will vist you mel in 7 yrs and we can laff about how wrong we all was .
I didn't get that. It seemed as though you were saying that the difference wasn't that great when compared to the earlier advances.
Oh yes I have said that. From the average sitting position in the living room the average person cannot see a huge difference from BR and DVD.
Ten years ago the average person could see a difference between VHS and DVD.
I think Apple has been using it as an excuse. None of the player manufacturers seem to have a problem. None of the other computer manufacturers who provide B-R with their their towers or portables seem to be having a problem with it.
Quote:
But at what cost to computer sales? Apple would have to sell 11 aTv's to one computer in order to equal their average MSRP. I doubt that will ever happen.
Well obviously they don't see that BR sells more computers.
Quote:
We can't go by the price of recordable B-R disks because they have nothing in common with the pressed disks. The disks themselves also cost less than a penny.
We are essentially comparing the price of write once optical discs to rewritable SSD. Write once SSD would be a lot cheaper than RW.
Look at it this way. Back when DVD was new, they were typically around $25 - $20 depending on the movie. You could buy the VHS version for $10 - $5. I'm sure at the time it was a lot cheaper to make VHS tapes than press DVD's. Until DVD production really ramped up.
I'm sure they can create a write once SSD format, it doesn't need to be the fastest high quality variant. They could sell movies for $40 - $30 with the advantage that the movie can play in anything without the need for a third media player.
Quote:
I have no idea what "active" means. Is this some standard I don't know about?
Most people have internet service that no greater than 1Mb/s. In some areas, it's even 256Kb/s. That's called broadband, but it's useless for this purpose.
It's just a small fraction of internet users that have more than 1Mb/s.
From the article I got the numbers from. Active users were people who use the internet on a regular basis.
Yeah I wasn't paying close enough attention and got MB and Mb confused.
MELL i can use this post 6 months from now and argue the other way .
The disc is a way to control their profits
when flash sticks become cheap or re-usable
bring your used 100g flash card dongle and pick up 3 top quality movies for 6.99 each
the studios can make a killing because the whole brick and mortar dvd infrastrucure will die
the studios will make a killing because the pirates are dead with such a low price/high quality
AS i stated before i have watched star trek on a flash card given to me /and it opened my eyes to the tiny SD card universe coming . IMAC MBP ROKU on and on can play instead of a dvd player TODAY IT CAN this
6 yrs from now cutting out all the stores plastic gas oil trucks factories players on and on that it takes to keep the disc world alive will be fast fading away , Our carbon foot print will get smaller
mayne i will vist you mel in 7 yrs and we can laff about how wrong we all was .
by the time flash becomes that cheap, optical will become even cheaper. believe it or not i first read about what is now called blu-ray being successful tested in a lab back in 1998 or 1999. don't have links, but i've already read about optical storage mediums that make BD seem like a floppy disk. and almost every single TV sold today can already do better resolution than the max BD resolution
Nothing at this point can have a zero carbon foot print. The electricity used to run all of these systems mostly comes from burning coal. The goal at this point is to lower the carbon foot print as much as possible within current practical means.
Quote:
Originally Posted by brucep
million upon millions of discs coming and going >>>>>>
compared to trillions of 1's/0's cruising the lighted fiber optic way with zero carbon foot print and much lower prices and no more pirates.
MELL i can use this post 6 months from now and argue the other way .
The disc is a way to control their profits
when flash sticks become cheap or re-usable
bring your used 100g flash card dongle and pick up 3 top quality movies for 6.99 each
the studios can make a killing because the whole brick and mortar dvd infrastrucure will die
the studios will make a killing because the pirates are dead with such a low price/high quality
AS i stated before i have watched star trek on a flash card given to me /and it opened my eyes to the tiny SD card universe coming . IMAC MBP ROKU on and on can play instead of a dvd player TODAY IT CAN this
6 yrs from now cutting out all the stores plastic gas oil trucks factories players on and on that it takes to keep the disc world alive will be fast fading away , Our carbon foot print will get smaller
mayne i will vist you mel in 7 yrs and we can laff about how wrong we all was .
