somewhat off-topic, but not totally...I've never seen a Blu-ray movie played on a computer, but I just can't imagine it being so much better than a standard DVD. So many people complain about Apple's lack of Blu-ray support (esp in their notebooks). However, people who have Blu-ray right now are clearly videophiles who probably don't do the majority of their movie-watching on computers. So then, what's the big deal? I wouldn't be surprised if Apple NEVER adopts blu-ray as a standard feature. By the time it becomes mainstream enough, DVD sales will be dropping off considerably more than they already are. Online distribution is clearly the future.
There is so much HD media available to try that you don't have to imagine, you can try it out without having to just blindly speculate.
Downloads may be the future, but on a 1.5Mb down on my connection (which is a fantasy figure, with congestion and other users, can be quite a bit lower real rate at a given moment), it's just not worth clogging the pipe to watch a movie. Maybe if Apple can offer a way to schedule a download during the idle of night so there's no chance of interfering with day & evening use.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hmurchison
I have a 32" HDTV and I can see the difference between a good DVD and a HD version of the movie but it's not really that easy.
I own The Unforgiven 2-disc DVD and the HD DVD version and the difference is pretty small.
I have a hard time thinking that it's even a good idea to have an Blue Laser optical drive playing movies on a laptop that has a 17" screen at best.
Keep in mind that it's not about absolute screen size, it's also about field of view. 32" in a standard living room setting is actually pretty small for an HDTV because of how far away people tend to sit from a set. A notebook computer at arm's length is in many cases considerably bigger in terms of field of view.
Downloads may be the future, but on a 1.5Mb down on my connection (which is a fantasy figure, with congestion and other users, can be quite a bit lower real rate at a given moment), it's just not worth clogging the pipe to watch a movie. Maybe if Apple can offer a way to schedule a download during the idle of night so there's no chance of interfering with day & evening use.
Is that with cable or DSL? That seems low for either one of these in 2008, unless you are sat or rural.
PS: I just tested my 3G card with AT&T. Anecdotally speaking, I think they have already upped the throughput in many areas as I have noticeable speed increases in many areas of the country. As of a test I just did, I have 2.97Mbps down and 1.23Mbps up with a 74ms ping. (test)
Is that with cable or DSL? That seems low for either one of these in 2008, unless you are sat or rural.
PS: I just tested my 3G card with AT&T. Anecdotally speaking, I think they have already upped the throughput in many areas as I have noticeable speed increases in many areas of the country. As of a test I just did, I have 2.97Mbps down and 1.23Mbps up with a 74ms ping. (test)
DSL. I also have fixed installation terrestrial (not sat) wireless internet service using Canopy equipment, but there is no good way to "bond" the connections together for speed. AT&T doesn't offer 3G here, I don't know about Sprint or Verizon. AT&T wouldn't work well with movies anyway if they decide to take their 5GB cap seriously.
It is somewhat rural, but the thing is, I'm only a mile outside the borders of a nearby town. I'm just too far away and the wiring to the CO is a bit too dodgy for 3Mbps.
DSL. I also have fixed installation terrestrial (not sat) wireless internet service using Canopy equipment, but there is no good way to "bond" the connections together for speed. AT&T doesn't offer 3G here, I don't know about Sprint or Verizon. AT&T wouldn't work well with movies anyway if they decide to take their 5GB cap seriously.
It is somewhat rural, but the thing is, I'm only a mile outside the borders of a nearby town. I'm just too far away and the wiring to the CO is a bit too dodgy for 3Mbps.
I have a bunch of Cisco experience that won't help you without the proper HW or you can build a Unix box that does it. I have a feeling that you have plenty of better things to do.
Is that with cable or DSL? That seems low for either one of these in 2008, unless you are sat or rural.
I have DSL and pay a pretty penny for premium service through Speakeasy (and Covad), yet I still get slightly less than 1.5mb down and pay over $63 for it.
I've been thinking about switching to Comcast, but I keep reading about bandwidth throttling, shaping, and all sorts of other things that get in the way of 'proper' Internet usage Still, with all the online video I seem to be doing, it would be nice to not have to kick off a download the day before I want to watch a show...
somewhat off-topic, but not totally...I've never seen a Blu-ray movie played on a computer, but I just can't imagine it being so much better than a standard DVD. So many people complain about Apple's lack of Blu-ray support (esp in their notebooks). However, people who have Blu-ray right now are clearly videophiles who probably don't do the majority of their movie-watching on computers. So then, what's the big deal? I wouldn't be surprised if Apple NEVER adopts blu-ray as a standard feature. By the time it becomes mainstream enough, DVD sales will be dropping off considerably more than they already are. Online distribution is clearly the future.
