Downloads? Oh, you mean watch it on the tiny computer screen? Or buy an AppleTV and only get movies from Apple because it does not work with any other store? No thanks.
Or the PS3 or the Xbox or Popcorn Hour or Vudu or TiVo or any of the other media appliances on the market today. The tide is coming in. Connecting your living room to the internet is coming in strong and nothing is going to stop that from dominating the market.
Quote:
Originally Posted by melgross
I know a lot of people from Janet's schools over the years. few are techie people, and few do downloads. Every one of my friends who are more techie have B-R, and some do download. Of the school friends, more have B-R than do downloads.
How many BR discs do they own, or how many hours of BR media have they watched that it could really trump the amount of digital downloads, on-demans and streaming media they?ve watched over the years. I know I watch several hours of Hulu a week and I have been watching cable on-demand for many years before Blu-ray came out. That seems unlikely to me.
I watch a movie or two on Blu-ray a month. That doesn?t come close to the number of hours of ad supported, streaming content I watch per week.
Quote:
Originally Posted by joe in miami
Netflix streaming is free with monthly membership, even 1 disc at a time.
So you can?t get the streaming without renting the disc subscription, which means it?s not free. It?s like saying that MobileMe?s FindMyiPhone is free because it was added after MM launched. If you can?t get it without buying something else it isn?t free. Same going for dating; you?re paying for it somewhere along along the way.
Equivalent PC - $1300 (NZD) (also has quad not dual core)
Seems hard to justify a 27" Imac when I can have a pc build to match its specs and a second machine with the specs of the 21" for $3162. Or replace the lowly 4850 for a Gt280, double the ram and hb space - for an extra 400-500 (NZD) So $2362 and use the $1000 for a trip to Fiji (or buy some crappy pc software).
I love Apples integration between hardware and software and osx is amazing, but build quality isn't as much better than any other pc these days, components are no more reliable - Both consequences of trying to compete on price, and more than allowable if the price reflected this. I would happily pay an extra 500-700 dollars premium to have a mac, honestly I would. But when I can build a superior computer and have almost $1000 left over it's very hard to go Mac
For the time being, I think I'll just cherish the time I spend working on my work Mac
I agree with the sentiment of this post 100%.
Quote:
You can get a decent Logitech Bluetooth mouse (the m555b) for about £30 and the Dell 2209WA 22" IPS for under £200.
I'd say these iMac models are a decent improvement but starting the quads at £1600 is not a huge improvement when the last generation Mac Pro started at £1500. Fair enough the 27" screen is huge but who really needs a screen that size, especially when you can't adjust it? No height adjustment, swivel or tilt and only glossy.
I might actually make my peace with the chin on this model. I still prefer the Cinema design but this isn't bad.
The 21.5" ones should have been dual core and the 27" both quads, Core i5 on the lower, Core i7 on the upper.
I also don't care about Blu-Ray. Imagine the price they would charge for the iMac with those. You can get an external anyway or standalone and plug it in via the video input. A PS3 is only $250, which is not much if you are paying so much for a computer - just get the base model and use the PS3 for games/Blu-Ray.
My preference is still the Mini because it lets me use my own superior (and cheaper) display. If they offered the nice Core i5 in a different package, I'd find it interesting but not in this package.
Honestly. It's not like the i7 is now a premium package cpu. It's dirt cheap. The i5 is dirt cheap.
They had the chance. A BIG chance to give the iMac parity with many a mid-tower PC desktop. And guess what? They blew it. BIG TIME!
They could have put the dirt cheap i5s in the 21 inchers. They would have walked out the stores.
They could, as Marv' said, put the i7s in the 27 inchers. Game over.
If you'd have given me the option of buying the £1700-ish quad core iMac with 4850 a year ago...with 27 inch monitor with that resolution? I'd have torn your arms off.
As it is...I have a major league boner for that iMac.
However, we didn't. We got a cheap side-grade when the cpus were there to deliver this ages ago. And then we still have to pay £1300+ to get access to quad core?
Puh-lease. Quad cores can be had for nearly a thousand pounds less.
For the sake of a hundred quid here and there...Apple are nickle and diming their customers. This line up would have been stellar a year or half a year ago. But it's late. Very late.
