Comments on: Rumor: Blu-ray drives coming to Macs

By: Larry

Larry — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 21:45:46 +0000

Ever since this article was written over an year ago it has become very clear that Blu-ray is the successor of DVD technology.

A lot of people, including myself, are eagerly waiting to be able to burn their HD video clips in Full HD resolution. It’s nowadays kinda dumb to purchase a HD camcorder only to burn the clips on Standard Definition DVD, don’t you think?

Streaming and storing 50GB home movies is not realistic in the near future even in the US and Europe, let alone in the rest of the World.

Even with Apple’s ambitious streaming strategies, there’s an acute, fast growing need for Blu-ray drives in new Macs. I want mine yesterday.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:29:33 +0000

Look at the numbers currently

Apple tv offers HD rentals only 720p you dont own anything.

Blu-ray 1080p, extras, 50G of burnable storage, You own the disc.

For me I want a blu-ray drive. I have a 50 inch hdtv the larger the tv the more the resolution becomes noticeable. I dont want to buy multiple copies of movies one for my laptop when I travel and one for my home theatre. With the amount of work I do burning 50 Gig to a compact and fileable format really appeals to me. Now lets not forget those who like to create their own home videos. They may want a way to distribute without buying massive servers and expensive business end bandwidth to handle the hd download content. Yes there is alot more to this format.

Until there is a 1080 download that isn’t a rental there is no competition. The thing that is blocking this technology right now is bandwidth.

By: Lord J. Sutch

Lord J. Sutch — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:40:59 +0000

Jeff has a habit of lashing out at Mac users as can be seen on the bbc website following his completely inaccurate, irrelevant and insulting comments which basically state that Mac users have no right.

An opinion has been formed by many readers of those technology pages and the concensus is that Jeff has very little value to add to the world.

Please check out the article on Mac viruses on the BBC news technology pages, it is very entertaining and underlines the fact that Jeff is a bit of a spaz

By: Anonymous coward

Anonymous coward — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:55:04 +0000

Jeff Dyer – you are clearly a complete cunt. Well done.

By: Alex

Alex — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 19:45:12 +0000

Yes, it’s stupid to suggest Apple will not have Blu Ray drives just because you can download your media. It’s not just to watch movies on a computer, but for people who have either HDV or AVCHD high def camcorders and want to make their own Blu Ray movies from iMovie, or enthusiests/students wanting a little bit extra using Final Cut Express HD, or the full Final Cut Studio, compatible with HDCAM/SR, XDCAM HD, XDCAM-EX and would like to make a blu-ray master for themselves, their family and friends, and / or clients. We need Blu Ray macs right now. I get sick of reading people say that movies will only be downloads in the future.

By: Merv Dogeffer

Merv Dogeffer — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:02:37 +0000

Are you a fuckin wet twat Peter?

What do you think about the Apple – Pro relationship with FCP / DVDSP etc. Are people not shooting their own HD content that want a delivery & storage solution – is this not Blu-Ray? You can go and whack off to your “downloadable content” but I believe your point is fucked from the start.

lick my balls and sniff my butt,

Merv

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 02:43:08 +0000

I think you’re missing the point. I would love to have 50GB backup options on my laptop. I transfer HUGE files all the time, I need the ability to dump data to a disc that I could drop in the mail. 8GB discs aren’t big enough so I end up transferring harddrives which are extremely vulnerable.

By: Radha

Radha — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 01:39:07 +0000

I have 20 Blu-Ray movies that’s mmmm ……1000 GB?? right there. So .. do the math fools.

I am sure my library will go beyond 20 Movies.

So unless a new more advanced storage device comes in the next 2 years forget about HD downloads for at least 5 years.

Please people be reazonable !!!

By: Waiting for Refresh

Waiting for Refresh — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 01:37:59 +0000

Hmmm… “…Physical media is dead or will be very soon.” Wow, what a visionary!Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, not to mention all of the major movie studios AND independents will be very surprised to hear this! Until the “video-on-demand” delivery services are capable of delivering video-on-demand-on-a-reloadable wafer of eeprom I do believe I must call bullshit on this…Pete, do let us know how we can access that gigabit fiber you have been smoking…

By: dc

dc — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 00:57:35 +0000

Oh gawd, you people are such idiots. I’m not, and NOONE is going to “buy” an “HD” movie for 10$ that’s a 720p super compressed download with no extras!!! WE DON’T WANT IT!

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 00:54:13 +0000

Have we all forgotten the whole unresolved “net neutrality” issue? Do you really think that your cable and telephone company will allow entire neighborhoods to start taxing their infrastructure with 50gb downloads and not demand a piece of the action? Especially your cable company, as your streaming downloads cuts directly into their revenue stream.
And yes, as high-def camcorders start to drop in price, and more people purchase high-def tv’s, that 50gb in storage isn’t going to seem like much after all. I can remember when none of us could imagine what we were going to do with a whole gig’s worth of disk space!
Barring some sort of revolutionary new tech, physical media is going to be around for quite a while. And even if Apple doesn’t install blu-ray into their new systems, many mac owners will simply purchase an internal blu ray drive (once the prices drop a little) and swap out the stock drives. I’ve done it with just about every Mac i’ve owned since the 7600.

