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1. whackjob

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   Joined: Aug 2005

   -12
   07/01, 12:07am | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   I don't see the point

   For Blue Ray on home PC's. I really don't. HD DVD looks very good and on home PC's it's just not that big a deal, why doe people think it's such a need for it?
   
   I have to agree with SJ on this one- I think in the long run he will be right on this.

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1. rvhernandez

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   Joined: Apr 2005

   +8
   07/01, 12:12am | report spam | close reply

   Partially Agree, But...

   That's no reason not to support it. While I haven't, nor will I repurchase all my DVDs as Blu Ray, there are several movies and titles that are amazing to watch and own on Blu Ray. The BBC series Life and Planet Earth, the Pixar movies and Lost are such examples.
   
   Why not make it a separate purchase? Make Blu Ray a build-to-order option that includes play back software. In addition, make the play back software a store item for $19.99 or $29.99. Quicktime Pro used to require an separate purchase... I would gladly pay extra for the play back software!

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1. SCslugger

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   +3
   07/01, 12:23am | report spam | close reply

   How many

   How many people have blu-ray that don't have internet? I would say there is a sizable rural demographic, but those people don't need the marriage of their Mac and their TV player.
   
   The end of the road for Blu Ray is obvious. It was obvious before it came to market.

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1. Steve Wilkinson

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   Joined: Dec 2001

   +11
   07/01, 12:29am | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   I usually agree.... but...

   I typically think Jobs has excellent foresight and would agree with him, but unless he knows something I don't here, the problem lies in the horrible data networks in N.A. on which these downloads depend. Music is one thing, HD video is quite another. For Jobs and the few lucky people who live in places with great Internet, it is all to easy to forget how things are elsewhere. If the Net Neutrality battle shows anything... it shows how powerful the telcos are. Jobs should know this in his dealings with AT&T and the cell carriers (IMO, he has made little headway in changing anything but the phone hardware there).
   
   Also, as people get bigger and bigger TVs, much of the DL over the internet video and even HD isn't going to cut it. This stuff will have to move more and more towards the level of Blu-Ray in quality, which will mean bigger and bigger downloads. I'm sure he will eventually be right... but I'm guessing it might be a good number of years down the road.
   
   That said, I don't really think Macs need Blu-Ray all that badly, other then for people trying to use them as media centers (which I want to do, BTW, but I'm in the vast minority). Most people simply don't need to play Blu-Rays in their computers. But.... if people DO start to buy only Blu-Ray instead of DVD, they might want to play them on their computers, not for quality reasons, but because they don't have DVD version if they want to play some movie on their computer.
   
   So, don't think I can agree with Jobs on this one.

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1. Herod

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   Joined: Jun 2007

   -13
   07/01, 12:46am | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   blu-ray on a apple monitor

   is really quite pointless. unless apple decides to get into the 40 inch plus market of monitors and tvs, there isnt really a point to put a blu-ray on a mac.

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1. eddd

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   Joined: Dec 2001

   +21
   07/01, 12:48am | report spam | close reply

   Blu-Ray may die, but not 1080p

   There's a big... no, huge difference in quality when I compare a 1080p Blu-ray played via PS3 on my home theater (50" Pioneer plasma, Denon/Revel sound system) to a 720p download from the Apple store. And yeah, it makes all the difference to me, even on my fairly modest system.
   
   So yeah, Blu-Ray as a delivery medium may die, but not 1080p and the hi-def audio that Blu-ray brings. And downloading that much data efficiently is still a ways off for most of us. Meanwhile, there are a growing number of titles and software (on the PC) to rip backups and run a media server.
   
   So Jobs may be right in five+ years, but much like games in the 90s, he's missing and dissing the home theater market. And so Apple will have no influence on what happens in that arena. Frankly, I don't really care - I need a PC in the house anyway. But it's a bit alarming to think that Apple's only real product for the TV is the AppleTV - a POS mistake if there ever was one (I own one, so I know firsthand)
   
   One last thought - with the threat of tiered bandwidth charges coming from all sides, I'd say the download market may be looking at a "bag of hurt" heading their way. It's unlike Apple to not have options, but they seem to have chosen their horse in this race.

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1. wrenchy

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   +4
   07/01, 01:54am | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   Once again,

   
   
   If Steve Jobs doesn't want it, YOU DON'T GET IT, YOU DON'T NEED IT.

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1. Athens

   Addicted to MacNN

   Joined: Jan 2003

   +8
   07/01, 02:26am | report spam | close reply

   retards...

   "Computers dont need blu-ray...." um ya then that means buying every movie in both Blu-Ray and DVD or digital. NO THANKS. I want the ability to stick my movie I bought in my computer when my roommate is watching TV, I want the ability to stick the movie I bought in my computer when I am travelling. The only solutions is, Apple put blu-ray play back in Quicktime and I can buy a external player OR all movies come with a DVD version and a digital version that works in itunes. I already own a few sony movies that come with digital copies that only work on WIndows.