The 27 inch monitor is stunning. Sure the i7 (which people kept arguing against...y'know...how we 'don't need them', yeah, right...and how they're too hot...uhm...so the BTO option for one is fiction, right?) is nice. The 4850 beats the snot out of my 8800gs. However, for the same price any PC rig in the £1000-£2000 mark has a gpu to pound the 4850 into the dirt. It's a low end gpu. Come on, Apple put at least a mid-range gpu in there. The gpu is the weak link for that kind of resolution.
Which means, I pass on this update. Until Apple update with a better gpu and bring the quad core iMac into the realms of sanity. Then? It's an upgrade. But that's a year away.
Yes, I'm excited by this upgrade. But the premium pricing of cheap pc components is hard to justify in my book. The i5s are dirt cheap. The i7s aren't expensive. And the 4 iMac models should have been split around them accordingly.
Apple are making good profits. But they're clearly ripping off the customer on components that can be had in PCs that are far cheaper. I would have thought the i5s would have been as cheap as the 3 gig core duos?
Shrugs.
Still got a boner for the i7 BTO 27 inch iMac. But don't worry, I'll put some ice on it...
My PS3 BluRay died after a firmware update, won't read any disk. PS3 works and does the Folding@home now but that's it.
Had to buy another PS3, so now I got two nice heaters.
Sony is being sued because of the bricking of so many PS3 BluRays, something I'm sure had to do with copy protection/HDMI being broken. Perhaps serials being copied/stolen or something. So mine got hit.
Blu-RAY IS A BAG OF HURT!!
So blu-ray is a bag of hurt because your PS3 died? So does that mean Apple is a bag of hurt since two of my macs have died and needed servicing?
Quote:
Originally Posted by MacTripper
The iMac is a pain as it is with nothing being user accessible, much less a malfunctioning Blu-Ray and firmware updates coming from (of DRM/Rookit fame) Sony Inc. to protect the copy protection.
You need BluRay? Get a external device. It's not ready for the mainstream and perhaps never will be.
The MIAA (which Sony is part of) really doesn't want BluRay movies on computers, unless they can control the DRM and playblack so it can't be copied. Apple won't go for that naturally, all that evil Sony code in OS X.
Apple is trending towards less mechanical, more all on the logicboard type devices anyway.
Blu-ray is not a Sony technology, it is owned by a lot of corporations.
Apples movie downloads are full of DRM, is it ok to include this DRM?
Another way would to be compare revenues, but even there the latest figures I can find put Blu-ray at about $500 million and [B]digital[/B/] at $1.4 billion, so I'm not actually sure what you're using for your installed user base figures.
And, of course, we have to distinguish among rentals, on-demand, and purchase.
I don't doubt that Blu-ray is currently outstripping other forms for purchase-- it just makes sense. However, I don't think that's were the money is, when it comes to video. Most people aren't going to want to watch most movies more than once, and fans buying up blockbuster boxed sets are a big enough segment to drive all over profits.
Um, blu-ray is digital...
Digital downloads aren't in the billions, they are in the small millions
Digital distribution includes PPV (including cable and satellite), downloading, streaming, on demand services, etc. This market has been around longer than even the DVD format, and its current 10% share of revenue is not all that different from the PPV/on-demand market share back in the VHS/early-DVD era. Blu-ray's barely a three-year old format, and it currently accounts for 4% of all home video revenue, which is not an inconsequential growth base.
Also, Blu-ray is strictly an HD optical format, while digital distribution is primarily SD. I have yet to see a breakdown, but I would venture to guess that Blu-ray's revenues already far outpace the digital distribution revenues for HD content. Digital distribution is playing to a very different market because most of the revenues come from rentals and one-time viewing, rather than purchases. Blu-ray and DVD revenue primarily comes from sell-through.
Can you link to any figures giving the breakdown of DVD/Blu-ray sales vs. rental profits? I can't see to find anything very informative, but I would also guess that "sales" are heavily skewed by Blockbuster and Netflix purchasing discs for rental.
As far as HD vs. SD vs. money, I can't see were it really matters. If consumers are content to download or stream or VoD SD content, that's part of the market we're talking about.
Quote:
The tech press has had it out for Blu-ray from the very beginning, and largely ignored the market data time after time as the writers pushed the downloading angle. I mean, how many more "make or break time for Blu-ray" articles are going to come out between now and Christmas? I would guess about the same number that came out last year and the year before that? An optical format is simply not exciting to tech writers, yet it remains what the vast majority of consumers are buying and renting.
I dunno, that strikes me as dubious. I can't see why tech writers would "have it out" for Blu-ray-- presumably they're part of the very demographic (young, male, tech savvy) that we would expect to see the greatest uptake of the format.