For many people, you're probably right in that they don't care about not having Blu-ray (vs DVD) when watching video on a small laptop screen, particularly with 24fps movies. I do have to say though that high definition video looks great on my 17" laptop.
That said, I'm sure some people would like the ability to use their laptop with HDMI adapter as a blu-ray player, particularly since a lot of households and many hotels now have HDTVs.
And others, I would imagine, are more interested in having a Blu-ray drive for backing up movies, burning home video or professional projects to disc, distributing or backing up large files, etc.
Is that with cable or DSL? That seems low for either one of these in 2008, unless you are sat or rural.
PS: I just tested my 3G card with AT&T. Anecdotally speaking, I think they have already upped the throughput in many areas as I have noticeable speed increases in many areas of the country. As of a test I just did, I have 2.97Mbps down and 1.23Mbps up with a 74ms ping. (test)
I have 1.5 Mbps DSL from AT&T for $25. Not rural, just don't feel like paying more. I guess that is why I've never been a fan of downloading movies.
Yes though I was an HD DVD proponent I will openly admit that there is palpable frustration not just from Apple but also from smaller video producers that want to deliver HD content on Blu-ray. The license fee restructure was nice and more work needs to be done so that the needs of the smaller video producer are taken care of.
Though Apple shouldn't be smug about Blu-ray. iTunes is a rousing succes for music but Apple's done bupkiss to help the smaller indie producers who need to give their clients playable HD content and Apple's been suckling from the major distributor teet almost exclusively.
Blu-Ray licensing is still quite restricting/cost-prohibitive for indie and smaller producers/distributors. The process is overly complicated and even a slight change requires purchasing a new key (c.US$1200)... not to mention US$3k straight up for each distributor/producer to register with the B-R Association.
Blu-Ray licensing is still quite restricting/cost-prohibitive for indie and smaller producers/distributors. The process is overly complicated and even a slight change requires purchasing a new key (c.US$1200)... not to mention US$3k straight up for each distributor/producer to register with the B-R Association.
I've seen similar numbers, though as of NAB, I don't think they've gotten below $3500 to register the business and $1300 per disc. It's not pretty, and I wish that the BDA had been smarter about those requirements, it might have just been a way to try to make it very hard to press pirated media to BD, because all pressed discs had to have a valid AACS key.
With HD DVD, as long as you didn't want to use internet services with the disc, you didn't have to mess with AACS to have a pressed disc run, though that means you're shipping a completely unencrypted disc.
I don't know why I'm surprised at this angry petulant response, but thanks for the reference anyway.
If you have the time to go back and actually read what I said, you will find that I never said the iPod Hi-Fi was "great" or anything of the sort. What I said was the quality of sound it produced was equal to, or better than, the typical home stereo of the time, which it most certainly was.
Products fail for many reasons and the iPod Hi-Fi had many things wrong with it from a design point of view. However, the fact that the audio quality was what I said it was, and that Apple and Jobs' marketing position (that this device could "replace your home stereo"), were reasonable and accurate statements are unassailably, ... true.
Moreover, Jobs strikes me as an aesthete before he's an audiophile. I'm sure he was pleased by the idea of a simple, small, self contained and portable music system. There are legendary stories of him living in his big house with no furniture and eating his vegetarian meals by candlelight.
I don't have any trouble at all believing he ditched his stereo in favor of an iPod Hi-Fi. The sound quality was perfectly fine, if not particularly "high end", and, after all, he's the guy who approved it for manufacture, so it was literally tailor made for his tastes.
As far as it being horrible because it had "thumpy bass", that's a charge that could be leveled at sound systems costing ten times as much.
I'm doing the same thing and I'm up to about 50 movies. It's a daunting task, esp with my *lowly* 1.83ghz MB lol...we'll see how much more I feel like doing this.
It's not just the resolution that makes blu-ray better than DVD. They also have way more bitrate than anything downloadable, and more colour depth. It's very obvious to anyone that compares the two side by side. The colours are what make the most difference to me.
With HD DVD, as long as you didn't want to use internet services with the disc, you didn't have to mess with AACS to have a pressed disc run, though that means you're shipping a completely unencrypted disc.
yes, we were hoping for HD-DVD to either win out or at least run alongside B-R because it was a vastly simpler (and cheaper) system to author and replicate for. ah well.
I really don't think you want to do that. I can't imagine how long it will take to back up 50GB of data to an optical drive. After years with computers, I find it really unpractical to do that and it is much easier, safer, and sometimes cheaper to back up to either an external or secondary internal HDD. For me, Time Capsule solved all my archiving and backup problems.
