I might add that digital movies are often no better.
I was looking at the "new arrivals" on iTunes the other day and one of them is "journey to the Centre of the Earth" with James Mason from the 60's. They want 20 bucks for it! We are talking a 40 to 50 year old movie based on an over 100 year old book. This movie has regularly appeared in bargain bins at movie rental places for over twenty years in the 2 to 3 dollar range in VHS and DVD but they want 20 bucks for a DRM'ed digital copy of it. I have a high definition VHS version of it right here with a big $2.99 sticker on it.
Needless to say, this is absolutely insane pricing and there are many many other movies like it in the store also.
I've never heard of an iTunes movie costing more than $15 and that's for new releases. The movie you're talking about is currently listed at $9.99:
iDVD has always sucked, has always been difficult to understand, and really is a "low demand" product in the suite. Even amongst large groups of people using and learning iMovie, the number of them that want to make a finished commercial DVD out of it is very small indeed.
You nailed it.
iDVD is horrible. I've tried to mess around with it a few times and it just sucks.
Keep in mind, the only thing iDVD does is put a GUI menu on your dvd. How much demand is there for that? I guess it's a nice tool to have and falls into the ideology that people are perfectionists and want to author professional looking DVD's for hobby projects.
I'm sure there are a few wedding videographers who use it to charge an extra few hundred $... but I agree, the demand is small.
As for authoring DVD's, Visual Hub does an excellent job of converting ANY video format to DVD. Besides, I enjoy not having to screw around with menu's... just put in your dvd and good to go.
I can see Apple dropping optical drives in their laptop product line (or perhaps only the consumer models) at some point.
With the advent of CD/DVD sharing introduced with the MacBook Air, and the concept that the laptop computer should be focused on portability... it is not really that farfetched.
I don't think Apple will be dropping optical drives from their desktop computers however.
Otherwise prepare to say goodbye to: DVD Player.app, burn folders, Toast, ripping and burning with iTunes, etc.
Should Apple focus on development of iDVD? Probably not (outside of minor updates). Should they shut it down? Absolutely not!
As far as bluray goes.. yes it is higher quality and comes with the possibility of more features.. but I agree with Steve,
with the disappointing pace of Blu-Ray adoption, it looks like the company has picked the right strategy.
Not sure where that statement is coming from. The pace of Blu-Ray adoption is far ahead of where DVD was at a similar time-frame. From my perspective, Blu-Ray has been a resounding success so far.
Blu-Ray will be around for a long time, and is THE format of choice going forward for those of us who appreciate uncompressed audio and 1080P video.
That being said, I could care less if Apple includes Blu-Ray in their machines. I have an Apple TV, a PS3, a universal DVD, and a high quality turntable in my living room - and I'm pretty much set for any decent format currently available.
People who continually try to sound the death knell of physical media because of online, digital distribution are delusional, IMO. Online distribution is supplemental, disposable, and a matter of convenience, at best.
i don't see what the big deal is. until Apple decides to support Blu-ray there really isn't anywhere left to go with idvd, other than perhaps a way to save your own template if you really must.
as for the box etc, is it any shock that they choose to highlight what makes this package so much cooler than ilife '08 that you just gotta get it instead of sticking with what you got for free. not to me
No- because when DVD was added to the iMac in 1999 sales flew off the charts. I guarantee a blu-ray iMac would do the same.
I agree. I want a BD burner to back up all my files. Tired of having to use stacks of DVD's. If your house burns down, or someone steals your Time Capsule, or HDD dies... your screwed. Say goodbye to all your photos and files. Seen it happen many times.
Keep a BD disk or two off-site... your secure.
It was when affordable DVD burners and media came out that the format took off like a rocket.
I'm wondering why Sony, after pumping hundreds of millions into buying studio votes, has not pushed hard for the burners on PC's?
Damn, now i'm almost starting to think maybe the HD-DVD camp had a point... i'm sure we would have had those in Mac's now had Toshiba won the war.