[QUOTE]Unlike with the computer market where changes and shifts can occur relatively quickly, the consumer market moves much slower and tech writers generally don't acknowledge that. Remember that it took the DVD format almost seven years before it finally surpassed VHS, and the DVD was the most successful consumer electronics debut ever. It also took the CD format about 12 years before displacing the cassette; and despite the growth in the music downloading market, CD sales still commanded 65% of the music market during the first half of THIS year.[QUOTE]
Right, but all of that-- the powerful establishment of slow to yield ground analog formats-- happened before the internet. And they all had plenty of time to put down roots before the next big thing came along.
The significant difference with Blu-ray is that there's a credible competitor on the scene at the same time that it's trying to get traction. And it's a competitor-- digital, on demand content-- that seems to have very powerful cultural and technological trends working in its favor.
No time to respond to the balance of your post at the moment....
Netflix streaming is free with monthly membership, even 1 disc at a time.
In other words, it's not free. It's just that streaming media is so much cheaper for Netflix than keeping inventory of physical DVDs and shipping them that they can build the cost into the membership fee and still come out ahead on average.
I have admittedly not kept up 100% with Blu-Ray, but I recall one of the early issues being that its DRM is not like the iTunes DRM, which is software only and goes away when you burn a .m4p song to a CD. Blu-Ray insists (insisted?) on a dedicated hardware path for the fully encrypted video and audio to travel through any computer to the HDMI cable, where it would continue, fully encrypted, until it reached the terminus of the HDTV, where it was finally decrypted and presented. Blu-Ray is utterly paranoid. If you're trying to implement it on an authoring platform, it's a nightmare. Unless there have been radical changes to Blu-Ray--which I doubt because they would require radical changes in the studios' attitudes toward their customers--I am not surprised that Apple has not adopted it quickly. It's not like DVD DRM, and it's not like iTunes DRM. It's source-to-display tunneling so that the movie executives can keep their precious content safe from the scary pirates and the occasional phantom editor. The PS3 is a closed content presentation machine, so implementing Blu-Ray in the PS3 is a no-brainer. Implementing it on a platform with a broadband hookup and a full suite of internet apps and a full library of content ripping, encoding and authoring software, some of which ships with every machine (along with the free development IDE)? That's a whole different ball of wax.
As for the iMac: It's a sweet update. I was wrong about the display format, but right about Apple going with a custom screen. I note that the 27"'s resolution is precisely 4 times the resolution of 720p, which is actually the best case for scaling on an LCD display, as every logical pixel maps to precisely 4 physical pixels. If anything, 720p should look better on the big iMac than on the little one.
Video in is awesome. It's the one thing I miss on my 24" iMac.
I am completely unsurprised that Apple is offering i5s and i7s. I am more surprised that people actually thought that Apple would leave its most prominent desktop offering with a last generation chipset for any longer than absolutely necessary. They crammed a G5 in that box, once, and those things ran hot. I did predict that the higher end machine would be the one that got the new high performance chips.
I am surprised that Apple is offering 4 slots and 4GB standard on a single DIMM. They really are expanding the iMac into the pro space. I am not surprised that Apple is still charging outrageous amounts for BTO RAM, which is why I have never, ever, taken them up on the offer.
I am surprised, pleasantly, that Apple extended the nice screen to the smaller model.
The gloss of my 24" iMac has never been an issue. Reflections are almost invisible unless the screen is mostly black, and that doesn't happen often given that window backgrounds tend to be white. Even when the screen is black the reflections are dim. I can't understand how this is maddening. It's like my lovely old Radius CRT except bigger and brighter and flatter. As for those people insisting that the complaints on the forums indicate that a majority of users want matte screens, I'd direct you to the archives. Back when Apple was only shipping matte screens there were whole long threads dedicated to griping about all the sales Apple was losing to PCs with bright, shiny screens.
No- he's trying to drive home his ludicrous point on here that discs are useless simply because HE's opted for that decision. And you know it.
No. For heaven's sake. I said: many people are using Hulu. Jfanning responded by pointing out that most people in the world don't have Hulu. Solipsism pointed out that most people in the world don't have a computer, which is to say the "most people in the world" caveat isn't very sensible.
No you got me on a couple of points there. I only included the Acer B273HU 27" LCD monitor 2048x1152. So not as good. And you are right all in one is desirable in terms of aesthetics - but when it comes to upgrading I'll be shelling out for another whole unit or at least a horrifically over priced graphics card. Doesn't seem to justify the $1500 difference
Not saying I don't want one, believe me I do. Just trying to sell myself on the idea (and have a hard time of it) before I try sell the idea to my wife.
