No, "cool" was Apple removing floppy disk drives back in the 90's.
Just let the blu-ray thing sink. Nobody cares. Really. Just look at every market related to blu-ray.
Nobody cares!
Sure! 100% increase in sales from year to year, nobody cares indeed!
Just because it has been slow to take off (format war was not helping, and when it ended, the recession started) does not mean it is not taking off now.
By the way, the prices of BD has fell much faster than the prices of DVD. Whatever the reason, it's good for consumers. When I can buy a new release on BD for ?23 or the same on DVD for ?20, I'll choose the BD any day!
Quote:
Originally Posted by isaidso
Apple's media strategy is all moving on-line like everybody else's. Storage?? ...please
Yes, indeed, please go online only! This way we can give away the last bit of remaining rights we still have on the movies we want to watch! Just let the studios and/or distributors dictate the prices and how and when and where to watch their stuff! It will be much easier to them to agree on a single (high) price and more restrictive watching policies when only one or two distributors remain, or if they distribute their stuff themselves. What a wonderful world it will be, indeed!
Not to mention that without hi-speed internet access, you'll be doomed. Go figure: there still are many places that don't have moderately hi-speed internet, let alone real hi-speed internet access.
I can understand that Apple wants online delivery of content only. But I'm not ready to abandon my freedom to buy and watch whenever wherever however I want to Apple nor anybody else. The restrictions on DVD and BD are already enough. I don't need more.
I can understand that Apple wants online delivery of content only. But I'm not ready to abandon my freedom to buy and watch whenever wherever however I want to Apple nor anybody else. The restrictions on DVD and BD are already enough. I don't need more.
Blu-ray != freedom.
There's more DRM in Blu-ray than any other popular media format. It's not a problem if you are fine with the old school way of popping a disc in a player and watching the content but we really should be moving towards universal content that can be purchased in a form that automatically sizes for the playback device so if we buy the universal version of a movie we'd thus get a version that plays on smartphones all the way up to our full on 1080p HDTV display.
Blu-ray doesn't appear to be on a path to offer this anytime soon.
There's more DRM in Blu-ray than any other popular media format. It's not a problem if you are fine with the old school way of popping a disc in a player and watching the content but we really should be moving towards universal content that can be purchased in a form that automatically sizes for the playback device so if we buy the universal version of a movie we'd thus get a version that plays on smartphones all the way up to our full on 1080p HDTV display.
Blu-ray doesn't appear to be on a path to offer this anytime soon.
We have iMovie HD, Final Cut Pro HD, HD displays and yet we are stuck with SD optical media. Don't you see anything wrong with that gaping hole in the set-up?
We have iMovie HD, Final Cut Pro HD, HD displays and yet we are stuck with SD optical media. Don't you see anything wrong with that gaping hole in the set-up?
Stop with your logic! Nobody needs to make their own movies anymore; Apple's been renting shitty bitrate 720p content at outrageous prices for close to two years now. That's all you need, which is fortunate because Steve decided that's all you're gonna get!
Blu-ray != freedom. There's more DRM in Blu-ray than any other popular media format. It's not a problem if you are fine with the old school way of popping a disc in a player and watching the content but we really should be moving towards universal content that can be purchased in a form that automatically sizes for the playback device so if we buy the universal version of a movie we'd thus get a version that plays on smartphones all the way up to our full on 1080p HDTV display. Blu-ray doesn't appear to be on a path to offer this anytime soon.
You're dead on the mark...
While I want BluRay playback for the ability to play back the titles I do own.. Digital is clearly the way to go and I don't quite understand the seemingly terrified reaction the studios have toward supporting it fully.
- MEASURABLY LESS production costs
- ZERO duplication costs
- ZERO packaging costs
- ZERO shipping costs
- ZERO loss prevention costs*
- ZERO long term inventory costs (and this is NOT cheap!)
- ZERO inventory product TRASHING costs**
* This includes the theft of the actual product while still warehoused by the studio as well as the cost of equipment and personnel to keep said theft to as palatable a level as possible. This cost *is* paid one way or another by the studio, either when they run their own warehouses and have to deal with the issue first hand OR if they contract out to a 3rd party, the fees charged by warehouse facility to the studio WILL include the costs of securing the product usually rolled into the price of the service.
** Yes believe it or not trashing an item you've warehoused will have a price associated with the action of 'trashing it' and that doesn't just mean loosing the money spent to produce the item thats about to be trashed the cost to trash is an entirely separate issue if you've ever outsource warehousing of product you'd be amazed at all the little 'costs' that pop-up as a result.
