Apple, Dell planning new Blu-ray notebooks?

You can be sure Dell will at least try and shove some in their XPS line. Apple may not have a vested interest in including such drives beyond backup, unless their is a burgeoning market in Player sales.

Apple's HD Video delivery model is based entirely on their hardware at the moment, and has the forward looking model of disc free libraries. Since they're encouraging sales from their store for iPodTouch/iPhone/AppleTV, I doubt we'll see such drives in the consumer notebooks for a while.

BluRay may have some hope for the MacBookPro, but I doubt it would be standard until the market for entertainment center players matures more. As it is, BluRay is still an expensive add-on in MacPros.

Perhaps we'll see a second internal drive added to new versions of Apple notebooks. Thoughts?

Apple may not have a vested interest in including such drives beyond backup, unless their is a burgeoning market in Player sales.

Yes, got to love how whether, as customers, we can get blu-ray drives is now dependent on whether it interferes too much with Apple's on-line movie business.

But I thought Apple was always so far ahead of everyone else. Why should they be waiting for more sales of players before including it. Shouldn't they be helping spur the sales? Oh, right, it will cut into their on-line sales business (for which they get a cut).

And I can't imagine too many people would be happy to have a blu-ray drive in their computer, but it only handled data, not video.

Apple's HD Video delivery model is based entirely on their hardware at the moment, and has the forward looking model of disc free libraries.

I wouldn't call it 'forward' looking as just 'different' looking (and not that different, there's several video sites out there). Discs offer a lot more to the consumer then just watching the video. And, as it stands now, you can only rent HD content, and only watch it via an AppleTV.

Just like with music, there's a lot of people who want to own their movies, TV shows, etc. (not that apple let's you rent TV shows, that would make too much sense). The downloads will supplement the disc, but won't replace it anytime soon.

When I said, "had a few networks set up," I meant to say that you're in a few networks. You don't necessarily have to know the people in the networks or groups, but you can send them all an announcement, and plenty of people kill time checking stuff like that.

Personally, I'm only using FB at the behest of friends who were obsessed with spending time on the site. (you would not believe how many of their hours of work time in class were lost to the site). Why not use the FREE tools that are available?

How do the vendors currently offering blu-ray (a $500 option for Dell) implement the DRM required for blu-ray video? If I'm not mistaken, they'd be required to implement HDCP content protection between the player and the display. Are laptop screen exempt from this? Does that mean you couldn't hook up an external monitor? Or does it mean that, while you can play a blu-ray disc, it will be downconverted to 480p?

I know there are those that have to have the latest technologies even when it really doesn't make a significant improvement in their daily work. For the rest of us Blu-ray especially in a laptop doesn't make sense. I can see a Pro machine for backing up big digital files but I see the addition into a notebook as bragging rights only.

Apple takes a portion of the cost for hosting the apps. for sale on their site. I'd imagine that if they're allowing some apps. that are free that there would be some sort of Apple-Certified deal that went along with those it had tested and can be said not to have any problems with the phone.

Do you think Apple would allow freeware apps to also carry such a logo? A part of me says that they would because they host them and it draws more eyeballs to their site and products and sponsors. A part of me says they woudn't necessarily, letting, perhaps, .Mac users post aps of this nature.

What do you think?

I really do not see the reason for Apple to adopt Blueray across the board right now. First, the American economy is in the dump, and if it is not already here, we are close to a recession. People simply do not have a lot of spare income. Adding Blueray would raise the cost of any Mac it was added to. Second, Blueray isn't really that compelling a feature yet. Sure, I get more storage and video definition is better. However, I also get enhanced DRM. No thanks. I like burning movies.

How do the vendors currently offering blu-ray (a $500 option for Dell) implement the DRM required for blu-ray video? If I'm not mistaken, they'd be required to implement HDCP content protection between the player and the display. Are laptop screen exempt from this?

They're not exempt. But they have the encryption included. Dell also makes LCDs that offer HDMI and HDCP, along with standard video and computer video inputs, which means you could do PIP with the playback and your computer, switch to the video, or whatever. Or you could take an older display and use it as a small HD TV - (can't do any of this with an Apple display, as they offer none of these features).

Does that mean you couldn't hook up an external monitor?

You can, if the laptop offers HDMI port (I would assume they would somewhere along the line) with HDCP support.

Or does it mean that, while you can play a blu-ray disc, it will be downconverted to 480p?

If you send out the video to a non-encrypted source, it would be down-converted. So using a DVI cable to connect a blue-ray equipped macbook to a TV would not be hi-def.

Then again, Apple's DVD player doesn't support blue-ray content, so that point is moot. (Some of the DVD players on Windows do, and each has their own 'key' to authorize their use - as you may recall when someone hacked the key by one of the players, allowing rips for movies at the time. The key has since been deactivated).

Just like everybody else, Apple needs to adopt bluray. We archive to bluray disks right now and we need more systems to read them on.

Bluray needs to be an option. Even if for data reading and writing. I'm sure if it's in there and Apple doesn't support playing BD media, a third party will.

Now that the HD format wars are now official over Toshiba calling it quits, it's time for Apple to push blu-ray into machines as much as possible, especially if the blu-ray drives are burners too.

It's not a necessity; but it is a huge convenience. With all the video file content floating around, there's a need for high capacity storage. One can only hold so much in an external hard drive without worry the thing's going to crash. Secondly, now that people will be buying blu-ray movies more and more (or at least renting them), it's great to have that blu-ray drive on the go to watch movies. Now that people are leaning towards purchasing laptops as primary machines, blu-ray should be incorporated.