And the price here vs there is making it harder - mind you I think it goes through Apple Australasia and then Renaissance Group here before getting to us.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cmf2
Did you happen to include the cost of a 27" IPS, LED backlit LCD monitor in your calculations? I kind of doubt it. Not to mention the form factor. Yes a tower + monitor is cheaper, but that isn't what Apple is selling. I'm actually not aware of anything on the PC side that could be directly compared to these iMacs, but I'm sure someone will inform me.
Meh about Blue Ray. Still born tech'. With a Sky Plus HD box, who needs it? Between that, a cinema and the iTunes store...shrugs. HD on demand is imminent for the mainstream...care of optical cables and companies like Sky. Who wants a huge pile of discs for something which is a 'bit' sharper than DVDs? For a movie...you'll er...watch once? Big meh.
No. For heaven's sake. I said: many people are using Hulu. Jfanning responded by pointing out that most people in the world don't have Hulu. Solipsism pointed out that most people in the world don't have a computer, which is to say the "most people in the world" caveat isn't very sensible.
OK_ LEt's get the record straight now. He said:
Quote:
PS: Are you aware that most of the world doesn’t have an optical disc player of any kind?
to push his ridiculous anti optical disc mantra even further.
And I said
Quote:
PS: Are you aware that most of the world doesn’t have a computer of any kind either?
Blu-ray is an optical media. They are aluminium discs encoded with microscopic pits. They use a laser to read the pit variations in the reflected light. That gets converted into digital data after being retrieved from the disc.
No you got me on a couple of points there. I only included the Acer B273HU 27" LCD monitor 2048x1152. So not as good. And you are right all in one is desirable in terms of aesthetics - but when it comes to upgrading I'll be shelling out for another whole unit or at least a horrifically over priced graphics card. Doesn't seem to justify the $1500 difference
Not saying I don't want one, believe me I do. Just trying to sell myself on the idea (and have a hard time of it) before I try sell the idea to my wife.
And the price here vs there is making it harder - mind you I think it goes through Apple Australasia and then Renaissance Group here before getting to us.
Well to be honest, I went through the same process in February and decided to build a PC. If I was doing it over again with these new mac options, I would personally choose an iMac. Either way, there is value you do not get when you opt for a PC. Whether or not that value is worth the premium you have to pay is, of course, up to you.
The gloss of my 24" iMac has never been an issue. Reflections are almost invisible unless the screen is mostly black, and that doesn't happen often given that window backgrounds tend to be white. Even when the screen is black the reflections are dim. I can't understand how this is maddening. It's like my lovely old Radius CRT except bigger and brighter and flatter. As for those people insisting that the complaints on the forums indicate that a majority of users want matte screens, I'd direct you to the archives. Back when Apple was only shipping matte screens there were whole long threads dedicated to griping about all the sales Apple was losing to PCs with bright, shiny screens.
Heh. Good catch. You're right. I remember all that. Bitch fights about the lack of Glossy and how Apple was losing out to gorgeous sony displays etc, etc.
I concur with your post. I never have a problem with the reflections on my iMac. I have to concentrate to see any at all!
*Shrugs. It's glossy all the way for me. I hate matte plastic displays with no glass. Plastic that scratches? No thanks. Feels real cheap too. 'Oh look, I can press the screen and make swirling colours...' Real crap in schools as children like to play ice skating with plastic screens. I hate HDTVs for this. Big plastic displays. Real cheap looking. Put glass in them. Glass is just sand. Plenty of sand on the planet...not so much oil knocking about...
Heh. The lack of glass in an iMac stopped me buying the white plastic ones. I'm glad Apple went with glass in the alu iMac.
Comments
Don?t be obtuse. He didn?t say the majority of the world?s people, he said a lot of people.
So what does a lot mean?
Matte screens. I think most humans are attracted to shiny things though there I feel for the people that get headaches dealing with glossy screens.
I have to check out these new LED screens in person. I did not like the previous screen- at all.
Downloads? Oh, you mean watch it on the tiny computer screen? Or buy an AppleTV and only get movies from Apple because it does not work with any other store? No thanks.
Or the PS3 or the Xbox or Popcorn Hour or Vudu or TiVo or any of the other media appliances on the market today. The tide is coming in. Connecting your living room to the internet is coming in strong and nothing is going to stop that from dominating the market.
