Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, Multimedia, Video, MacBook Air
Apple and the imminent death of HD DVD
Time is running out for Toshiba and friends; the high definition format wars are So what does that mean for Apple users? Several years ago, Apple latched onto Blu-Ray as a format, but aside from an MCE Blu-Ray drive, we still haven't seen HD media used in any of Apple's products. There have been plenty of rumors (aren't there always?), but whether it's because they want to sell HD content in iTunes or for some other reason, a Blu-Ray drive to replace the SuperDrive hasn't happened yet.
Which leaves us wondering: now that we've seemingly got a winner, will Apple step up with the Blu gear? Of course, the MacBook Air doesn't even have a drive, and we're sure Apple would love to have content distributed only through iTunes and Apple TV. But surely consumers still have a need for physical media -- will Apple now take advantage of its early-advocacy position on Blu-Ray and update the hardware?
Get a WordPress.com Blog
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Peter Zich said 10:28PM on 2-18-2008
Hmm, I'd really like to get either HD DVD or Blu-Ray with my new iMac, ugh, apple...
Reply
Dan S. said 9:49AM on 2-19-2008
A little birdy tells me that you don't want a HD-DVD drive... a little birdy named TOSHIBA.
matthew said 10:28PM on 2-18-2008
I would buy an Apple TV with a built-in Blu-Ray player in a heartbeat, and I bet I'm not the only one....
Reply
Ryan Trevisol said 10:59PM on 2-18-2008
Indeed! Sign me up, holmes!
Yaphi said 9:59AM on 2-19-2008
Yep. I won't buy an AppleTV until it comes with one or until the movies from iTunes are better than 720p. I don't care what Apple says, Netflix for a month (~5 movies) is cheaper and better quality (Blu-ray) than 2 "HD" movies from Apple.
me in nyc said 10:31PM on 2-18-2008
This is ancient technology. There is no way that Apple will include blu-ray into their computers. Apple is a forward-looking company, and any technology that is based in physical media is not forward-looking.
Reply
Fritz Laurel said 10:32PM on 2-18-2008
Bahahahahahahaha
DJCarbon43 said 10:43PM on 2-18-2008
@ Fritz: He's not as crazy as you might think. ;)
While I disagree with him, Apple has been known to do that sort of thing. Floppy drives come to mind as one of the things Apple ditched long before the rest of the industry.
Will Apple completely ignore BR? Probably not, but it's an interesting idea none the less. ^_^
willyboy said 1:00AM on 2-19-2008
I have to agree with NYC here....Physical media, as I have stated in other blogs, is a dead stick....
jus10 said 8:44AM on 2-19-2008
First off, I got ripped to pieces on engadget for saying such things. I'm glad the Mac folks are a little further ahead.
For now, I'm happy renting/buying on the appletv (apple - more movies please!). I can convert my existing DVD library once handbrake 0.9.2 is done. It is hard enough to convert a DVD to m4v. I don't want to bother trying the fight with Bluray. Just give me digital files and I'm happy.
Now if we could just get OS's and software distributed on USB sticks we could get rid of that bulky cdrom completely.
DJCarbon43 said 10:36PM on 2-18-2008
I think we'll be seeing Blu-ray drives in Apple products in 08, without question.
Apple was a fairly early adopter of the Blu-ray spec, and sits on the board as I recall.
What I think has slowed Apple's adoption of the drives is the prohibitively high cost, not of the drives, but of multi-function drives (blu-ray/DVD). That is starting to change, and I would look to definitely see the drives hitting Mac Pros in the next refresh, followed by iMacs and MBPs. Im actually a bit surprised the last refresh (right before Macworld) didn't have em.
Reply
me in nyc said 10:38PM on 2-18-2008
case in point - the Macbook Air.
Reply
me in nyc said 10:40PM on 2-18-2008
Why would they include them? It would completely go against everything they are working towards with regards to the Apple TV. Makes no sense whatsoever to include them.