The Drobo has worked really well for me. You have to pony up some cash cause its not cheap but it's been well worth it. I just don't have the time or patience to back up to a optical drive even if its a 50 gb br disk. Plus I have peace of mind.(priceless)
Gracenote video is for DVD only maybe...BR would cannibalize apples HD iTunes effort, I seriously doubt they will be offering even a BTO option any time soon, especially not in any of the mobile platforms. Maybe in the MacPro, but not in the consumer products for sure. Just because you find a string in a binary is really a lame excuse to start these rumor threads. Where's the news? \
You all are missing the point. Blu ray discs offer up to 50GB of storage, versus the 4-5GB of a standard, single sided DVD.
Put a Super Duper Drive that can write Blu ray discs and you made archiving and storage a lot easier.
It's not just about watching movies. If it were, you can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080i on a screen smaller than 30 inches.
At $40 for 1 BD-R I hardly call that a viable archiving solution. Buy a freakin' 64GB usb stick if you really need that much, you could probably get one for $120 and use it forever. Hell you could probably find 50GB of free storage online. There's a reason Apple doesn't have these drives, and if you really need the archiving you can buy an external one, and we don't all have to help pay for the licensing.
At $40 for 1 BD-R I hardly call that a viable archiving solution. Buy a freakin' 64GB usb stick if you really need that much, you could probably get one for $120 and use it forever. Hell you could probably find 50GB of free storage online. There's a reason Apple doesn't have these drives, and if you really need the archiving you can buy an external one, and we don't all have to help pay for the licensing.
Newegg sells the Single 50GB Verbatim BD-R for $21.99.
That makes it $260 for one 1 TB, still more expensive than a hard drive (and much less convenient).
Slower to read and write. Can't be written to again. It's not uncommon to have write errors if they are for data which means they have to be scrapped. And that doesn't include the burner cost or the fact that this can't be done while using battery effectively on notebooks. The only thing it has going for it is being resistant to EMPs.
Gracenote video is for DVD only maybe...BR would cannibalize apples HD iTunes effort, I seriously doubt they will be offering even a BTO option any time soon, especially not in any of the mobile platforms.
It's disconcerting to me how many no-brainer multimedia features Apple's products are lacking due to their position as a content salesman. We as Mac and Apple product users are suffering because of it.
Comments
somewhat off-topic, but not totally...I've never seen a Blu-ray movie played on a computer, but I just can't imagine it being so much better than a standard DVD. So many people complain about Apple's lack of Blu-ray support (esp in their notebooks). However, people who have Blu-ray right now are clearly videophiles who probably don't do the majority of their movie-watching on computers. So then, what's the big deal? I wouldn't be surprised if Apple NEVER adopts blu-ray as a standard feature. By the time it becomes mainstream enough, DVD sales will be dropping off considerably more than they already are. Online distribution is clearly the future.
There is so much HD media available to try that you don't have to imagine, you can try it out without having to just blindly speculate.
Downloads may be the future, but on a 1.5Mb down on my connection (which is a fantasy figure, with congestion and other users, can be quite a bit lower real rate at a given moment), it's just not worth clogging the pipe to watch a movie. Maybe if Apple can offer a way to schedule a download during the idle of night so there's no chance of interfering with day & evening use.
I have a 32" HDTV and I can see the difference between a good DVD and a HD version of the movie but it's not really that easy.
I own The Unforgiven 2-disc DVD and the HD DVD version and the difference is pretty small.
I have a hard time thinking that it's even a good idea to have an Blue Laser optical drive playing movies on a laptop that has a 17" screen at best.
Keep in mind that it's not about absolute screen size, it's also about field of view. 32" in a standard living room setting is actually pretty small for an HDTV because of how far away people tend to sit from a set. A notebook computer at arm's length is in many cases considerably bigger in terms of field of view.
Downloads may be the future, but on a 1.5Mb down on my connection (which is a fantasy figure, with congestion and other users, can be quite a bit lower real rate at a given moment), it's just not worth clogging the pipe to watch a movie. Maybe if Apple can offer a way to schedule a download during the idle of night so there's no chance of interfering with day & evening use.
Is that with cable or DSL? That seems low for either one of these in 2008, unless you are sat or rural.
PS: I just tested my 3G card with AT&T. Anecdotally speaking, I think they have already upped the throughput in many areas as I have noticeable speed increases in many areas of the country. As of a test I just did, I have 2.97Mbps down and 1.23Mbps up with a 74ms ping. (test)
Is that with cable or DSL? That seems low for either one of these in 2008, unless you are sat or rural.