I know a lot of people from Janet's schools over the years. few are techie people, and few do downloads. Every one of my friends who are more techie have B-R, and some do download. Of the school friends, more have B-R than do downloads.
How many BR discs do they own, or how many hours of BR media have they watched that it could really trump the amount of digital downloads, on-demans and streaming media they?ve watched over the years. I know I watch several hours of Hulu a week and I have been watching cable on-demand for many years before Blu-ray came out. That seems unlikely to me.
I watch a movie or two on Blu-ray a month. That doesn?t come close to the number of hours of ad supported, streaming content I watch per week.
Netflix streaming is free with monthly membership, even 1 disc at a time.
So you can?t get the streaming without renting the disc subscription, which means it?s not free. It?s like saying that MobileMe?s FindMyiPhone is free because it was added after MM launched. If you can?t get it without buying something else it isn?t free. Same going for dating; you?re paying for it somewhere along along the way.
They shut up -that's what they do. Just ask solipsism- he's been missing in action for months ever since the iPhone got MMS, Video and cut and paste.
And FYI- just because you want Blu-ray doesn't make you a Mac Hater nor a complainer. 'Nuff said!
I didn't mean to imply that people that want Blu-ray are mac haters as that would include me
All I meant was that some people look for deficiencies and make a big deal of them and then shrug them off when Apple rectifies them.
I would love to go back to using a mac but:
Imac 27" w/4850 - $3300 (NZD)
Equivalent PC - $1862 (NZD)
Imac 21" - $2000 (NZD)
Equivalent PC - $1300 (NZD) (also has quad not dual core)
Seems hard to justify a 27" Imac when I can have a pc build to match its specs and a second machine with the specs of the 21" for $3162. Or replace the lowly 4850 for a Gt280, double the ram and hb space - for an extra 400-500 (NZD) So $2362 and use the $1000 for a trip to Fiji (or buy some crappy pc software).
I love Apples integration between hardware and software and osx is amazing, but build quality isn't as much better than any other pc these days, components are no more reliable - Both consequences of trying to compete on price, and more than allowable if the price reflected this. I would happily pay an extra 500-700 dollars premium to have a mac, honestly I would. But when I can build a superior computer and have almost $1000 left over it's very hard to go Mac
For the time being, I think I'll just cherish the time I spend working on my work Mac
I agree with the sentiment of this post 100%.
You can get a decent Logitech Bluetooth mouse (the m555b) for about £30 and the Dell 2209WA 22" IPS for under £200.
I'd say these iMac models are a decent improvement but starting the quads at £1600 is not a huge improvement when the last generation Mac Pro started at £1500. Fair enough the 27" screen is huge but who really needs a screen that size, especially when you can't adjust it? No height adjustment, swivel or tilt and only glossy.
I might actually make my peace with the chin on this model. I still prefer the Cinema design but this isn't bad.
The 21.5" ones should have been dual core and the 27" both quads, Core i5 on the lower, Core i7 on the upper.
I also don't care about Blu-Ray. Imagine the price they would charge for the iMac with those. You can get an external anyway or standalone and plug it in via the video input. A PS3 is only $250, which is not much if you are paying so much for a computer - just get the base model and use the PS3 for games/Blu-Ray.
My preference is still the Mini because it lets me use my own superior (and cheaper) display. If they offered the nice Core i5 in a different package, I'd find it interesting but not in this package.
Honestly. It's not like the i7 is now a premium package cpu. It's dirt cheap. The i5 is dirt cheap.
They had the chance. A BIG chance to give the iMac parity with many a mid-tower PC desktop. And guess what? They blew it. BIG TIME!
They could have put the dirt cheap i5s in the 21 inchers. They would have walked out the stores.
They could, as Marv' said, put the i7s in the 27 inchers. Game over.
If you'd have given me the option of buying the £1700-ish quad core iMac with 4850 a year ago...with 27 inch monitor with that resolution? I'd have torn your arms off.
As it is...I have a major league boner for that iMac.
However, we didn't. We got a cheap side-grade when the cpus were there to deliver this ages ago. And then we still have to pay £1300+ to get access to quad core?
Puh-lease. Quad cores can be had for nearly a thousand pounds less.
For the sake of a hundred quid here and there...Apple are nickle and diming their customers. This line up would have been stellar a year or half a year ago. But it's late. Very late.