Teno is talking about buying the movie on a stick, not bringing your own in.
I don't think that bringing your own in would work. You could do that now with a DVD or even a CD disk, but you can't. I know that a stick would be better, because the kiosk wouldn't need an optical recorder with the possible breakdowns, but I just don't see this working.
Pirates will always be around as something has to be paid for. Even if a movie cost one dollar, they would still pirate it.
I think a flash stick is stuck between two worlds. The world of optical, which will be around for a while yet, and the world of download which will be dribbling in over the next ten years.
I just don't see a place for it. It seems to be a product without a market in this regard.
I just wanted to chime in and say "itunes is slow". Because it is!
There are several ways to measure speed, but the most important one to humans are the responsiveness of the user interface. A well-designed user interface continues to function while the application performs background tasks. Itunes consistently ignores input when communicating with my iPod, AppleTV or when switching views. If they don't want to patch this beast together before they switch to Cocoa, then they'd better get switchin' because it is very annoying.
This is a top-of-the-line MacBook Pro from last year. Makes me miss WinAmp. So, fingers crossed Steve will yell "surprise! I wasn't sick, I've just been rewriting iTunes instead of sleeping" and BRING IT ON.
I had to look up "Cocoa" because i'm not an IT person. Personally, i think for Apple to cater to people wining about not having a "Cocoa" version is just unrealistic. I'd like to see a quote of how many Mac Users actually use Cocoa or even know what it is. Then we can start asking Apple for favors....
Cocoa is not a program. It's a fundamental OS technology that Apple has set as it's core application development engine for Mac OS X. It is a modern coding architecture. Cocoa is 32bit and 64bit compliant.
Why is everyone crying out for Cocoa? Because Cocoa is object oriented, meaning it's a cleaner, less buggy, better optimized, and 64bit capable app technology. The other option is the legacy Carbon APIs which Apple has publically stated for 10 years are on a path for obscelescence. This starts now with Snow Leopard where everything is going 64bit and carbon is being left behind.
iTunes is slow for many reasons, not just due to it's basis on carbon. Still, Cocoa would at the very least make iTunes run faster, be 64bit compliant, and would give iTunes access into the rich technologies in Snow Leopard such as Grand Central.
The simple idea is this: iTunes uses legacy technologies that apple's Mac OS X departments
aren't advancing and making better. At the current time, iTunesis unweildy and unoptimized.
And just to answer your question, Mail, iCal, iChat, and dozens of other apps are already based on Cocoa in Leopard. Mac OS X users use cocoa 24/7 on their mac. Just because they don't know what it is, doesn't mean they don't use it.
I agree I don't think flash for media will work as a major distribution format, at least not the way things are currently set up.
I think if electronics manufacturers were being smart about the future this is they way they would go to keep physical media going, perhaps some years down the road they will. At the current moment they are most concerned with keeping us locked into buying players and discs. They are going to ride that business model until it collapses. Usually they are slow to change and the collapse is very hard for them.
I don't agree streaming will only dribble. The options and choices for watching streamed video has greater potential than Blu-ray. What will really put streaming/downloading over the top will be mobile devices. Apple has pretty much set the iPhone up for media streaming. Media streaming services are working on adapting for the mobile space. Its taking other phone manufacturers more time to get themselves to a point where media streaming services can take advantage of their platforms. Soon it will all come together.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
I think a flash stick is stuck between two worlds. The world of optical, which will be around for a while yet, and the world of download which will be dribbling in over the next ten years.
I just don't see a place for it. It seems to be a product without a market in this regard.
Comments
I don't agree with this. First of all, no one can argue that B-R isn't a much higher quality than DVD. Not only is it sharper, but the color is better as well. On a good Tv this is pretty obvious.
That is actually is what I said was the major advantage of BR.