PS: I just tested my 3G card with AT&T. Anecdotally speaking, I think they have already upped the throughput in many areas as I have noticeable speed increases in many areas of the country. As of a test I just did, I have 2.97Mbps down and 1.23Mbps up with a 74ms ping. (test)
DSL. I also have fixed installation terrestrial (not sat) wireless internet service using Canopy equipment, but there is no good way to "bond" the connections together for speed. AT&T doesn't offer 3G here, I don't know about Sprint or Verizon. AT&T wouldn't work well with movies anyway if they decide to take their 5GB cap seriously.
It is somewhat rural, but the thing is, I'm only a mile outside the borders of a nearby town. I'm just too far away and the wiring to the CO is a bit too dodgy for 3Mbps.
DSL. I also have fixed installation terrestrial (not sat) wireless internet service using Canopy equipment, but there is no good way to "bond" the connections together for speed. AT&T doesn't offer 3G here, I don't know about Sprint or Verizon. AT&T wouldn't work well with movies anyway if they decide to take their 5GB cap seriously.
It is somewhat rural, but the thing is, I'm only a mile outside the borders of a nearby town. I'm just too far away and the wiring to the CO is a bit too dodgy for 3Mbps.
I have a bunch of Cisco experience that won't help you without the proper HW or you can build a Unix box that does it. I have a feeling that you have plenty of better things to do.
Is that with cable or DSL? That seems low for either one of these in 2008, unless you are sat or rural.
I have DSL and pay a pretty penny for premium service through Speakeasy (and Covad), yet I still get slightly less than 1.5mb down and pay over $63 for it.
I've been thinking about switching to Comcast, but I keep reading about bandwidth throttling, shaping, and all sorts of other things that get in the way of 'proper' Internet usage
somewhat off-topic, but not totally...I've never seen a Blu-ray movie played on a computer, but I just can't imagine it being so much better than a standard DVD. So many people complain about Apple's lack of Blu-ray support (esp in their notebooks). However, people who have Blu-ray right now are clearly videophiles who probably don't do the majority of their movie-watching on computers. So then, what's the big deal? I wouldn't be surprised if Apple NEVER adopts blu-ray as a standard feature. By the time it becomes mainstream enough, DVD sales will be dropping off considerably more than they already are. Online distribution is clearly the future.
For many people, you're probably right in that they don't care about not having Blu-ray (vs DVD) when watching video on a small laptop screen, particularly with 24fps movies. I do have to say though that high definition video looks great on my 17" laptop.
That said, I'm sure some people would like the ability to use their laptop with HDMI adapter as a blu-ray player, particularly since a lot of households and many hotels now have HDTVs.
And others, I would imagine, are more interested in having a Blu-ray drive for backing up movies, burning home video or professional projects to disc, distributing or backing up large files, etc.
Is that with cable or DSL? That seems low for either one of these in 2008, unless you are sat or rural.
PS: I just tested my 3G card with AT&T. Anecdotally speaking, I think they have already upped the throughput in many areas as I have noticeable speed increases in many areas of the country. As of a test I just did, I have 2.97Mbps down and 1.23Mbps up with a 74ms ping. (test)
I have 1.5 Mbps DSL from AT&T for $25. Not rural, just don't feel like paying more. I guess that is why I've never been a fan of downloading movies.
Yes though I was an HD DVD proponent I will openly admit that there is palpable frustration not just from Apple but also from smaller video producers that want to deliver HD content on Blu-ray. The license fee restructure was nice and more work needs to be done so that the needs of the smaller video producer are taken care of.
Though Apple shouldn't be smug about Blu-ray. iTunes is a rousing succes for music but Apple's done bupkiss to help the smaller indie producers who need to give their clients playable HD content and Apple's been suckling from the major distributor teet almost exclusively.
Blu-Ray licensing is still quite restricting/cost-prohibitive for indie and smaller producers/distributors. The process is overly complicated and even a slight change requires purchasing a new key (c.US$1200)... not to mention US$3k straight up for each distributor/producer to register with the B-R Association.
Blu-Ray licensing is still quite restricting/cost-prohibitive for indie and smaller producers/distributors. The process is overly complicated and even a slight change requires purchasing a new key (c.US$1200)... not to mention US$3k straight up for each distributor/producer to register with the B-R Association.
I've seen similar numbers, though as of NAB, I don't think they've gotten below $3500 to register the business and $1300 per disc. It's not pretty, and I wish that the BDA had been smarter about those requirements, it might have just been a way to try to make it very hard to press pirated media to BD, because all pressed discs had to have a valid AACS key.