The 27 inch monitor is stunning. Sure the i7 (which people kept arguing against...y'know...how we 'don't need them', yeah, right...and how they're too hot...uhm...so the BTO option for one is fiction, right?) is nice. The 4850 beats the snot out of my 8800gs. However, for the same price any PC rig in the £1000-£2000 mark has a gpu to pound the 4850 into the dirt. It's a low end gpu. Come on, Apple put at least a mid-range gpu in there. The gpu is the weak link for that kind of resolution.
Which means, I pass on this update. Until Apple update with a better gpu and bring the quad core iMac into the realms of sanity. Then? It's an upgrade. But that's a year away.
Yes, I'm excited by this upgrade. But the premium pricing of cheap pc components is hard to justify in my book. The i5s are dirt cheap. The i7s aren't expensive. And the 4 iMac models should have been split around them accordingly.
Apple are making good profits. But they're clearly ripping off the customer on components that can be had in PCs that are far cheaper. I would have thought the i5s would have been as cheap as the 3 gig core duos?
Shrugs.
Still got a boner for the i7 BTO 27 inch iMac. But don't worry, I'll put some ice on it...
Lemon Bon Bon.
And on about Blu-Ray, IT SUCKS!!
My PS3 BluRay died after a firmware update, won't read any disk. PS3 works and does the Folding@home now but that's it.
Had to buy another PS3, so now I got two nice heaters.
Sony is being sued because of the bricking of so many PS3 BluRays, something I'm sure had to do with copy protection/HDMI being broken. Perhaps serials being copied/stolen or something. So mine got hit.
Blu-RAY IS A BAG OF HURT!!
So blu-ray is a bag of hurt because your PS3 died? So does that mean Apple is a bag of hurt since two of my macs have died and needed servicing?
The iMac is a pain as it is with nothing being user accessible, much less a malfunctioning Blu-Ray and firmware updates coming from (of DRM/Rookit fame) Sony Inc. to protect the copy protection.
You need BluRay? Get a external device. It's not ready for the mainstream and perhaps never will be.
The MIAA (which Sony is part of) really doesn't want BluRay movies on computers, unless they can control the DRM and playblack so it can't be copied. Apple won't go for that naturally, all that evil Sony code in OS X.
Apple is trending towards less mechanical, more all on the logicboard type devices anyway.
Blu-ray is not a Sony technology, it is owned by a lot of corporations.
Apples movie downloads are full of DRM, is it ok to include this DRM?
So what does a lot mean?
In this instance it means 38M distinct viewers in a country with 300M.
And the larger the gloss the more crazy you will get- I guarantee it.
Just ask solipism - he uses a 24 glossy everday. Can't you tell?
I use a 24" iMac with glossy screen every day, and have yet to find one single reason to get a matte screen instead. What's your problem, tecktroll?
Another way would to be compare revenues, but even there the latest figures I can find put Blu-ray at about $500 million and [B]digital[/B/] at $1.4 billion, so I'm not actually sure what you're using for your installed user base figures.
And, of course, we have to distinguish among rentals, on-demand, and purchase.
I don't doubt that Blu-ray is currently outstripping other forms for purchase-- it just makes sense. However, I don't think that's were the money is, when it comes to video. Most people aren't going to want to watch most movies more than once, and fans buying up blockbuster boxed sets are a big enough segment to drive all over profits.
Um, blu-ray is digital...
Digital downloads aren't in the billions, they are in the small millions
Digital distribution includes PPV (including cable and satellite), downloading, streaming, on demand services, etc. This market has been around longer than even the DVD format, and its current 10% share of revenue is not all that different from the PPV/on-demand market share back in the VHS/early-DVD era. Blu-ray's barely a three-year old format, and it currently accounts for 4% of all home video revenue, which is not an inconsequential growth base.
Also, Blu-ray is strictly an HD optical format, while digital distribution is primarily SD. I have yet to see a breakdown, but I would venture to guess that Blu-ray's revenues already far outpace the digital distribution revenues for HD content. Digital distribution is playing to a very different market because most of the revenues come from rentals and one-time viewing, rather than purchases. Blu-ray and DVD revenue primarily comes from sell-through.
Can you link to any figures giving the breakdown of DVD/Blu-ray sales vs. rental profits? I can't see to find anything very informative, but I would also guess that "sales" are heavily skewed by Blockbuster and Netflix purchasing discs for rental.
As far as HD vs. SD vs. money, I can't see were it really matters. If consumers are content to download or stream or VoD SD content, that's part of the market we're talking about.