- The removal of possibly NUMEROUS 'middle men' wholesalers, distributers, International Channel Partners (etc etc) each with their own hand out waiting for a slice of the pie. Now what comes with wholesalers, distributers and International Channel Partners (etc etc) is hiring your OWN staff 'to deal with them'.
- The product would still have a normal 'wholesale' price paid BY the online distributer of the content/movies and a agreed upon 'retail' price that the product would be sold for under most circumstances. Where the difference between wholesale & retail must be enough to actually support and sustain the endeavor. What I mean is, the the profit potential to the digital distributer has to be more than just the overhead costs (data-storage (data center) & maintenance/personnel + bandwidth cost distribution to the data to the customer but also include a respectable/reasonable profit for the reseller for maintaining and marketing it.
For any of this to really succeed we need several thing to happen:
- DEEP catalogs of HD content and no restriction to level of quality, if the studio offers 1080p then it should be available to all and not reserved just optical media or only 'certain' online partners.
- REASONABLE priced rental strategies.
--) One that allows for unlimited views on unlimited TVs in the renters home for a defined time period (24 hours, 48 hours). This is perfect for the rug-rats rainy weekend.
--) One that allows for a FIXED number of SHOWINGS from as little as 2 or 3 to perhaps a more reasonable 4 or 5 but a MUCH larger window of viewing opportunity. I'm not talking a week or even two weeks... I'd like to see a rental offering that allowed say 4 individual showing* over the time span of say 3, 6, 9 or 12 months.
* A criteria would have to be defined and agreed to and easy for the customer to understand when we talk about what constitutes a showing. Clearly pressing play and stop 4 times in a row would not count as 4 showings but at the same time watching the entire movie pressing STOP 5 minutes before the end wouldn't mean 1 SHOWING wasn't used up a basic and easy to explain criteria is mandatory and must be universally agreed to (a different criteria for each studio would surely end if total failure).
Either of the above rental options would be same price: $3.99 across the board or maybe $2.99 for catalog titles (older then 6 months) and $4.99 for the new releases since the content owners seem hell bent on gets an up-charge for the new movies....
Since there's no physical product anymore I don't see the point in charging more but old habits die hard.
But yea I see so much WIN for everyone in fully embracing digital distribution but the really STUPID game the studios are playing TODAY where they provide severely constrained access to their catalog and only at the lowest levels of quality, well that better STOP or people will begin to associate 'digital distribution' with 'less quality' and once the association is made it's a hard thing to reverse.
What's the saying? You only have one shot to make a great first impression...
We have iMovie HD, Final Cut Pro HD, HD displays and yet we are stuck with SD optical media. Don't you see anything wrong with that gaping hole in the set-up?
Most standalone BD players are equipped with USB ports for accessing USB flash storage or SD cards on the USB adaptor. The limitation may be from the storage formated with FAT not allowing files larger than 4.4GB to be accessible, but some BD players will let you stream the files over the LAN via wire/wireless, like the LG BD390.
You really don't need a BD drive/burner to see home made movies in your Home Theater.
We have iMovie HD, Final Cut Pro HD, HD displays and yet we are stuck with SD optical media. Don't you see anything wrong with that gaping hole in the set-up?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cory Bauer
Stop with your logic! Nobody needs to make their own movies anymore; Apple's been renting shitty bitrate 720p content at outrageous prices for close to two years now. That's all you need, which is fortunate because Steve decided that's all you're gonna get!
If those are the apps you want to use then logic dictates that you buy your own internal or external Blu-ray drive.
PS: Computer displays have been better than ?HD?, meaning 720p for quite a long time. It?s kind of hard to see text on monitors with a low ppi. It?s not a logical step to think Blu-ray should be added because the resolution increased. What is logical is to expect a larger computer display to increase the resolution.
We have iMovie HD, Final Cut Pro HD, HD displays and yet we are stuck with SD optical media. Don't you see anything wrong with that gaping hole in the set-up?
For consumers or pros? My best video recording device is a 720p AVCHD camera that maxes out at largest SDHC card I have. How many consumers have HD camcorders? How many of those are like the Kodak Zi8 or Sony Webbie HD that save to a memory stick or SDHC card rather than HDD? How many of those are going to fire up iMovie? And of those, how many are going to burn to BR?