And honestly, I couldn't care less about the DRM. That's not a real issue. All downloadable movies, Tv shows, and videos are already DRM heavy. If the ability to use DRM for B-R is implemented, it would only affect B-R playback. And what DVD isn't full of DRM? The OS already needs to recognize that, so don't kid yourself about DRM.
Apple does care and has expressed resistance to adopting BR DRM. But it sounds like the BR group is working to resolve those issues.
I doubt we'll see that for a long time, if ever. I can't see any advantage to that at this point. In order to hold a movie at the quality level of a B-R movie, the stick will need to be 25 GB at least. Until those sticks, with packaging, drop to $1 apiece, about what it costs to do a DVD with artwork and jewel case, it won't be competitive. And the cost of producing B-R movies is dropping rapidly with the construction of new plants in China and elsewhere. It will be at that level in another couple of years at the latest.
You don't see any advantage to using SD cards? They are smaller and faster than optical discs. You don't need to buy a stand alone player the use them.
Yes I know 32GB SD cards are not price competitive today. That is why I said its only a matter of time. The prices will come down. I remember when a 2GB USB flash drive was $40. Now they are given away as key chain promotional items. At the same time their is little business incentive for electronics manufacturers to use flash storage. They prefer to keep us locked into the current player/physical media business.
In all you are saying the prices of Blu-ray are quickly dropping while the prices of solid state storage will take years to drop. Isn't that going out of your way to stack the deck.
It will also take a good 8 years or so for downloading to be practical for most people. At least a 10Mb/s connection will be required, and that's a minimum. 50 Mb/s is more practical. If we want to see a movie on our increasingly larger sets, we're going to need less compression as time goes by. how long would it take you to download a full quality B-R movie? What about the extras that they give, and people like?
Spontaneity goes out the door with downloads unless the speed is good enough, or you also have the bandwidth for streaming. When will Apple. or others stream a full quality 1080p with 5 channel sound over the internet?
Broadband use among active internet users is at 94.7%, broadband penetration over all in the US is at 63%. So at least 63% of households should have a 10Mb/s connection.
That's the straw man that most BR advocates throw into the argument. Most people don't want/need Blu-ray quality video. Their is little need or demand to stream/download Blu-ray quality video.
First of all, B-R has not "lost". It's growing faster than DVD did at the same time after its introduction. It hasn't been very long since Toshiba gave up the ghost with HD-DVD. That's the actual beginning of the format. In fact, Toshiba finally admitted that they will be making B-D themselves, after first saying that they wouldn't. Too much money being left on the table they've said.
In addition, we're in the middle of the worst recession around the entire world since the Great Depression of the 1930's. Bringing out a new format during that time is very difficult.
You can now get B-R players for $250, and by the holiday, it's expected we'll see them for $200, possibly less. Movies on the format have dropped considerably in price as well.
Downloaded HD movies look terrible when compared to the same movie on B-R. That's very easy to see.
So b r won over hd ?
I for one think physical media will be around for a very long time. BD, DVD, chips, whatever. there will be physical media. you just can't get past the fact that:
I agree, I have not said that physical media will die anytime soon. At the same time it will never again see the growth it had ten years ago.
1. maybe less than 1% of users actually back up their stuff on a secondary hard disc; or even own a 2nd hard drive.
2. people don't want to re-purchase what they already have digitally. Hopefully Apple is working on this.
3. hard drives last up to 5-7 years on most normal computers. so once that crashes, you're screwed. Optical Discs from the factory (meaning the movie quality ones) typically can last up to 100 years.
4. transferring of digital licenses is a pain, from what i've read, i've never had a problem transferring music from one computer to another but we'll see.
5. No additional features or content on digital. Physical copies have way more special features. No commentaries on digital copies.
6. BD is coming down (see my post about "Watchmen" extended copy for $19.99 at Best Buy, vs. the iTunes copy standard HD version for the same price.)