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1. WiseWeasel

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   Joined: Apr 1999

   +19
   07/01, 02:46am | report spam | close reply

   Weak

   Even if playback of encrypted commercial BluRay movies is too painful to license, it would be nice if the format could be supported for burning our home-recorded HD videos to BluRay discs for sharing with friends and family, and simply for data use, so we can start installing Adobe Creative Suite from a single disc again, instead of the three DVDs it now spans across, something which is only bound to get worse. Leave it to third parties to license commercial BluRay movie playback if they can figure it out. Personally, I don't care about watching the BluRays on my computer; I just need to be able to rip and burn them for use on the living room BluRay player.

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1. Paul Huang

   Dedicated MacNNer

   Joined: Sep 1999

   -6
   07/01, 03:31am | report spam | (2 replies) close | reply

   $99 mark

   VHS hit $99 and another technology replaced it.
   DVD hit $99 and Blu-Ray came on the scene.
   Blu-Ray is now $99 at Costco now.
   
   It may take another year or two, but easily-scratched media is going to be a thing of the past very soon.

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1. Paul Huang

   Dedicated MacNNer

   Joined: Sep 1999

   0
   07/01, 03:32am | report spam | close reply

   SD cards in cereal boxes

   SD cards may take over before network download. At the end, they may co-exist. We shall see.

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1. chefpastry

   Mac Enthusiast

   Joined: Nov 2005

   +2
   07/01, 03:41am | report spam | close reply

   DRM

   I read the following article long ago and I'm glad Apple chose not to include Blu-ray support in OS X.
   
   http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2007/08/aacs-tentacles.ars
   

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1. facebook_Kevin

   Via Facebook

   Joined: Jul 2010

   +2
   07/01, 03:50am | report spam | close reply

   Normally I would not agree, but I am the crucible.

   And even *I* am finally seeing the light of renting HD movies on my Apple TV or Amazon HD over Netflix and Blu-Rays. Ask my friends, trust me, I am a disc "w****".
   
   The ONLY thing I miss with OnDemand versus disc are, ironically, the new HD audio codecs! DD5.1 is the choice most have gone with for streaming. That sucks. Why not even at least DTS? Or DTS-HD ideally. Regardless, it's still more than watchable and I found myself recently canceling my Netflix account. ME!
   
   The fact is what has soured BR for me is, long load times, endless FBI warnings, endless "trailers", it just sucks. Thing is, once it becomes apparent to the "studios" online delivery is doing more business than disc, you can bet the farm FBI warnings and "trailers" will start showing up in OnDemand and be unskippable.
   
   So really in the end for us fans of TV and film what is our most hassle free choice? Torrents and useNET. ;)

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1. Marook

   Forum Regular

   Joined: May 1999

   +2
   07/01, 06:13am | report spam | close reply

   Now we know...

   ...what that big, new Apple datacenter is going to stream out to the world.... MOVIES, Lot's of movies, in HD... ;-)
   
   But are they building on in Europe as well.. :-/

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1. VideoGuy

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Sep 2009

   +6
   07/01, 06:47am | report spam | close reply

   Neglecting Its Niche

   Apple has survived in the past because of its niche in multimedia and advancing new technologies; mouse, USB, Firewire, etc. Blu-ray for editors such as myself, is an important delivery method. Clients do not want to wait for a huge HD video to download and then play it back to find their computer can't handle it anyway. They want to view it on their TVs and take to show other people on their TVs. Mac Pros are purpose built, at least support blu-ray on the professionals system. I'm a huge Apple supporter and have converted soo many but this is really getting aggravating. The platform that Final Cut Pro (industry standard) for video editing does not support Blu-ray (burning)? Apple, Steve, while I understand the push for the cloud there is a fundamental issue with bandwidth and features that you can not accomplish through a single downloadable file that you can with the file structure of Blu-ray.

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1. Feathers

   Grizzled Veteran

   Joined: Oct 1999

   +5
   07/01, 07:53am | report spam | close reply

   Cloud and environment?

   If everything is stored in the cloud and needs to be streamed each time you want to watch something, what is the energy impact of this wasteful form of repeated re-delivery? Don't forget the fact that you can be cut off from your stuff at a moments notice. I understand that as the single largest shareholder in Disney, Steve Jobs takes the whole intellectual property thing very seriously. His solution, give people nothing that can't be taken away, even after they have paid for it. Draconian DRM, no hard copies... remote wipe on a walled garden system of delivery plus device. Have people forgotten Amazon's remote wiping of books? Is this the movie industry's final solution? Maybe, it's why they gave up on suing people. The climate that currently prevails is merely a hump they need to get over to a point where they finally have the control they always wanted with the key being no physical sales. Short term convenience will lead to long-term control. Be careful what you wish for, iPad lovers.