Heck, I'm tech savvy, a minor gear hound and like fiddling. Do you know how many freaking DV tapes I have sitting around that haven't been transcoded yet? I've made like 5 whole movies in iMovie. Honeymoon, 1st birthday for the 1st kid, 1st Christmas for the 1st kid, 1 soccer game, and 1 explosion clip (don't ask).
I only record movies to stick on the HDD for when we get old nowadays. The only way this stuff makes it to optical archival media is if I take it to someone and have them burn it for me. And they'll have a freaking BR burner.
If those are the apps you want to use then logic dictates that you buy your own internal or external Blu-ray drive.
Well yes, as we currently don't have a choice. But seeing as how the iMovie HD's supposedly an integral parts of the Apple iApp set-up it's pretty lame.
As for whether most home video cameras are HD these days, I bought my 1080i video camera three years ago and since then they've crashed in price and are now pretty standard. A situation that gets more true every day.
I wish Apple would give those of us that bought into their products for the purposes of a practical video-editing solution rather more consideration in between flogging MP3 players and mobile-phones.
Anyway, Apple seem to slowly be moving towards a fully HD set-up.
I wish Apple would give those of us that bought into their products for the purposes of a practical video-editing solution rather more consideration in between flogging MP3 players and mobile-phones.
Anyway, Apple seem to slowly be moving towards a fully HD set-up.
Yes, but in the meantime, you want a Blu-ray burning solution so you can make hard copies of your stuff. I'm assuming you have a Blu-ray player connected to your HDTV, yes?
The cost of external FireWire Blu-ray burners has dropped considerably, just buy one of those.
I think for Apple it's the cost of licensing for Blu-ray PLAYBACK that's the sticking point. it would be pointless to stick a Blu-ray burner into any mac if it didn't do playback.
Sitting around waiting for Apple to deliver what WE want rarely pays off. MacPro midi anyone?
Yes, but in the meantime, you want a Blu-ray burning solution so you can make hard copies of your stuff. I'm assuming you have a Blu-ray player connected to your HDTV, yes?
You're absolutely right of course. Although I've been stubbornly waiting for a BR solution to appear my poor old iBook is barely alive anymore and needs replacing.
The alternative would be a Vaio, but with a 2 hour battery for the BR burner laptop I think I'd rather wait.
Comments
No, "cool" was Apple removing floppy disk drives back in the 90's.
Just let the blu-ray thing sink. Nobody cares. Really. Just look at every market related to blu-ray.
Nobody cares!
Sure! 100% increase in sales from year to year, nobody cares indeed!
Just because it has been slow to take off (format war was not helping, and when it ended, the recession started) does not mean it is not taking off now.
By the way, the prices of BD has fell much faster than the prices of DVD. Whatever the reason, it's good for consumers. When I can buy a new release on BD for ?23 or the same on DVD for ?20, I'll choose the BD any day!
Apple's media strategy is all moving on-line like everybody else's. Storage?? ...please
Yes, indeed, please go online only! This way we can give away the last bit of remaining rights we still have on the movies we want to watch! Just let the studios and/or distributors dictate the prices and how and when and where to watch their stuff! It will be much easier to them to agree on a single (high) price and more restrictive watching policies when only one or two distributors remain, or if they distribute their stuff themselves. What a wonderful world it will be, indeed!
Not to mention that without hi-speed internet access, you'll be doomed. Go figure: there still are many places that don't have moderately hi-speed internet, let alone real hi-speed internet access.
I can understand that Apple wants online delivery of content only. But I'm not ready to abandon my freedom to buy and watch whenever wherever however I want to Apple nor anybody else. The restrictions on DVD and BD are already enough. I don't need more.
I can understand that Apple wants online delivery of content only. But I'm not ready to abandon my freedom to buy and watch whenever wherever however I want to Apple nor anybody else. The restrictions on DVD and BD are already enough. I don't need more.
Blu-ray != freedom.
There's more DRM in Blu-ray than any other popular media format. It's not a problem if you are fine with the old school way of popping a disc in a player and watching the content but we really should be moving towards universal content that can be purchased in a form that automatically sizes for the playback device so if we buy the universal version of a movie we'd thus get a version that plays on smartphones all the way up to our full on 1080p HDTV display.
Blu-ray doesn't appear to be on a path to offer this anytime soon.
Blu-ray != freedom.
There's more DRM in Blu-ray than any other popular media format. It's not a problem if you are fine with the old school way of popping a disc in a player and watching the content but we really should be moving towards universal content that can be purchased in a form that automatically sizes for the playback device so if we buy the universal version of a movie we'd thus get a version that plays on smartphones all the way up to our full on 1080p HDTV display.