To me, Digital Downloads will be the new rental service, but not the be-all, end-all of home entertainment. It's just a large piece of the Home Theater Puzzle.
Again you are only looking at this from the stand point of owning media. A large percentage of the market are perfectly happy to rent, watch cable, or video on demand.
Broadband use among active internet users is at 94.7%, broadband penetration over all in the US is at 63%. So at least 63% of households should have a 10Mb/s connection.
I think it's highly unlikely that every broadband user will automatically have a 10Mb/s connection. Especially when a 128kb/s connection is already advertised as broadband since it's faster than dial-up.
We're already seeing sales of B-R players drop below $200. I just got this e-mail from J&R. By Christmas, when player prices are expected to drop to $200 as the regular price, we'll see even lower sale pricing. And after that, it will move even lower.
http://www.jr.com/sharp/pe/SHA_BDHP2...dSale.08072009
I think it's highly unlikely that every broadband user will automatically have a 10Mb/s connection. Especially when a 128kb/s connection is already advertised as broadband since it's faster than dial-up.
That is actually is what I said was the major advantage of BR.
I didn't get that. It seemed as though you were saying that the difference wasn't that great when compared to the earlier advances.
Apple does care and has expressed resistance to adopting BR DRM. But it sounds like the BR group is working to resolve those issues.
I think Apple has been using it as an excuse. None of the player manufacturers seem to have a problem. None of the other computer manufacturers who provide B-R with their their towers or portables seem to be having a problem with it.
I just think that Apple has been holding off as long as possible because they think it doesn't coincide with their business interests, which are downloads, though I think they're wrong.
I know that Apple is trying to sell the aTv, and according to one analyst, they've sold about 6.6 million, which to me, would bring it out of the hobby section of the store.
But at what cost to computer sales? Apple would have to sell 11 aTv's to one computer in order to equal their average MSRP. I doubt that will ever happen.
And if they make no more profit on a percentage basis selling or renting movies or Tv shows than they're expected to be making on music sales, that's not worth it either.
You don't see any advantage to using SD cards? They are smaller and faster than optical discs. You don't need to buy a stand alone player the use them.
Yes I know 32GB SD cards are not price competitive today. That is why I said its only a matter of time. The prices will come down. I remember when a 2GB USB flash drive was $40. Now they are given away as key chain promotional items. At the same time their is little business incentive for electronics manufacturers to use flash storage. They prefer to keep us locked into the current player/physical media business.
In all you are saying the prices of Blu-ray are quickly dropping while the prices of solid state storage will take years to drop. Isn't that going out of your way to stack the deck.
It isn't whether there's an advantage, it's the cost. Remember that whatever the cost of the physical media and packaging is, that cost is tripled to the consumer. That's the way it is, or the manufacturer actually loses money, because of the costs of distribution and retail. If it only costs $1 for the DVD and stuff, and it costs $4 for the stick and stuff, that's $3 to the consumer vs $12 to the consumer.
No, I'm not stacking the deck. Pressing Cd's, DVDs, and B-R is a well known technology, and it's just a matter of having the plants in place. The actual costs of the media, e.g. the polycarbonate disks, are exactly the same.
With flash, or whatever they would use for the stick, it's the price of the media itself that has to come down. That takes new generations of process technology.
For example, Intel is now manufacturing their flash for their SSD's on 34 nm. That's brought the cost down for high speed flash memory, but its still pretty expensive memory. Regular stick Flash is much cheaper of course, but still is far more expensive than a pressed disk.
Don't forget that we can buy high grade recordable CD's or DVD's for $0.15 apiece, and on some sales, for much less. The cost of an actual disk for pressing, without the cost of the pressing itself being done, is less than a penny.
We can't go by the price of recordable B-R disks because they have nothing in common with the pressed disks. The disks themselves also cost less than a penny.
Broadband use among active internet users is at 94.7%, broadband penetration over all in the US is at 63%. So at least 63% of households should have a 10Mb/s connection.