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1. d-film

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   Joined: Feb 2002

   +5
   07/01, 08:05am | report spam | close reply

   Back Up

   I guess Steve never has to worry about backing up hundreds of gigabytes of video or still image files.
   
   Maybe he's becoming a little more flexible about BluRay since they announced the high capacity BDXL format.
   
   Maybe living in Silicon Valley has made him oblivious to the fact that not everyone has access ro high-speed internet.

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1. CaptainHaddock

   Grizzled Veteran

   Joined: Apr 2004

   +2
   07/01, 08:26am | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   Like Steve Jobs said...

   Blu-Ray is a bag of hurt. You have to have a completely encrypted media pipeline from the decoding processes to the monitor to get the Blu-Ray consortium's blessing, which means most users are just going to see video downsampled to DVD quality anyway. That's not to mention the fact that the Blu-ray consortium can revoke the keys of players that have been cracked, which means every Internet-connected Blu-ray player is in constant jeopardy of losing its playback functionality due to factors beyond the manufacturer's or user's control.

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1. sammaffei

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   Joined: Sep 2004

   +7
   07/01, 08:33am | report spam | close reply

   Just what I thought...

   Blu-Ray isn't coming to Macs because Jobs wants the Apple Store to be the sole provider of HD content to Macs. I have always thought this and now it has been confirmed.
   
   Sorry Steve, there is a HUGE difference between 1080p and 720p. Also, by denying Mac users Blu-ray, you remove a huge archiving format.
   

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1. ruel24

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Sep 2009

   +6
   07/01, 09:32am | report spam | close reply

   They're forgetting one thing...

   The advent of the cap on your connection. How are we gonna enjoy streamed or downloaded internet provided content with internet providers trying to cap our downloads? One of these two will win out. Either caps go away because of market pressure, or real hard disks will win out. But I think Jobs is short-sighted. Why not provide it and let the market decide? This is something I hate about Apple.

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1. FireWire

   Mac Elite

   Joined: Oct 1999

   -2
   07/01, 09:35am | report spam | close reply

   ??

   Would it cost him an arm to licence Blu Ray? You can buy a complete player for 99$ or even a Sony for 149$ CDN, with the license and enclosure and everything. How much would it cost to put a small player in the computer? Just make it a BTO for 100-150$ and be done with it! I'll never download films because first, I want it now, I don't want to wait a few hours while it downloads, and I'm not a fan of streaming because I may want to rewatch it later without having to rent it again (I rip everything I rent), and second, I don't have a large download quota.
   
   Come on Steve! Aren't you involved with Disney, who incidentally releases their movies on Blu Ray? why do it if you don't believe it the format?

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1. makesense

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   Joined: Feb 2007

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   07/01, 09:56am | report spam | close reply

   cheapo

   quantity, not quality from Jobs more and more
   
   he prefers MP3 and other lossy formats over quality source material

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1. smoak5

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   Joined: Jan 2001

   +4
   07/01, 10:14am | report spam | (1 reply) close | reply

   wasn't apple one of the original backers of Blu Ra

   funny how things turn out. In the early days of HDDVD vs BD, apple was one of the many supporters of the blu ray format, along with other major corp like sony...
   
   i think for the rest of us, it would be nice to be able to have a mac with a BD drive not only to watch movies, but to also back up home videos, large photo libraries, etc. instead of having to go with an external blu ray device...just a minor inconvenience.
   
   

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1. Arty50

   Mac Elite

   Joined: May 2000

   +5
   07/01, 11:06am | report spam | close reply

   Re: High Speed Internet Access in the Bay Area

   I just wanted to address some of the comments regarding the Steve having high speed access in the Bay. I'm sure Apple HQ is wired up well, but most residential area in the Bay actually have rather poor broadband options. It's the perfect commentary on the sad state of US broadband that the region where most of the equipment that brings 100 mbps connections to the rest of the world tops out at less than a 10th of that in most of its neighborhoods.

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1. nelsoon

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   Joined: Feb 2009

   +4
   07/01, 11:29am | report spam | close reply

   Connection?

   I don't know if Steve Jobs is going to sell Mac in others place than big cities of USA, but at many place like Canada speed are less than 5Mbps with quotas per months like 3GB, 30GB and 60GB..... With 3GB you will not go that far away with "the new way" to get HD movies...

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1. testudo

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Aug 2001

   0
   07/01, 12:15pm | report spam | close reply

   Re: DRM

   I read the following article long ago and I'm glad Apple chose not to include Blu-ray support in OS X.
   
   
   So you'd rather have no support than have some support that requires encryption? Yeah, that makes sense.
   