The tech press has had it out for Blu-ray from the very beginning, and largely ignored the market data time after time as the writers pushed the downloading angle. I mean, how many more "make or break time for Blu-ray" articles are going to come out between now and Christmas? I would guess about the same number that came out last year and the year before that? An optical format is simply not exciting to tech writers, yet it remains what the vast majority of consumers are buying and renting.
I dunno, that strikes me as dubious. I can't see why tech writers would "have it out" for Blu-ray-- presumably they're part of the very demographic (young, male, tech savvy) that we would expect to see the greatest uptake of the format.
[QUOTE]Unlike with the computer market where changes and shifts can occur relatively quickly, the consumer market moves much slower and tech writers generally don't acknowledge that. Remember that it took the DVD format almost seven years before it finally surpassed VHS, and the DVD was the most successful consumer electronics debut ever. It also took the CD format about 12 years before displacing the cassette; and despite the growth in the music downloading market, CD sales still commanded 65% of the music market during the first half of THIS year.[QUOTE]
Right, but all of that-- the powerful establishment of slow to yield ground analog formats-- happened before the internet. And they all had plenty of time to put down roots before the next big thing came along.
The significant difference with Blu-ray is that there's a credible competitor on the scene at the same time that it's trying to get traction. And it's a competitor-- digital, on demand content-- that seems to have very powerful cultural and technological trends working in its favor.
No time to respond to the balance of your post at the moment....
Netflix streaming is free with monthly membership, even 1 disc at a time.
In other words, it's not free. It's just that streaming media is so much cheaper for Netflix than keeping inventory of physical DVDs and shipping them that they can build the cost into the membership fee and still come out ahead on average.
I have admittedly not kept up 100% with Blu-Ray, but I recall one of the early issues being that its DRM is not like the iTunes DRM, which is software only and goes away when you burn a .m4p song to a CD. Blu-Ray insists (insisted?) on a dedicated hardware path for the fully encrypted video and audio to travel through any computer to the HDMI cable, where it would continue, fully encrypted, until it reached the terminus of the HDTV, where it was finally decrypted and presented. Blu-Ray is utterly paranoid. If you're trying to implement it on an authoring platform, it's a nightmare. Unless there have been radical changes to Blu-Ray--which I doubt because they would require radical changes in the studios' attitudes toward their customers--I am not surprised that Apple has not adopted it quickly. It's not like DVD DRM, and it's not like iTunes DRM. It's source-to-display tunneling so that the movie executives can keep their precious content safe from the scary pirates and the occasional phantom editor. The PS3 is a closed content presentation machine, so implementing Blu-Ray in the PS3 is a no-brainer. Implementing it on a platform with a broadband hookup and a full suite of internet apps and a full library of content ripping, encoding and authoring software, some of which ships with every machine (along with the free development IDE)? That's a whole different ball of wax.
As for the iMac: It's a sweet update. I was wrong about the display format, but right about Apple going with a custom screen. I note that the 27"'s resolution is precisely 4 times the resolution of 720p, which is actually the best case for scaling on an LCD display, as every logical pixel maps to precisely 4 physical pixels. If anything, 720p should look better on the big iMac than on the little one.
Video in is awesome. It's the one thing I miss on my 24" iMac.
I am completely unsurprised that Apple is offering i5s and i7s. I am more surprised that people actually thought that Apple would leave its most prominent desktop offering with a last generation chipset for any longer than absolutely necessary. They crammed a G5 in that box, once, and those things ran hot. I did predict that the higher end machine would be the one that got the new high performance chips.
I am surprised that Apple is offering 4 slots and 4GB standard on a single DIMM. They really are expanding the iMac into the pro space. I am not surprised that Apple is still charging outrageous amounts for BTO RAM, which is why I have never, ever, taken them up on the offer.
I am surprised, pleasantly, that Apple extended the nice screen to the smaller model.
The gloss of my 24" iMac has never been an issue. Reflections are almost invisible unless the screen is mostly black, and that doesn't happen often given that window backgrounds tend to be white. Even when the screen is black the reflections are dim. I can't understand how this is maddening. It's like my lovely old Radius CRT except bigger and brighter and flatter. As for those people insisting that the complaints on the forums indicate that a majority of users want matte screens, I'd direct you to the archives. Back when Apple was only shipping matte screens there were whole long threads dedicated to griping about all the sales Apple was losing to PCs with bright, shiny screens.