That's the straw man that most BR advocates throw into the argument. Most people don't want/need Blu-ray quality video. Their is little need or demand to stream/download Blu-ray quality video.
I have no idea what "active" means. Is this some standard I don't know about?
Most people have internet service that no greater than 1Mb/s. In some areas, it's even 256Kb/s. That's called broadband, but it's useless for this purpose.
It's just a small fraction of internet users that have more than 1Mb/s.
you also seem to miss the point with Netflix. They RELY on DVD and BD for business. If BD and DVD die, then so does Netflix.
EVEN netflix see's with their instant watch program the future . AND its free.
million upon millions of discs coming and going >>>>>>
compared to trillions of 1's/0's cruising the lighted fiber optic way with zero carbon foot print and much lower prices and no more pirates.
Flash stick movies with the best digital standard will pass dvd by so fast . So i wonder how all your BR-hd discs will look with all your laser discs collection ??
lol >> teckstud could say this in 2 lines
Good luck with that. Although that is in the specs, none of the Blu Ray titles offer that feature.
Great article on the topic:
http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6664863.html
As of the articles writing (6/11/09) Apple has not signed on for managed copy yet and titles won't be released until 1st quarter 2010.
Bruce, you are really out of it. It was all over the news last year that HD-DVD died. And good riddance!
I did 7 ,months of chemo radition last year . So HD lives on with itunes and amazon DL ??? NO br DL ???
BOY i feel stupid now .
fcuk
9
The "bonus content" for the extended edition was kind of cool because it was like you were watching the feature with the director right there. he would pause the movie to talk about particular scenes, focus on areas you might miss. The bonus features on the added disc were just OK, i think the first one was the best, more about he history of the Graphic novel.
The extended scenes are seamlessly integrated and if you read the graphic novel, you'll appreciate the added content. Much like LotR extended editions. Nothing compares to the quality of the bonus features on LotR. I've yet to find anything as comprehensive.
IS this on what format ??
I'm running a year old iMac with 2gb of RAM and a 250gb hard drive. This should have nothing to do with my specs. i know I'm not alone in complaining about the speed. Doing a search on this yields a ton results. As for my apps I do have lot. Some in the vicinity of 150 or so and since they all fit on my phone I'm pretty sure I'm not doing it wrong.
http://www.googlefight.com/index.php...itunes+is+fast
VHS is still in production, hate to break it to you; even though stores don't sell them, they still exist and people are using them.]
Dude.. what are you talking about. You cannot buy Brand new released movies on VHS. Even if there are a FEW titles available, the majority of stuff is DVD only meaning that if you want to be able to watch the latest movies.. you can't on VHS. Thus VHS is Obsolete.
I didn't get that. It seemed as though you were saying that the difference wasn't that great when compared to the earlier advances.
No, I'm not stacking the deck. Pressing Cd's, DVDs, and B-R is a well known technology, and it's just a matter of having the plants in place. The actual costs of the media, e.g. the polycarbonate disks, are exactly the same.
With flash, or whatever they would use for the stick, it's the price of the media itself that has to come down. That takes new generations of process technology.
For example, Intel is now manufacturing their flash for their SSD's on 34 nm. That's brought the cost down for high speed flash memory, but its still pretty expensive memory. Regular stick Flash is much cheaper of course, but still is far more expensive than a pressed disk.
Don't forget that we can buy high grade recordable CD's or DVD's for $0.15 apiece, and on some sales, for much less. The cost of an actual disk for pressing, without the cost of the pressing itself being done, is less than a penny.
We can't go by the price of recordable B-R disks because they have nothing in common with the pressed disks. The disks themselves also cost less than a penny.
/s.
MELL i can use this post 6 months from now and argue the other way .
