A big bag of Blu-Ray hurt for Apple

the only problem with only having digital versions of films is that they don't come packed with the features that a DVD or a Blu-ray disc would.
true movie fans buy it as much for the features as they do for the film... if not more so at times.

Your answered solved

http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/10/16/amex.intros.blu.ray.burner/

Who in their right mind would believe Steve Job's is going to give a truthful answer about Blu-ray? That's like looking at a McCain press release to find out the truth about Obama. Its all just spin.

Of course Apple is going to pretend Blu-ray is unimportant. They have a little digital downloads empire to prop up. And even though I have an Apple TV and Blu-ray player there is no way in hell I would buy any drm-crippled, ultra slow downloading HD content from Apple. Rent? Maybe. Buy? No way.

I think Apple's increasing reliance on iTunes could eventually lead to their undoing. Just like Sony discovered when they took on Columbia records internal conflicts of interest can bring down a once innovative company. You can't innovate when your arm and the leg are in conflict.

What about us creative professionals who need to offer clients a way to play the HD content we're trying to create for them? My clients want HD in their trade show booths, at their annual meetings, kiosks and to deliver to prospects. The current answer - author a Blu-Ray disc using Adobe products.

I think that not including Blu-ray as standard on Macs is, for now, the right decision.

But give support for Blu-ray on the Mac OSX and even, eventually, have Blu-ray drives (both external and/or internal) as a BTO option is something I don't understand...

In what would Apple be hurt by giving that option for his costumers?

The SACD comparison is very accurate.

SACD failed because it did not offer what people need.
Audio quality was good enough. What people needed was a better way of managing and carrying a library of audio. MP3 was a grass-roots movement, only later adopted by Apple and the iPod.

The exact same thing is happening with video.

I simply do not want to have to go find a disk, open the sleeve and put it into a player, then navigate a bunch of stupid menus - just to watch a movie.

Movies and TV shows are simply more convenient as files.

The very idea of a physical disk belongs in the last century. And I think Sony is starting to realize that.

C.

Maybe apple should go around hdcp in OS.
Just add bd drive to laptop or sell external one and put hdmi output to it.
Then add hdmi input to standalone & computers' displays.
In laptops this cabling could be internal.
It would be also very nice to be able to use iMac's screen with stb/bd-player/ps3...

its not just the blu ray movies dude.. if your working on audio / video gone are the days where a project can be backed up on 1 or 2 dvd's.. we all need a larger storage format for it to be any use.

Apple have got 2 options, include blu-ray or include an esata port

Space truly is the final frontier & without it, we all end up with more hard drives then computers, growing steadily until you need another & another & another.. i myself have 11tb in use.. Blu ray really gives me an option outside of a physical hard drive.

briefly on the subject of movies.. I download hd movies from itunes, but man come on, it doesn't come close to the quality of a blu ray playing from a ps3 to a 50% plasma..full HD = 1080p 60 frames a second, what apple offer as a HD download is not even close, no option for Dolby true HD audio, DTS master audio, nothing above 1982 pro logic & low level 5.1, this is like the dolby surround sound issue all over again.

With those new graphic chips in the laptops, it stands to reason that we will see an updated Tower come january 09, i myself & holding out for this one & genuinely hope it includes blu-ray & esata ports built in. they are fast becoming essential to many of our media production needs & are already a standard on many media applications as the only physical option for users to share HD.

MM

I have a few points to make here.

1) I'm not really sure of your internet speeds/bandwidth etc. etc. in the US, but over here in Australia, we have something called a limit. Yes, that's right, many internet plans prohibit you from downloading excessive amounts of data. My internet plan (for example), lets me download 12GB of data before it's choked back to 64kbps. Therefore, it's simply not feasible to buy a movie on iTunes or whatever and then download it.

2) Blu-Ray isn't *just* for movies. I know everyone's heard it before, but there you go; I would love to be able to pop a blank BD-R or BD-RE into my MacBook Pro's disc drive and burn off a backup of my data overnight. Simple and easy to store offsite.

3) What about prosumers? My family and I are travelling around next year, and we would love to be able to record it with an HD camcorder to play back on our HDTV, but hark, what's that? I can edit my footage in HD with FCE 4, but can't burn it at full quality onto Blu Ray? Hmmmm...

P.S. Don't give me that crap about "prohibitive prices for 1 disc", I don't really give a damn.

For me it's not about watching movies it's about data storeage. I think that Blue Ray is coming no matter what and sooner or later when the XBox supports Blue Ray then Apple will have to move or be left behind.

I don't want to buy a new laptop now knowing that if and when someone makes a small enough Blue Ray drive for a Mac Book Pro then I'll need to buy another new laptop I can't fit it myself to my current hardware.

As for iTunes HD , come on it's pants right now. I'm on 24Meg download and they start streaming really quick but the quality is just not there. At least maybe give me to option of 720 a 1080 download.