Blu-ray doesn't appear to be on a path to offer this anytime soon.
We have iMovie HD, Final Cut Pro HD, HD displays and yet we are stuck with SD optical media. Don't you see anything wrong with that gaping hole in the set-up?
We have iMovie HD, Final Cut Pro HD, HD displays and yet we are stuck with SD optical media. Don't you see anything wrong with that gaping hole in the set-up?
Stop with your logic! Nobody needs to make their own movies anymore; Apple's been renting shitty bitrate 720p content at outrageous prices for close to two years now. That's all you need, which is fortunate because Steve decided that's all you're gonna get!
Blu-ray != freedom. There's more DRM in Blu-ray than any other popular media format. It's not a problem if you are fine with the old school way of popping a disc in a player and watching the content but we really should be moving towards universal content that can be purchased in a form that automatically sizes for the playback device so if we buy the universal version of a movie we'd thus get a version that plays on smartphones all the way up to our full on 1080p HDTV display. Blu-ray doesn't appear to be on a path to offer this anytime soon.
You're dead on the mark...
While I want BluRay playback for the ability to play back the titles I do own.. Digital is clearly the way to go and I don't quite understand the seemingly terrified reaction the studios have toward supporting it fully.
- MEASURABLY LESS production costs
- ZERO duplication costs
- ZERO packaging costs
- ZERO shipping costs
- ZERO loss prevention costs*
- ZERO long term inventory costs (and this is NOT cheap!)
- ZERO inventory product TRASHING costs**
* This includes the theft of the actual product while still warehoused by the studio as well as the cost of equipment and personnel to keep said theft to as palatable a level as possible. This cost *is* paid one way or another by the studio, either when they run their own warehouses and have to deal with the issue first hand OR if they contract out to a 3rd party, the fees charged by warehouse facility to the studio WILL include the costs of securing the product usually rolled into the price of the service.
** Yes believe it or not trashing an item you've warehoused will have a price associated with the action of 'trashing it' and that doesn't just mean loosing the money spent to produce the item thats about to be trashed the cost to trash is an entirely separate issue if you've ever outsource warehousing of product you'd be amazed at all the little 'costs' that pop-up as a result.
- The removal of possibly NUMEROUS 'middle men' wholesalers, distributers, International Channel Partners (etc etc) each with their own hand out waiting for a slice of the pie. Now what comes with wholesalers, distributers and International Channel Partners (etc etc) is hiring your OWN staff 'to deal with them'.
- The product would still have a normal 'wholesale' price paid BY the online distributer of the content/movies and a agreed upon 'retail' price that the product would be sold for under most circumstances. Where the difference between wholesale & retail must be enough to actually support and sustain the endeavor. What I mean is, the the profit potential to the digital distributer has to be more than just the overhead costs (data-storage (data center) & maintenance/personnel + bandwidth cost distribution to the data to the customer but also include a respectable/reasonable profit for the reseller for maintaining and marketing it.
For any of this to really succeed we need several thing to happen:
- DEEP catalogs of HD content and no restriction to level of quality, if the studio offers 1080p then it should be available to all and not reserved just optical media or only 'certain' online partners.
- REASONABLE priced rental strategies.
--) One that allows for unlimited views on unlimited TVs in the renters home for a defined time period (24 hours, 48 hours). This is perfect for the rug-rats rainy weekend.
--) One that allows for a FIXED number of SHOWINGS from as little as 2 or 3 to perhaps a more reasonable 4 or 5 but a MUCH larger window of viewing opportunity. I'm not talking a week or even two weeks... I'd like to see a rental offering that allowed say 4 individual showing* over the time span of say 3, 6, 9 or 12 months.
* A criteria would have to be defined and agreed to and easy for the customer to understand when we talk about what constitutes a showing. Clearly pressing play and stop 4 times in a row would not count as 4 showings but at the same time watching the entire movie pressing STOP 5 minutes before the end wouldn't mean 1 SHOWING wasn't used up a basic and easy to explain criteria is mandatory and must be universally agreed to (a different criteria for each studio would surely end if total failure).
Either of the above rental options would be same price: $3.99 across the board or maybe $2.99 for catalog titles (older then 6 months) and $4.99 for the new releases since the content owners seem hell bent on gets an up-charge for the new movies....