No- he's trying to drive home his ludicrous point on here that discs are useless simply because HE's opted for that decision. And you know it.
No. For heaven's sake. I said: many people are using Hulu. Jfanning responded by pointing out that most people in the world don't have Hulu. Solipsism pointed out that most people in the world don't have a computer, which is to say the "most people in the world" caveat isn't very sensible.
Not saying I don't want one, believe me I do. Just trying to sell myself on the idea (and have a hard time of it) before I try sell the idea to my wife.
And the price here vs there is making it harder - mind you I think it goes through Apple Australasia and then Renaissance Group here before getting to us.
Did you happen to include the cost of a 27" IPS, LED backlit LCD monitor in your calculations? I kind of doubt it. Not to mention the form factor. Yes a tower + monitor is cheaper, but that isn't what Apple is selling. I'm actually not aware of anything on the PC side that could be directly compared to these iMacs, but I'm sure someone will inform me.
The Apple Magic Mouse. Very impressed.
Lemon Bon Bon.
No. For heaven's sake. I said: many people are using Hulu. Jfanning responded by pointing out that most people in the world don't have Hulu. Solipsism pointed out that most people in the world don't have a computer, which is to say the "most people in the world" caveat isn't very sensible.
OK_ LEt's get the record straight now. He said:
PS: Are you aware that most of the world doesn’t have an optical disc player of any kind?
to push his ridiculous anti optical disc mantra even further.
And I said
PS: Are you aware that most of the world doesn’t have a computer of any kind either?
to prove him his point is baseless.
Um, blu-ray is digital...
Blu-ray is an optical media. They are aluminium discs encoded with microscopic pits. They use a laser to read the pit variations in the reflected light. That gets converted into digital data after being retrieved from the disc.
I use a 24" iMac with glossy screen every day, and have yet to find one single reason to get a matte screen instead...
You'll find out, just give it some time. Then you'll be shouting from the rooftops too.
Because everyone's eyes goes eventually, some sooner than others.
No you got me on a couple of points there. I only included the Acer B273HU 27" LCD monitor 2048x1152. So not as good. And you are right all in one is desirable in terms of aesthetics - but when it comes to upgrading I'll be shelling out for another whole unit or at least a horrifically over priced graphics card. Doesn't seem to justify the $1500 difference
Not saying I don't want one, believe me I do. Just trying to sell myself on the idea (and have a hard time of it) before I try sell the idea to my wife.
And the price here vs there is making it harder - mind you I think it goes through Apple Australasia and then Renaissance Group here before getting to us.
Well to be honest, I went through the same process in February and decided to build a PC. If I was doing it over again with these new mac options, I would personally choose an iMac. Either way, there is value you do not get when you opt for a PC. Whether or not that value is worth the premium you have to pay is, of course, up to you.
Um, blu-ray is digital...
Good lord. I'm using "digital" as shorthand for "digital downloads, pay per view, and streaming"-- just as it is used pretty much everywhere.
Digital downloads aren't in the billions, they are in the small millions
DLs, streaming, and VoD account for something like 1.4 billion in revenue as of mid 2009.
The gloss of my 24" iMac has never been an issue. Reflections are almost invisible unless the screen is mostly black, and that doesn't happen often given that window backgrounds tend to be white. Even when the screen is black the reflections are dim. I can't understand how this is maddening. It's like my lovely old Radius CRT except bigger and brighter and flatter. As for those people insisting that the complaints on the forums indicate that a majority of users want matte screens, I'd direct you to the archives. Back when Apple was only shipping matte screens there were whole long threads dedicated to griping about all the sales Apple was losing to PCs with bright, shiny screens.
Heh. Good catch. You're right. I remember all that. Bitch fights about the lack of Glossy and how Apple was losing out to gorgeous sony displays etc, etc.
I concur with your post. I never have a problem with the reflections on my iMac. I have to concentrate to see any at all!
*Shrugs. It's glossy all the way for me. I hate matte plastic displays with no glass. Plastic that scratches? No thanks. Feels real cheap too. 'Oh look, I can press the screen and make swirling colours...' Real crap in schools as children like to play ice skating with plastic screens. I hate HDTVs for this. Big plastic displays. Real cheap looking. Put glass in them. Glass is just sand. Plenty of sand on the planet...not so much oil knocking about...
Heh. The lack of glass in an iMac stopped me buying the white plastic ones. I'm glad Apple went with glass in the alu iMac.
Lemon Bon Bon.