By: Cyberdog

Cyberdog — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 20:46:59 +0000

BD is not only a playback media, it is also a recording media. Surely Mac users can benefit from vastly expanded backup capacity. Mac users may choose download over BD, but is it really Apple place to make that choice for them? I think Apple wants to keep the Mac platform competitive and let uses decide which technology wins. Who knows, unlike HD DVD and Blu-Ray, maybe Blu-Ray and downloads can co-exist.

By: chris

chris — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 19:24:58 +0000

Even if Jobs keeps preaching the Downloading biz via iTunes, the reality is that it still takes too many days (and weeks) to download a HD size of an average 2-hour movie on a normal internet connection. (35-40 GB per film- are you kidding me?).

If I wanted to a HD movie, it is still much easier to go to a videostore and rent a Blu-Ray DVD rather than waiting forever for the web pipeline to catch speed on..etc.

Plus, a lot of people uses Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro to edit and burn the final DVD master to be printed in volumes later on. Therefore, by us NOT having a Blu-Ray burner for the HD master is going to be major downer to filmmakers.

If that is the case, we might switch to the new Dells and Sony Vaios with Blu-Ray Drives and get Avid Media Composer and Adobe Encore to encode the Blu-Ray HD discs, then.

This is why if Apple doesn’t do it, then, a lot of consumers will switch to other platforms which allow them to do the required job, instead.

Sorry, but that is the reality.

By: Henry

Henry — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 15:51:34 +0000

What you all are forgetting is that Apple’s Final Cut Pro makes up a huge percent of the video editing market, not to mention how widely used apple’s iMovie and iDVD for home movie creation. Consumers and Professionals need to produce HD content and distribute it on discs, for pro’s that’s how they make their living, and for consumers that’s one way they share content with the family. Apple’s market focus is digital media, so Apple not adding blu-ray to it’s abilities would be silly. Apple absolutely will add blu-ray to all of of it’s lineup. Apple just makes smart decisions so they held back until the format war was over, as other companies have.

By: surf

surf — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 15:48:56 +0000

50 GB capacity was never necessary for who? You? Then speak for yourself, because the 50 GB capacity is exactly what I’ve been waiting for in Blu-Ray. I could care less about movies, I want the extra data storage capacity. I love how so many fools think only in terms of movies and forget about raw data storage capacity, which is my primary interest in Blu-Ray. Bring on BD-RE drives in iMacs and Mac Pros, the sooner the better.

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 13:37:02 +0000

VUDU and iTunes movies both demonstrate that HD movie downloads are workable now.
*Right Now* over a 30MB FIOS link, for $50/month, I can watch a High Definition Movie, on VUDU, with *no* startup latency, no dropouts, no pauses — while it downloads.
The 50GB capacity of BlueRay was never necessary. Even the 30GB of HD-DVD was overkill for good codecs on the media and substantial horsepower on the display.
Spend your $$ on a decent network connection instead of an overpriced blue ray player or PS3.

By: v6sonoma

v6sonoma — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 05:34:43 +0000

I can say it’s a matter of time before they get blu-ray. One of the reasons stated why they don’t now is because they couldn’t produce a slot loading bd-r only a combo drive which is important because it’s about having massive storage not just video play back. As far as digital movies a lot of people don’t like them. They want to have something to show for their money. Look at all the people who get screwed when their xbox or wii breaks and then they have to jump through hoops to try and get what they paid for (downloaded games, content, etc.) back and when/if they do it never work like it used to. Face it till DRM is killed digital will never be fully accepted thats why mp3’s are still #1

By: Devin

Devin — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 04:16:59 +0000

You’re 100% correct, Ha. I’ve been saying this ever since the first whisper of Blu-Ray on macs. There’s no way you’ll see it on an Apple laptop.

that said, it will probably be an option for Mac Pros or as some kind of add-on, like the special Air external drive.

By: Justin Ried

Justin Ried — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:39:19 +0000

Ease up on the name calling, Jeff. While I don’t agree with Peter’s argument, he makes solid points. Apple has interests both for and against the inclusion of Blu-ray. Media authoring, one of Apple’s strongest markets, is a huge pro. It drives their hardware and software sales, and solidifies Apple’s role in production and post-production.

iTunes as a means for media delivery is still relatively tiny, but steadily growing in importance. I do believe that it will not prevent (or even slow) Apple’s adoption of Blu-ray because it’s outweighed by Apple’s other business interests and the general need for larger capacity long-term storage solutions.

I know Peter and Biggs disagree, but here’s my prediction: Blu-ray drives in Macs within one year. MacWorld in January 2009 at the latest.

By: Jeff Dyer

Jeff Dyer — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:20:58 +0000

Idiot. How long will it take to download a 50GB movie? And then store it on your poxy Mac for 10 years?