...Now it's just a must have feature that's more or less matured and taken for granted... Lastly, the idea that iDVD is all about DISTRIBUTION and thus could/would be replaced with some online/cloud based service is ridiculous.
Excellent post! I totally agree. iTunes/AppleTV distribution has NO influence on iDVD. They have a totally separate and distinct purpose. iDVD is for home/business produced DVD videos and/or presentations. iTunes/AppleTV allows the distribution and purchase of copy written media.
This article may be looking a little too far into the iLife marketing choices. If not, the Apple is making a poor decision. iDVD is invaluable where I work since 95% of all computers have DVDs which allow for the distribution and display of high-end video presentations and/or recorded field work video.
Sure the workflow is evolving away from DVDs and I'm all for that workflow to become a workable, affordable, reality. However... DVDs are necessary now as well as within the next 5-10 years.
...in other words, next year when all MacBooks drop the optical drive, iLife will similarly drop iDVD altogether.
Next year? that's awful quick, they just introduced a complete redo of their notebook line a few months ago. I don't think they're going to redo it again so soon. Apple doesn't do a total makeover of their computer lines every year, it's more like 3-5 years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cbutler
I've stopped giving computer-based DVD's to my wedding photography clients, because they aren't archival. Instead, I provide USB thumbdrives.
I've had way too many dye-based DVDs fail over time, and archival matters to my clients.
I think Apple is doing the smart thing here...
Were you paying attention to the source of those discs, or were you just buying the cheapest crap?
Quote:
Originally Posted by vandil
iDVD is fun, but waiting for it to render and burn can be an eternity.
That said, they'd better not take it out of iLife any time soon.
You're right about that. I recall that iDVD took about an hour to encode about an hour's worth of audio. I thought it stalled out on me, so I retried it. And then it would move on to the video, which only took an hour, something very surprising for how much more work video encoding is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by monstrosity
I have used numerous alternatives to store or transfer files:
a) memory stick.
b) Hard Drive
c) Bluetooth
d) Ethernet
e) Firewire
F) USB
g) Wifi
h) Infra Red
Take ya pick, much rather any (or combination of) those options than a breakable and massively unreliable optical disk.
And yes, ALL my work gets backed up to the 'cloud'. Infact much of my work is written in the 'cloud' and does not get stored locally whatsoever.
That's a very bad idea, given that there are some cloud services have tried to shut down without 24 hours worth of notice.
I don't understand why you have problems with the durability and reliability of the media, I don't remember the last disc that went bad or broke.
Infrared and bluetooth aren't even options for files of any significant size, I don't know why you put them there.
Infrared and bluetooth aren't even options for files of any significant size, I don't know why you put them there.
Well I was following on from my previous post which stated that I have barely used optical for a decade, and back then files were generally smaller.
Also, I use bluetooth quite often as do my friends, if you put two macbooks in close proximity you can transfer reasonable file sizes in a reasonably fast time. More often than not quicker than it takes to burn a dvd.
Obviously if you are transferring large movies it's not great option. But for audio it's acceptably quick.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffDM
That's a very bad idea, given that there are some cloud services have tried to shut down without 24 hours worth of notice.
My work is stored on my own servers, using my own software. And backups are made on a regular basis. If I'm feeling particularly nervous about a piece of work I will store locally also.
What a self-righteous bonehead move by Apple. How exactly is someone supposed to share their work on the television screens of friends and family? Buy an Apple TV for them all? Apple would love that. How is someone supposed to archive their family videos and photos for years to come? Pay Apple $99 a year for the rest of their lives to keep it stored on a MobileMe account? Yeah I bet Apple would love that too. What, is Apple going to start letting everybody host video on the iTunes Music Store? Or let me guess, since Apple sells movies now we no longer have to make our own. Is that about right?
Apple seems to be moving more and more toward serving themselves first and foremost.