The disc is a way to control their profits
when flash sticks become cheap or re-usable
bring your used 100g flash card dongle and pick up 3 top quality movies for 6.99 each
the studios can make a killing because the whole brick and mortar dvd infrastrucure will die
the studios will make a killing because the pirates are dead with such a low price/high quality
AS i stated before i have watched star trek on a flash card given to me /and it opened my eyes to the tiny SD card universe coming . IMAC MBP ROKU on and on can play instead of a dvd player TODAY IT CAN this
6 yrs from now cutting out all the stores plastic gas oil trucks factories players on and on that it takes to keep the disc world alive will be fast fading away , Our carbon foot print will get smaller
mayne i will vist you mel in 7 yrs and we can laff about how wrong we all was .
I didn't get that. It seemed as though you were saying that the difference wasn't that great when compared to the earlier advances.
Oh yes I have said that. From the average sitting position in the living room the average person cannot see a huge difference from BR and DVD.
Ten years ago the average person could see a difference between VHS and DVD.
I think Apple has been using it as an excuse. None of the player manufacturers seem to have a problem. None of the other computer manufacturers who provide B-R with their their towers or portables seem to be having a problem with it.
But at what cost to computer sales? Apple would have to sell 11 aTv's to one computer in order to equal their average MSRP. I doubt that will ever happen.
Well obviously they don't see that BR sells more computers.
We can't go by the price of recordable B-R disks because they have nothing in common with the pressed disks. The disks themselves also cost less than a penny.
We are essentially comparing the price of write once optical discs to rewritable SSD. Write once SSD would be a lot cheaper than RW.
Look at it this way. Back when DVD was new, they were typically around $25 - $20 depending on the movie. You could buy the VHS version for $10 - $5. I'm sure at the time it was a lot cheaper to make VHS tapes than press DVD's. Until DVD production really ramped up.
I'm sure they can create a write once SSD format, it doesn't need to be the fastest high quality variant. They could sell movies for $40 - $30 with the advantage that the movie can play in anything without the need for a third media player.
I have no idea what "active" means. Is this some standard I don't know about?
Most people have internet service that no greater than 1Mb/s. In some areas, it's even 256Kb/s. That's called broadband, but it's useless for this purpose.
It's just a small fraction of internet users that have more than 1Mb/s.
From the article I got the numbers from. Active users were people who use the internet on a regular basis.
Yeah I wasn't paying close enough attention and got MB and Mb confused.
MELL i can use this post 6 months from now and argue the other way .
The disc is a way to control their profits
when flash sticks become cheap or re-usable
bring your used 100g flash card dongle and pick up 3 top quality movies for 6.99 each
the studios can make a killing because the whole brick and mortar dvd infrastrucure will die
the studios will make a killing because the pirates are dead with such a low price/high quality
AS i stated before i have watched star trek on a flash card given to me /and it opened my eyes to the tiny SD card universe coming . IMAC MBP ROKU on and on can play instead of a dvd player TODAY IT CAN this
6 yrs from now cutting out all the stores plastic gas oil trucks factories players on and on that it takes to keep the disc world alive will be fast fading away , Our carbon foot print will get smaller
mayne i will vist you mel in 7 yrs and we can laff about how wrong we all was .
by the time flash becomes that cheap, optical will become even cheaper. believe it or not i first read about what is now called blu-ray being successful tested in a lab back in 1998 or 1999. don't have links, but i've already read about optical storage mediums that make BD seem like a floppy disk. and almost every single TV sold today can already do better resolution than the max BD resolution
million upon millions of discs coming and going >>>>>>
compared to trillions of 1's/0's cruising the lighted fiber optic way with zero carbon foot print and much lower prices and no more pirates.
MELL i can use this post 6 months from now and argue the other way .