Since there's no physical product anymore I don't see the point in charging more but old habits die hard.
But yea I see so much WIN for everyone in fully embracing digital distribution but the really STUPID game the studios are playing TODAY where they provide severely constrained access to their catalog and only at the lowest levels of quality, well that better STOP or people will begin to associate 'digital distribution' with 'less quality' and once the association is made it's a hard thing to reverse.
What's the saying? You only have one shot to make a great first impression...
We have iMovie HD, Final Cut Pro HD, HD displays and yet we are stuck with SD optical media. Don't you see anything wrong with that gaping hole in the set-up?
Most standalone BD players are equipped with USB ports for accessing USB flash storage or SD cards on the USB adaptor. The limitation may be from the storage formated with FAT not allowing files larger than 4.4GB to be accessible, but some BD players will let you stream the files over the LAN via wire/wireless, like the LG BD390.
You really don't need a BD drive/burner to see home made movies in your Home Theater.
We have iMovie HD, Final Cut Pro HD, HD displays and yet we are stuck with SD optical media. Don't you see anything wrong with that gaping hole in the set-up?
Stop with your logic! Nobody needs to make their own movies anymore; Apple's been renting shitty bitrate 720p content at outrageous prices for close to two years now. That's all you need, which is fortunate because Steve decided that's all you're gonna get!
If those are the apps you want to use then logic dictates that you buy your own internal or external Blu-ray drive.
PS: Computer displays have been better than ?HD?, meaning 720p for quite a long time. It?s kind of hard to see text on monitors with a low ppi. It?s not a logical step to think Blu-ray should be added because the resolution increased. What is logical is to expect a larger computer display to increase the resolution.
We have iMovie HD, Final Cut Pro HD, HD displays and yet we are stuck with SD optical media. Don't you see anything wrong with that gaping hole in the set-up?
For consumers or pros? My best video recording device is a 720p AVCHD camera that maxes out at largest SDHC card I have. How many consumers have HD camcorders? How many of those are like the Kodak Zi8 or Sony Webbie HD that save to a memory stick or SDHC card rather than HDD? How many of those are going to fire up iMovie? And of those, how many are going to burn to BR?
Heck, I'm tech savvy, a minor gear hound and like fiddling. Do you know how many freaking DV tapes I have sitting around that haven't been transcoded yet? I've made like 5 whole movies in iMovie. Honeymoon, 1st birthday for the 1st kid, 1st Christmas for the 1st kid, 1 soccer game, and 1 explosion clip (don't ask).
I only record movies to stick on the HDD for when we get old nowadays. The only way this stuff makes it to optical archival media is if I take it to someone and have them burn it for me. And they'll have a freaking BR burner.
If those are the apps you want to use then logic dictates that you buy your own internal or external Blu-ray drive.
Well yes, as we currently don't have a choice. But seeing as how the iMovie HD's supposedly an integral parts of the Apple iApp set-up it's pretty lame.
As for whether most home video cameras are HD these days, I bought my 1080i video camera three years ago and since then they've crashed in price and are now pretty standard. A situation that gets more true every day.
I wish Apple would give those of us that bought into their products for the purposes of a practical video-editing solution rather more consideration in between flogging MP3 players and mobile-phones.
Anyway, Apple seem to slowly be moving towards a fully HD set-up.
I wish Apple would give those of us that bought into their products for the purposes of a practical video-editing solution rather more consideration in between flogging MP3 players and mobile-phones.
Anyway, Apple seem to slowly be moving towards a fully HD set-up.
Yes, but in the meantime, you want a Blu-ray burning solution so you can make hard copies of your stuff. I'm assuming you have a Blu-ray player connected to your HDTV, yes?
The cost of external FireWire Blu-ray burners has dropped considerably, just buy one of those.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other...g/MRF8UEBDW8T/
I think for Apple it's the cost of licensing for Blu-ray PLAYBACK that's the sticking point. it would be pointless to stick a Blu-ray burner into any mac if it didn't do playback.
Sitting around waiting for Apple to deliver what WE want rarely pays off. MacPro midi anyone?
Yes, but in the meantime, you want a Blu-ray burning solution so you can make hard copies of your stuff. I'm assuming you have a Blu-ray player connected to your HDTV, yes?
You're absolutely right of course. Although I've been stubbornly waiting for a BR solution to appear my poor old iBook is barely alive anymore and needs replacing.
The alternative would be a Vaio, but with a 2 hour battery for the BR burner laptop I think I'd rather wait.