Most people won't need Blu-ray on a Mac for a few more years.
Only now is dual layer media getting affordable.
Right. And right now the cost of a 25gb disk is about $20. You can buy a terabyte Time Capsule for significantly less per gb. Of course you have to foresake Blu-ray moviesl, but the selection is pretty low anyway.
An Apple TV with a re-writable CD/DVD/BluRay drive would seem like a natural companion to a MacBook Air. That hypothetical combination, in fact, makes me interested in two products that I otherwise would not even consider buying.
No doubt a lot of people would also be interested. But not for the same reason considering that the combination would be about 4 times the price of Apple TV now.
There are other ways (cheaper) to access HD content on computers.
Offline storage sucks.
Do I want to see Macs with Blu-ray? Yes but it certainly isn't something of paramount importance and rankly a $300 drive will likely go over like a lead balloon.
How many HD rental could I purchase with 300 bucks...a LOT.
I'd take a faster Internet connection over BR. BR killed HD-DVD. Now let the Internet kill BR.
You are probably correct and Steve has already said the same thing in effect. I am sure there will be a demand for BTO's but nothing like there would have been a year or so back before all the delays due to the format wars.
knowing apple though the BTO option will be like a 900 upgrade, for instance the Mac book air 64 GB solid state is 999 upgrade option, which is the same price as (2) 32gb ipod touches, (500 each) So hopefully there'll be some more 3rd party products available as a more reasonable rate
But that's ignoring the question of how fast the chips are. The SSD probably uses faster flash chips than the iTouch does. Not all flash chips are created the same, some are fast, some are slow. The slower ones are cheaper than the faster ones.
Right. And right now the cost of a 25gb disk is about $20. You can buy a terabyte Time Capsule for significantly less per gb. Of course you have to foresake Blu-ray moviesl, but the selection is pretty low anyway.
The same goes for iTunes & AppleTV movies too, but in both cases, that should change soon enough.
You all still don't get that a blu-ray drive added to the line is inevitable regardless of all your whinings. These drives should make DVD drives obsolete just as CD drives were before them. Blu-ray drives are now over priced yes by Sony but this will change just as the iPhone was originally overpriced. Sony, Dell, and Panosonic Pcs already have Blu-Ray drives- Apple is simply behind the 8 ball on this feature and should be including it already.
A blu-ray drive is essential for iMovieHD and larger file saving. A disc is much more dependable than a Time capsule. Once you loose that Timecapsule or any other hard drive baby you're basically f*@&'d!
You all still don't get that a blu-ray drive added to the line is inevitable regardless of all your whinings. These drives should make DVD drives obsolete just as CD drives were before them. Blu-ray drives are now over priced yes by Sony but this will change just as the iPhone was originally overpriced. Sony, Dell, and Panosonic Pcs already have Blu-Ray drives- Apple is simply behind the 8 ball on this feature and should be including it already.
They offer some drives, but I think the problem is getting a 9mm thick slot-loading Blu-Ray drive.
Quote:
A blu-ray drive is essential for iMovieHD and larger file saving. A disc is much more dependable than a Time capsule. Once you loose that Timecapsule or any other hard drive baby you're basically f*@&'d!
Removeable optical discs do seem to be a better archival system in many ways, but not so good if you need to access it many times. There are benefits both ways.
Anybody who would be satisfied with a heavily compressed 720p movie when they can get the same thing in full size 1080p form that they can keep forever would pay money for music compressed to 128kbps...oh, yeah, right. They do! P. T. Barnum was right.
Honestly, I listen to Jobs, and read some of these posts, and I just don't know where they get the idea that most people live in the same kind of high-tech dream world they seem to. Downloading a full HD movie on cable internet would take about 10 hours. What kind of connection do they have, and what percentage of people do they think have the same download speed? I know, only a few dinosaurs like me who can remember the kind of fidelity that was entry-level on $100 receivers 30 years ago can "tell the difference" between this 128kbps noise and even the sadly limited CD format. Now we'll be told that "nobody can tell the difference" between Blu-Ray quality 1080p and less-than-cable-quality 720p. "Don't sit too close, and ignore the pixellation and glitches; remember, nobody can tell the difference!" Well, pretty soon, the fossils like me who can will be dead, so have fun!
How many HD rental could I purchase with 300 bucks...a LOT.
Get'em down to $150 and we got a hot seller.