People who compare Apple's lack of BluRay support to their dropping of the floppy drive miss the mark. In one case, they removed a legacy piece of hardware (the floppy drive) to essentially simplify the overall computer package to support a single removable drive (CD-ROM). Since then the now-standard optical drive kept gaining functionality:
CD read-only > CR-RW > CD-RW + DVD read-only > CD/DVD-RW (dual layer)
Adding BluRay, even if it's only read and not write, simply adds one more step of functionality to the already existing optical drive. It's not like Apple has to redesign the case to add another drive completely, which WAS the situation back when the floppy was the primary removable drive. An updated DVD-RW + BR-R drive should be a simple drop-in replacement for future machines.
And to those who claim they never use their computer's DVD drives any more: How, exactly, do you expect to install 10.6 when it comes out? Hmm?
I have used iDVD a few times, but always felt that it wasn't as slick as the other apps in the suite. Setting up menus was unnecessarily complicated and unintuitive. Since I hadn't used other products I had no basis to judge whether it was better or worse than the competition in that regard. I also had to rely on third party software to print labels. Not the complete user experience one would expect from Apple.
I just bought my first copy of Toast Titanium for the purpose of moving programs from my TiVo to our iPhones. It does that very slickly. If its DVD burning tools work well it may be my go-to app for that too, iDVD or no iDVD in the future.
Steve is usually right. As others in the thread have noted, I find myself posting my little projects on the MobileMe gallery rather than burning disks.
And to those who claim they never use their computer's DVD drives any more: How, exactly, do you expect to install 10.6 when it comes out? Hmm?
I hear you, after reading these posts I was beginning to feel like I was the last person in the world who still used his optical drive. Mine gets used pretty regularly, I couldn't imagine not having one in my laptop.
I'll never rent or purchase movies from iTunes until they come out with a subscription plan like Netflix and or remove the DRM from purchased material. I think the prices on iTunes is a bit pricey considering there is no packaging for them to worry about, and although I'm not 100% sure on this but do you get any of the extras included with the downloads?. What if you purchase a bunch of movies from iTunes and something freaky happens in 5 years, and the DRM servers go down?
Comments
I might add that digital movies are often no better.
I was looking at the "new arrivals" on iTunes the other day and one of them is "journey to the Centre of the Earth" with James Mason from the 60's. They want 20 bucks for it! We are talking a 40 to 50 year old movie based on an over 100 year old book. This movie has regularly appeared in bargain bins at movie rental places for over twenty years in the 2 to 3 dollar range in VHS and DVD but they want 20 bucks for a DRM'ed digital copy of it. I have a high definition VHS version of it right here with a big $2.99 sticker on it.
Needless to say, this is absolutely insane pricing and there are many many other movies like it in the store also.
I've never heard of an iTunes movie costing more than $15 and that's for new releases. The movie you're talking about is currently listed at $9.99:
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/M...25213&s=143441
iDVD has always sucked, has always been difficult to understand, and really is a "low demand" product in the suite. Even amongst large groups of people using and learning iMovie, the number of them that want to make a finished commercial DVD out of it is very small indeed.
You nailed it.
iDVD is horrible. I've tried to mess around with it a few times and it just sucks.
Keep in mind, the only thing iDVD does is put a GUI menu on your dvd. How much demand is there for that? I guess it's a nice tool to have and falls into the ideology that people are perfectionists and want to author professional looking DVD's for hobby projects.
I'm sure there are a few wedding videographers who use it to charge an extra few hundred $... but I agree, the demand is small.
As for authoring DVD's, Visual Hub does an excellent job of converting ANY video format to DVD. Besides, I enjoy not having to screw around with menu's... just put in your dvd and good to go.
Toast works too.
Blu-ray is disappointing- to who? Steve Jobs? Why is Disney the biggest seller of Blu-ray? What a croc. It is iDVD THAT SUCKS AND THE APPLE TV.
With the advent of CD/DVD sharing introduced with the MacBook Air, and the concept that the laptop computer should be focused on portability... it is not really that farfetched.