With HD DVD, as long as you didn't want to use internet services with the disc, you didn't have to mess with AACS to have a pressed disc run, though that means you're shipping a completely unencrypted disc.
I don't know why I'm surprised at this angry petulant response, but thanks for the reference anyway.
If you have the time to go back and actually read what I said, you will find that I never said the iPod Hi-Fi was "great" or anything of the sort. What I said was the quality of sound it produced was equal to, or better than, the typical home stereo of the time, which it most certainly was.
Products fail for many reasons and the iPod Hi-Fi had many things wrong with it from a design point of view. However, the fact that the audio quality was what I said it was, and that Apple and Jobs' marketing position (that this device could "replace your home stereo"), were reasonable and accurate statements are unassailably, ... true.
Moreover, Jobs strikes me as an aesthete before he's an audiophile. I'm sure he was pleased by the idea of a simple, small, self contained and portable music system. There are legendary stories of him living in his big house with no furniture and eating his vegetarian meals by candlelight.
I don't have any trouble at all believing he ditched his stereo in favor of an iPod Hi-Fi. The sound quality was perfectly fine, if not particularly "high end", and, after all, he's the guy who approved it for manufacture, so it was literally tailor made for his tastes.
As far as it being horrible because it had "thumpy bass", that's a charge that could be leveled at sound systems costing ten times as much.
I'm doing the same thing and I'm up to about 50 movies. It's a daunting task, esp with my *lowly* 1.83ghz MB lol...we'll see how much more I feel like doing this.
I've been using a Powerbook and MBA.
I have to take multi-week breaks
With HD DVD, as long as you didn't want to use internet services with the disc, you didn't have to mess with AACS to have a pressed disc run, though that means you're shipping a completely unencrypted disc.
yes, we were hoping for HD-DVD to either win out or at least run alongside B-R because it was a vastly simpler (and cheaper) system to author and replicate for. ah well.
I really don't think you want to do that. I can't imagine how long it will take to back up 50GB of data to an optical drive. After years with computers, I find it really unpractical to do that and it is much easier, safer, and sometimes cheaper to back up to either an external or secondary internal HDD. For me, Time Capsule solved all my archiving and backup problems.
The Drobo has worked really well for me. You have to pony up some cash cause its not cheap but it's been well worth it. I just don't have the time or patience to back up to a optical drive even if its a 50 gb br disk. Plus I have peace of mind.(priceless)
You all are missing the point. Blu ray discs offer up to 50GB of storage, versus the 4-5GB of a standard, single sided DVD.
Put a Super Duper Drive that can write Blu ray discs and you made archiving and storage a lot easier.
It's not just about watching movies. If it were, you can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080i on a screen smaller than 30 inches.
At $40 for 1 BD-R I hardly call that a viable archiving solution. Buy a freakin' 64GB usb stick if you really need that much, you could probably get one for $120 and use it forever. Hell you could probably find 50GB of free storage online. There's a reason Apple doesn't have these drives, and if you really need the archiving you can buy an external one, and we don't all have to help pay for the licensing.
At $40 for 1 BD-R I hardly call that a viable archiving solution. Buy a freakin' 64GB usb stick if you really need that much, you could probably get one for $120 and use it forever. Hell you could probably find 50GB of free storage online. There's a reason Apple doesn't have these drives, and if you really need the archiving you can buy an external one, and we don't all have to help pay for the licensing.
Newegg sells the Single 50GB Verbatim BD-R for $21.99.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817130051
The 10-pack 25GB Verbatim BD-R for $64.99.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817130047
Newegg sells the Single 50GB Verbatim BD-R for $21.99.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817130051
The 10-pack 25GB Verbatim BD-R for $64.99.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817130047
That makes it $260 for one 1 TB, still more expensive than a hard drive (and much less convenient).
That makes it $260 for one 1 TB, still more expensive than a hard drive (and much less convenient).
Slower to read and write. Can't be written to again. It's not uncommon to have write errors if they are for data which means they have to be scrapped. And that doesn't include the burner cost or the fact that this can't be done while using battery effectively on notebooks. The only thing it has going for it is being resistant to EMPs.
Gracenote video is for DVD only maybe...BR would cannibalize apples HD iTunes effort, I seriously doubt they will be offering even a BTO option any time soon, especially not in any of the mobile platforms.
It's disconcerting to me how many no-brainer multimedia features Apple's products are lacking due to their position as a content salesman. We as Mac and Apple product users are suffering because of it.