Of course, you'd still need a playback device. Even with the $229 AppleTV, you're down to just $71 worth of HD rentals, at most 17 rentals if you only watch older movies at $3.99. I still prefer to own my movies, and that's not even an option with HD downloads right now; I don't relish having to do pay-per-view for everything I want to watch.
And the biggest flaw I see is that just like the now-finished Blu-Ray - HD DVD war, there are too many what are essentially formats for downloads. Until I can fire up a device and pop between the iTunes Store, Xbox Live Marketplace, Unbox, Vudu, and whatever other video download service crops up in the future, I'm not interested. I'm not interested in being forced to buy both my hardware and media from the same source. I want competition that will spur competitive pricing, not lock me into paying a certain price or never get the media I want. With physical media, I can bargain hunt on dozens of web retailers, numerous brick and mortar retailers, or try to find it used on an auction site or other locations.
This is in response to those who say Blu-Ray is unnecessary. Consumers might not require this feature, but it should definitely be an option for professional video users. I'm in the industry, and 90% of the content we create for our clients is HD video (720p and 1080i currently). Corporate clients already have HD monitors in their boardrooms, and when they're spending thousands of dollars ($30k - $250k) to produce a video, they want the high resolution that Blu-Ray offers to present on their HDTVs as soon as it becomes available. It will be on the Mac Pro towers obviously, but there is a need to have it on the MBP as well, because many freelance video editors use the MBP as their primary workstation. For film work, editors will output their dailies to Blu-Ray for the director to watch at home on their HDTVs.
People claiming to be familiar with the matter had said that Sony is prepared to deliver Blu-ray Combo Drives capable of reading and writing CD media, but not writing Blu-ray DVD media. Apple, however, is said to have only expressed interest in a SuperDrive variant that could also write Blu-ray discs.
Should Apple reach an agreement to offer the Sony drives as part of its Mac platform this year, it's likely to do so only as a build-to-order option. As noted by the Times, most models currently fetch around $399.
Glasgow, however, noted that prices should fall to $299 by this holiday shopping season and to about $200 next year.
Hopefully, Sony and Apple will not kill Blu-Ray or slow down its adoption with unduly high prices.
And it's great to see that Apple selected a full featured Blu-Ray drive, able to save large file libraries, not just a Blu-Ray film decoder. To the average computer user, Blu-Ray is a great storage format, not a film format.
There is a desktop iMac with a Blu-Ray drive waiting for me when the price is right.
This is in response to those who say Blu-Ray is unnecessary. Consumers might not require this feature, but it should definitely be an option for professional video users. I'm in the industry, and 90% of the content we create for our clients is HD video (720p and 1080i currently). Corporate clients already have HD monitors in their boardrooms, and when they're spending thousands of dollars ($30k - $250k) to produce a video, they want the high resolution that Blu-Ray offers to present on their HDTVs as soon as it becomes available. It will be on the Mac Pro towers obviously, but there is a need to have it on the MBP as well, because many freelance video editors use the MBP as their primary workstation. For film work, editors will output their dailies to Blu-Ray for the director to watch at home on their HDTVs.
Right now there isn't a Blu-ray writer that fits the MBP. But you can get an external one. Price, a low $750.
So what is your problem? Certainly if Apple could buy enough in quantity to drop their costs, it would be an option. Unfortunately, the pundits and the current users aren't convinced. Imagine, at the current price of an internal Blu-ray drive just how many would be willing to cough up another $650 for a Mac Pro. Cripes, it is back to the yesteryears when the first CD writers came out, we bought one and shared it with the whole graphic's/multimedia department.
For most of the market, the continued need for a CD/DVD reader/writer is paramount. It would be suicide for Apple to buck the trend at this point and succumb to Sony's proposition as previously outlined. Or if Sony did come through, consider the screaming that would entail to see the starting point on the MBP page at $2500.
Am I mistaken, but my understanding is that there are less than 600 Blu-ray movies currently available?
As an added note, I just called a few contacts of mine at Best Buy, Tiger Direct and Staples to ask them the status of their blank CD and DVD sales. In every case, it has dropped significantly. As one put it, disks sales are inversely proportional to the sale of iPods. Not that one is being replaced by another, but the medium is simply changing.
I personally have cut over 2,000 backup CD's since 2002. Two so far this year. Time Machine, a LaCie T drive and .Mac account has replaced my MATSHITADVD-R superdrive which only gets used now for retrieving older files. Thank heavens for CDFinder.