I don't think Apple will be dropping optical drives from their desktop computers however.
Otherwise prepare to say goodbye to: DVD Player.app, burn folders, Toast, ripping and burning with iTunes, etc.
Should Apple focus on development of iDVD? Probably not (outside of minor updates). Should they shut it down? Absolutely not!
As far as bluray goes.. yes it is higher quality and comes with the possibility of more features.. but I agree with Steve,
"...it's a bag of hurt"
Does this answer everyone's questions about when Apple will add Blu-Ray?
No- because when DVD was added to the iMac in 1999 sales flew off the charts. I guarantee a blu-ray iMac would do the same.
with the disappointing pace of Blu-Ray adoption, it looks like the company has picked the right strategy.
Not sure where that statement is coming from. The pace of Blu-Ray adoption is far ahead of where DVD was at a similar time-frame. From my perspective, Blu-Ray has been a resounding success so far.
Blu-Ray will be around for a long time, and is THE format of choice going forward for those of us who appreciate uncompressed audio and 1080P video.
That being said, I could care less if Apple includes Blu-Ray in their machines. I have an Apple TV, a PS3, a universal DVD, and a high quality turntable in my living room - and I'm pretty much set for any decent format currently available.
People who continually try to sound the death knell of physical media because of online, digital distribution are delusional, IMO. Online distribution is supplemental, disposable, and a matter of convenience, at best.
as for the box etc, is it any shock that they choose to highlight what makes this package so much cooler than ilife '08 that you just gotta get it instead of sticking with what you got for free. not to me
This article is total BS. HOw else will you save all your files- on a breakable hard drive? In the cloud?
I have used numerous alternatives to store or transfer files:
a) memory stick.
b) Hard Drive
c) Bluetooth
d) Ethernet
e) Firewire
F) USB
g) Wifi
h) Infra Red
Take ya pick, much rather any (or combination of) those options than a breakable and massively unreliable optical disk.
And yes, ALL my work gets backed up to the 'cloud'. Infact much of my work is written in the 'cloud' and does not get stored locally whatsoever.
PS: Blue Ray is dead within the next few years, a very short lived media format indeed me tinks.
"Apple doesn't care about optical people"
Kanye Jobs 2009
No- because when DVD was added to the iMac in 1999 sales flew off the charts. I guarantee a blu-ray iMac would do the same.
I agree. I want a BD burner to back up all my files. Tired of having to use stacks of DVD's. If your house burns down, or someone steals your Time Capsule, or HDD dies... your screwed. Say goodbye to all your photos and files. Seen it happen many times.
Keep a BD disk or two off-site... your secure.
It was when affordable DVD burners and media came out that the format took off like a rocket.
I'm wondering why Sony, after pumping hundreds of millions into buying studio votes, has not pushed hard for the burners on PC's?
Damn, now i'm almost starting to think maybe the HD-DVD camp had a point... i'm sure we would have had those in Mac's now had Toshiba won the war.
...Now it's just a must have feature that's more or less matured and taken for granted... Lastly, the idea that iDVD is all about DISTRIBUTION and thus could/would be replaced with some online/cloud based service is ridiculous.
Excellent post! I totally agree. iTunes/AppleTV distribution has NO influence on iDVD. They have a totally separate and distinct purpose. iDVD is for home/business produced DVD videos and/or presentations. iTunes/AppleTV allows the distribution and purchase of copy written media.
This article may be looking a little too far into the iLife marketing choices. If not, the Apple is making a poor decision. iDVD is invaluable where I work since 95% of all computers have DVDs which allow for the distribution and display of high-end video presentations and/or recorded field work video.
Sure the workflow is evolving away from DVDs and I'm all for that workflow to become a workable, affordable, reality. However... DVDs are necessary now as well as within the next 5-10 years.
However... DVDs are necessary now as well as within the next 5-10 years.
Museum pieces in 5.