The disc is a way to control their profits
when flash sticks become cheap or re-usable
bring your used 100g flash card dongle and pick up 3 top quality movies for 6.99 each
the studios can make a killing because the whole brick and mortar dvd infrastrucure will die
the studios will make a killing because the pirates are dead with such a low price/high quality
AS i stated before i have watched star trek on a flash card given to me /and it opened my eyes to the tiny SD card universe coming . IMAC MBP ROKU on and on can play instead of a dvd player TODAY IT CAN this
6 yrs from now cutting out all the stores plastic gas oil trucks factories players on and on that it takes to keep the disc world alive will be fast fading away , Our carbon foot print will get smaller
mayne i will vist you mel in 7 yrs and we can laff about how wrong we all was .
Teno is talking about buying the movie on a stick, not bringing your own in.
I don't think that bringing your own in would work. You could do that now with a DVD or even a CD disk, but you can't. I know that a stick would be better, because the kiosk wouldn't need an optical recorder with the possible breakdowns, but I just don't see this working.
Pirates will always be around as something has to be paid for. Even if a movie cost one dollar, they would still pirate it.
I think a flash stick is stuck between two worlds. The world of optical, which will be around for a while yet, and the world of download which will be dribbling in over the next ten years.
I just don't see a place for it. It seems to be a product without a market in this regard.
http://www.googlefight.com/index.php...itunes+is+fast
I just wanted to chime in and say "itunes is slow". Because it is!
There are several ways to measure speed, but the most important one to humans are the responsiveness of the user interface. A well-designed user interface continues to function while the application performs background tasks. Itunes consistently ignores input when communicating with my iPod, AppleTV or when switching views. If they don't want to patch this beast together before they switch to Cocoa, then they'd better get switchin' because it is very annoying.
This is a top-of-the-line MacBook Pro from last year. Makes me miss WinAmp. So, fingers crossed Steve will yell "surprise! I wasn't sick, I've just been rewriting iTunes instead of sleeping" and BRING IT ON.
I had to look up "Cocoa" because i'm not an IT person. Personally, i think for Apple to cater to people wining about not having a "Cocoa" version is just unrealistic. I'd like to see a quote of how many Mac Users actually use Cocoa or even know what it is. Then we can start asking Apple for favors....
Cocoa is not a program. It's a fundamental OS technology that Apple has set as it's core application development engine for Mac OS X. It is a modern coding architecture. Cocoa is 32bit and 64bit compliant.
Why is everyone crying out for Cocoa? Because Cocoa is object oriented, meaning it's a cleaner, less buggy, better optimized, and 64bit capable app technology. The other option is the legacy Carbon APIs which Apple has publically stated for 10 years are on a path for obscelescence. This starts now with Snow Leopard where everything is going 64bit and carbon is being left behind.
iTunes is slow for many reasons, not just due to it's basis on carbon. Still, Cocoa would at the very least make iTunes run faster, be 64bit compliant, and would give iTunes access into the rich technologies in Snow Leopard such as Grand Central.
The simple idea is this: iTunes uses legacy technologies that apple's Mac OS X departments
aren't advancing and making better. At the current time, iTunesis unweildy and unoptimized.
And just to answer your question, Mail, iCal, iChat, and dozens of other apps are already based on Cocoa in Leopard. Mac OS X users use cocoa 24/7 on their mac. Just because they don't know what it is, doesn't mean they don't use it.
I think if electronics manufacturers were being smart about the future this is they way they would go to keep physical media going, perhaps some years down the road they will. At the current moment they are most concerned with keeping us locked into buying players and discs. They are going to ride that business model until it collapses. Usually they are slow to change and the collapse is very hard for them.
I don't agree streaming will only dribble. The options and choices for watching streamed video has greater potential than Blu-ray. What will really put streaming/downloading over the top will be mobile devices. Apple has pretty much set the iPhone up for media streaming. Media streaming services are working on adapting for the mobile space. Its taking other phone manufacturers more time to get themselves to a point where media streaming services can take advantage of their platforms. Soon it will all come together.
I think a flash stick is stuck between two worlds. The world of optical, which will be around for a while yet, and the world of download which will be dribbling in over the next ten years.
I just don't see a place for it. It seems to be a product without a market in this regard.