Comments
Kinda curious how Apple is a "rival" with blue ray?
MS backed HD DVD but Apple was neutral.
I think they meant Apple and Microsoft are rivals of each other in general.
Don't forget the cost of the media.
Most people won't need Blu-ray on a Mac for a few more years.
Only now is dual layer media getting affordable.
Right. And right now the cost of a 25gb disk is about $20. You can buy a terabyte Time Capsule for significantly less per gb. Of course you have to foresake Blu-ray moviesl, but the selection is pretty low anyway.
Kinda curious how Apple is a "rival" with blue ray?
MS backed HD DVD but Apple was neutral.
Cuz that's how it is with the Japs, baby. You're either with them, or you're against them. BONSAI!
I think they meant Apple and Microsoft are rivals of each other in general.
Yeah. Thats how I read it too...
An Apple TV with a re-writable CD/DVD/BluRay drive would seem like a natural companion to a MacBook Air. That hypothetical combination, in fact, makes me interested in two products that I otherwise would not even consider buying.
No doubt a lot of people would also be interested. But not for the same reason considering that the combination would be about 4 times the price of Apple TV now.
Cuz that's how it is with the Japs, baby. You're either with them, or you're against them. BONSAI!
I would suggest that you edit the racist term or you may be banned.
It looks like two guys were done in yesterday. Post like yours fits the bill for such action.
Blu-ray = slow offline storage tech.
There are other ways (cheaper) to access HD content on computers.
Offline storage sucks.
Do I want to see Macs with Blu-ray? Yes but it certainly isn't something of paramount importance and rankly a $300 drive will likely go over like a lead balloon.
How many HD rental could I purchase with 300 bucks...a LOT.
Get'em down to $150 and we got a hot seller.
Kinda curious how Apple is a "rival" with blue ray?
MS backed HD DVD but Apple was neutral.
Actually, Apple is a member of the Blu Ray consortium:
http://www.blu-ray.com/info/
They're listed as manufacturers who got together to develop the technology...
I'd take a faster Internet connection over BR. BR killed HD-DVD. Now let the Internet kill BR.
You are probably correct and Steve has already said the same thing in effect. I am sure there will be a demand for BTO's but nothing like there would have been a year or so back before all the delays due to the format wars.
knowing apple though the BTO option will be like a 900 upgrade, for instance the Mac book air 64 GB solid state is 999 upgrade option, which is the same price as (2) 32gb ipod touches, (500 each) So hopefully there'll be some more 3rd party products available as a more reasonable rate
But that's ignoring the question of how fast the chips are. The SSD probably uses faster flash chips than the iTouch does. Not all flash chips are created the same, some are fast, some are slow. The slower ones are cheaper than the faster ones.
Right. And right now the cost of a 25gb disk is about $20. You can buy a terabyte Time Capsule for significantly less per gb. Of course you have to foresake Blu-ray moviesl, but the selection is pretty low anyway.
The same goes for iTunes & AppleTV movies too, but in both cases, that should change soon enough.
A blu-ray drive is essential for iMovieHD and larger file saving. A disc is much more dependable than a Time capsule. Once you loose that Timecapsule or any other hard drive baby you're basically f*@&'d!
You all still don't get that a blu-ray drive added to the line is inevitable regardless of all your whinings. These drives should make DVD drives obsolete just as CD drives were before them. Blu-ray drives are now over priced yes by Sony but this will change just as the iPhone was originally overpriced. Sony, Dell, and Panosonic Pcs already have Blu-Ray drives- Apple is simply behind the 8 ball on this feature and should be including it already.
They offer some drives, but I think the problem is getting a 9mm thick slot-loading Blu-Ray drive.
A blu-ray drive is essential for iMovieHD and larger file saving. A disc is much more dependable than a Time capsule. Once you loose that Timecapsule or any other hard drive baby you're basically f*@&'d!
Removeable optical discs do seem to be a better archival system in many ways, but not so good if you need to access it many times. There are benefits both ways.
Honestly, I listen to Jobs, and read some of these posts, and I just don't know where they get the idea that most people live in the same kind of high-tech dream world they seem to. Downloading a full HD movie on cable internet would take about 10 hours. What kind of connection do they have, and what percentage of people do they think have the same download speed? I know, only a few dinosaurs like me who can remember the kind of fidelity that was entry-level on $100 receivers 30 years ago can "tell the difference" between this 128kbps noise and even the sadly limited CD format. Now we'll be told that "nobody can tell the difference" between Blu-Ray quality 1080p and less-than-cable-quality 720p. "Don't sit too close, and ignore the pixellation and glitches; remember, nobody can tell the difference!" Well, pretty soon, the fossils like me who can will be dead, so have fun!