...in other words, next year when all MacBooks drop the optical drive, iLife will similarly drop iDVD altogether.
Next year? that's awful quick, they just introduced a complete redo of their notebook line a few months ago. I don't think they're going to redo it again so soon. Apple doesn't do a total makeover of their computer lines every year, it's more like 3-5 years.
I've stopped giving computer-based DVD's to my wedding photography clients, because they aren't archival. Instead, I provide USB thumbdrives.
I've had way too many dye-based DVDs fail over time, and archival matters to my clients.
I think Apple is doing the smart thing here...
Were you paying attention to the source of those discs, or were you just buying the cheapest crap?
iDVD is fun, but waiting for it to render and burn can be an eternity.
That said, they'd better not take it out of iLife any time soon.
You're right about that. I recall that iDVD took about an hour to encode about an hour's worth of audio. I thought it stalled out on me, so I retried it. And then it would move on to the video, which only took an hour, something very surprising for how much more work video encoding is.
I have used numerous alternatives to store or transfer files:
a) memory stick.
b) Hard Drive
c) Bluetooth
d) Ethernet
e) Firewire
F) USB
g) Wifi
h) Infra Red
Take ya pick, much rather any (or combination of) those options than a breakable and massively unreliable optical disk.
And yes, ALL my work gets backed up to the 'cloud'. Infact much of my work is written in the 'cloud' and does not get stored locally whatsoever.
That's a very bad idea, given that there are some cloud services have tried to shut down without 24 hours worth of notice.
I don't understand why you have problems with the durability and reliability of the media, I don't remember the last disc that went bad or broke.
Infrared and bluetooth aren't even options for files of any significant size, I don't know why you put them there.
Infrared and bluetooth aren't even options for files of any significant size, I don't know why you put them there.
Well I was following on from my previous post which stated that I have barely used optical for a decade, and back then files were generally smaller.
Also, I use bluetooth quite often as do my friends, if you put two macbooks in close proximity you can transfer reasonable file sizes in a reasonably fast time. More often than not quicker than it takes to burn a dvd.
Obviously if you are transferring large movies it's not great option. But for audio it's acceptably quick.
That's a very bad idea, given that there are some cloud services have tried to shut down without 24 hours worth of notice.
My work is stored on my own servers, using my own software. And backups are made on a regular basis. If I'm feeling particularly nervous about a piece of work I will store locally also.
Apple seems to be moving more and more toward serving themselves first and foremost.
CD read-only > CR-RW > CD-RW + DVD read-only > CD/DVD-RW (dual layer)
Adding BluRay, even if it's only read and not write, simply adds one more step of functionality to the already existing optical drive. It's not like Apple has to redesign the case to add another drive completely, which WAS the situation back when the floppy was the primary removable drive. An updated DVD-RW + BR-R drive should be a simple drop-in replacement for future machines.
And to those who claim they never use their computer's DVD drives any more: How, exactly, do you expect to install 10.6 when it comes out? Hmm?
I just bought my first copy of Toast Titanium for the purpose of moving programs from my TiVo to our iPhones. It does that very slickly. If its DVD burning tools work well it may be my go-to app for that too, iDVD or no iDVD in the future.
Steve is usually right. As others in the thread have noted, I find myself posting my little projects on the MobileMe gallery rather than burning disks.
And to those who claim they never use their computer's DVD drives any more: How, exactly, do you expect to install 10.6 when it comes out? Hmm?
I hear you, after reading these posts I was beginning to feel like I was the last person in the world who still used his optical drive. Mine gets used pretty regularly, I couldn't imagine not having one in my laptop.
I'll never rent or purchase movies from iTunes until they come out with a subscription plan like Netflix and or remove the DRM from purchased material. I think the prices on iTunes is a bit pricey considering there is no packaging for them to worry about, and although I'm not 100% sure on this but do you get any of the extras included with the downloads?. What if you purchase a bunch of movies from iTunes and something freaky happens in 5 years, and the DRM servers go down?