Reply
Rob said 11:36PM on 2-18-2008
Just because the regular joe doesn't have a need there are true professional video editors that need BR. I shot video for corporations and the major need is to loop video on those brand new HDTV's. Now Apple TV doesn't loop video so that leaves me with DVD's, it be nice to give them a BR Disc to loop that sweet HD content I just provided.
Come On Apple, Remember the Pros?
Crescent Fresh said 11:45PM on 2-18-2008
Ancient technology? Gotta disagree there. Bottom line, no one media type rules right now and that will likely remain the case until flash media (or some other variety of solid-state) can go WAY up in capacity and WAY down in price. HD content on iTunes simply cannot compare to Bluray in terms of bit rate (thus quality). There are many side by side comparisons out there. Bluray simply kills other formats (be they iTunes, DirecTV or other on-demand services such as cable boxes).
Furthermore, not everyone wants to keep all of their content on their computer (not until hundreds of terabytes of storage with redundancy is practical for consumers, figuring 50 GB per "true HD" movie.) Its not just a matter of storage but also bandwidth. Optical media such as this will not die until every household has a Gigabit Fibre Channel running to it. Also storage capacity? See press release below.
"TDK announced in August 2006 that they have created a working experimental Blu-ray Disc capable of holding 200 GB of data on a single side, using six 33 GB data layers" -TDK 2006
Sorry, I see a huge demand for that kind of capacity on one optical disc for the foreseeable future.
Eventually...sure, optical media will likely go the way of the dodo, but even then people will likely want some means of transporting data on a "dumb" device. Citing MacBook Air as your arguement, clearly a niche product that does not indicate all trends of the entire industry, certainly not HD movie distribution (please, 80GB drive? I can't even fit all of my music on that, let alone HD movies.)
Sorry for the long rant and I'm not trying to be smug, but when people make brazen comments like "This is ancient technology. There is no way that Apple will include blu-ray into their computers.", it just begs to be slapped down. Apple may not end up putting Blu-Ray in their machines, but it would be a mistake.
http://thetravisty.com/Just_Funny/wmv/South_Park_-_You_Got_Served.htm
Jim Crawford said 10:47PM on 2-18-2008
Umm... jury is still out on the authoring rig of the future for HD content. Personally, I think it's a crime that I can use my Macbook Pro to author HD content, but then can ONLY distribute those files in H.264 electronic format. I'm all for electronic distribution, but Apple is missing a trick by not putting Blu-Ray WRITE drives in its lineup. iMovie HD (the '06 version, not the craptacular '08 version) was sweet for editing, but the output sucked unless you wanted to make an SD DVD. If Apple made it that easy to author Blu-Ray discs, the world would take some serious notice.
Reply
Seth A said 10:45PM on 2-18-2008
I'm guessing Apple is ready to throw an HDM drive in all their machines, they just want to avoid the mistake of putting the wrong one in. For their consumers and support reasons. Now that Blu has unfortunately all but won, I am an early HD-DVD adopter, I think we will see Apple jumping off the fence very soon.
Reply
icruise said 10:51PM on 2-18-2008
There's more to BR than movies. I know I would like to be able to burn 30+GB of data at a time. Besides, not everyone in the world can use iTunes for movie downloads, and not everyone in the US (myself included) wants to do so. I would hope they would recognize that.
Reply
Francesco Caporusso said 10:52PM on 2-18-2008
As someone who works in film/video I would love to be able to buy a MacPro with a Blu-ray drive built in so I could burn Blu-ray discs. Although the future may be all internet-based, we're still not there. Also, it would be awesome to be able burn 50Gig discs as back-ups.
Reply
Alex said 10:55PM on 2-18-2008
Consumer end, I can't say. Yes, Apple is forward thinking, but they're not stupid enough to alienate their pro's - and high end video produces/editors/ or what not are sure to put the pressure on Apple to at least include Bluray support in the Mac Pro's sometime soon.
Reply