How many HD rental could I purchase with 300 bucks...a LOT.
Get'em down to $150 and we got a hot seller.
Of course, you'd still need a playback device. Even with the $229 AppleTV, you're down to just $71 worth of HD rentals, at most 17 rentals if you only watch older movies at $3.99. I still prefer to own my movies, and that's not even an option with HD downloads right now; I don't relish having to do pay-per-view for everything I want to watch.
And the biggest flaw I see is that just like the now-finished Blu-Ray - HD DVD war, there are too many what are essentially formats for downloads. Until I can fire up a device and pop between the iTunes Store, Xbox Live Marketplace, Unbox, Vudu, and whatever other video download service crops up in the future, I'm not interested. I'm not interested in being forced to buy both my hardware and media from the same source. I want competition that will spur competitive pricing, not lock me into paying a certain price or never get the media I want. With physical media, I can bargain hunt on dozens of web retailers, numerous brick and mortar retailers, or try to find it used on an auction site or other locations.
People claiming to be familiar with the matter had said that Sony is prepared to deliver Blu-ray Combo Drives capable of reading and writing CD media, but not writing Blu-ray DVD media. Apple, however, is said to have only expressed interest in a SuperDrive variant that could also write Blu-ray discs.
Should Apple reach an agreement to offer the Sony drives as part of its Mac platform this year, it's likely to do so only as a build-to-order option. As noted by the Times, most models currently fetch around $399.
Glasgow, however, noted that prices should fall to $299 by this holiday shopping season and to about $200 next year.
Hopefully, Sony and Apple will not kill Blu-Ray or slow down its adoption with unduly high prices.
And it's great to see that Apple selected a full featured Blu-Ray drive, able to save large file libraries, not just a Blu-Ray film decoder. To the average computer user, Blu-Ray is a great storage format, not a film format.
There is a desktop iMac with a Blu-Ray drive waiting for me when the price is right.
This is in response to those who say Blu-Ray is unnecessary. Consumers might not require this feature, but it should definitely be an option for professional video users. I'm in the industry, and 90% of the content we create for our clients is HD video (720p and 1080i currently). Corporate clients already have HD monitors in their boardrooms, and when they're spending thousands of dollars ($30k - $250k) to produce a video, they want the high resolution that Blu-Ray offers to present on their HDTVs as soon as it becomes available. It will be on the Mac Pro towers obviously, but there is a need to have it on the MBP as well, because many freelance video editors use the MBP as their primary workstation. For film work, editors will output their dailies to Blu-Ray for the director to watch at home on their HDTVs.
Right now there isn't a Blu-ray writer that fits the MBP. But you can get an external one. Price, a low $750.
So what is your problem? Certainly if Apple could buy enough in quantity to drop their costs, it would be an option. Unfortunately, the pundits and the current users aren't convinced. Imagine, at the current price of an internal Blu-ray drive just how many would be willing to cough up another $650 for a Mac Pro. Cripes, it is back to the yesteryears when the first CD writers came out, we bought one and shared it with the whole graphic's/multimedia department.
For most of the market, the continued need for a CD/DVD reader/writer is paramount. It would be suicide for Apple to buck the trend at this point and succumb to Sony's proposition as previously outlined. Or if Sony did come through, consider the screaming that would entail to see the starting point on the MBP page at $2500.
Am I mistaken, but my understanding is that there are less than 600 Blu-ray movies currently available?
As an added note, I just called a few contacts of mine at Best Buy, Tiger Direct and Staples to ask them the status of their blank CD and DVD sales. In every case, it has dropped significantly. As one put it, disks sales are inversely proportional to the sale of iPods. Not that one is being replaced by another, but the medium is simply changing.
I personally have cut over 2,000 backup CD's since 2002. Two so far this year. Time Machine, a LaCie T drive and .Mac account has replaced my MATSHITADVD-R superdrive which only gets used now for retrieving older files. Thank heavens for CDFinder.
I think they meant Apple and Microsoft are rivals of each other in general.
Agreed. They even mention that Sony is going up against Apple TV.