   And, again people, you seem to forget that Apple's HD video store content (as well as some non-HD content), which they are happy to sell you, requires you have this encrypted path to your video monitor, and Apple is happy to make sure no one can decode your video or access the video streams out of Quicktime to make sure you can't copy your content.
   
   But that's OK, because they 'have' to do that...

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1. Xinnix

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   Joined: Nov 2003

   +5
   07/01, 12:29pm | report spam | close reply

   comment title

   "The CEO suggests the downloadable movie business is quickly moving to free services, such as Hulu, or rentals, so storing purchased movies is "not an issue"
   
   I agree with Steve, MAC's don't need it. But the rest of his comments really fly's in the face of the success of iTunes and Apples position on "Owning" your content. To say that storing movies is not an issue is funny. Apples own success in audio is ownership and being able to store your purchases. I can't believe he thinks movies and music are different in those regards? Also, there is a large amount of people like myself who are tech savoy but don't care to connect their computers to their TV systems!
   
   But like some have said, internet speeds and home networks are all subjective. Also, what happens when the Cable, Satellite or Internet goes down? People dig through their DVD's.
   

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1. testudo

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Aug 2001

   +1
   07/01, 12:33pm | report spam | close reply

   Re: Like Steve Jobs said...

   Blu-Ray is a bag of hurt. You have to have a completely encrypted media pipeline from the decoding processes to the monitor to get the Blu-Ray consortium's blessing, which means most users are just going to see video downsampled to DVD quality anyway.
   
   Really? Most users? And here I thought that most users, if they bought a Blu-Ray player, would have the appropriate TV set to make that work, which isn't that difficult.
   
   And it is amazing how many companies support Blu-Ray. You'd think all those electronics firms, from TV manufacturers to device makers to computer companies would all be saying and complaining about the same thing, and refusing to support it. Oh, wait, they aren't refusing to support it.
   
   Well, I do feel sorry for them all. I mean, with the big bag of hurt they feel every day from having to deal with Blu-Ray. h***, I heard it was the reason Vista sucked so bad! Not sure how Blu-Ray support would make the entire OS stop working, esp. if you weren't using Blu-Ray at all, but that's what I heard.
   
   That's not to mention the fact that the Blu-ray consortium can revoke the keys of players that have been cracked, which means every Internet-connected Blu-ray player is in constant jeopardy of losing its playback functionality due to factors beyond the manufacturer's or user's control.
   
   Sorry, that's completely wrong. Player keys may be revoked, but all that does is prevent the player from playing new disks, not older ones. However, if it is connected to the internet, it's firmware can be upgraded with a new key that would allow it to work with new disks.
   
   The players that might be problematic would be players that are NOT connected to the internet.
   
   Oh, but how is this different than Apple removing playback support from older versions of iTunes and video because someone's broken FairPlay or something?

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1. David Esrati

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   Joined: Jun 1999

   +5
   07/01, 02:24pm | report spam | (2 replies) close | reply

   Authoring?

   I'm sorry- but- I shoot a video in HD- I edit in HD- and then I have to go to a PC to author a blu-ray disk to give to the client?
   How many wedding videographers use Macs to edit?
   Steve- we all can't set up streaming servers to hand projects to our clients.
   MAKE IT AN OPTION.
   I don't like having to buy external drives to do my work.

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1. Fast iBook

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Mar 2003

   -3
   07/01, 06:32pm | report spam | close reply

   Boob-ray...

   Blue ray, is meant to be viewed on large HD boob tubes, not personal computers. I personally don't even care, the best viewing experience is in a DTS theater on a 75 foot screen with 9.2 surround.
   
   - A

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1. CaptainHaddock

   Grizzled Veteran

   Joined: Apr 2004

   +2
   07/02, 08:56am | report spam | close reply

   @Tetsudo

   "And here I thought that most users, if they bought a Blu-Ray player, would have the appropriate TV set to make that work, which isn't that difficult."
   
   Actually, I've heard that huge numbers of Blu-Ray viewers are actually watching standard-def because their TVs aren't compatible and they don't even know it. But I'm not talking about TVs, I'm talking about computers. How many Mac users are using HDMI with HDCP-enabled video cards and monitors? Neither my Macbook Pro nor my 27" display use an encrypted signal.
   
   "Oh, but how is this different than Apple removing playback support from older versions of iTunes and video because someone's broken FairPlay or something?"
   
   There's a huge difference between Apple offering an iTunes update and a faceless consortium of whom you are not a customer bricking your Blu-ray hardware. But you're right in that Fairplay also sucks, and it's great Apple got rid of it for (most) iTunes music. I'd never buy a DRM-crippled music track.

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1. acpryor

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   Joined: Aug 2007

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   07/02, 10:15am | report spam | close reply

   Tired of Steve... Losing his core.

   I have all Macs at home (Mac Pro, Macbook Pro, Macbook, iMac, Apple TV, 3 iPods, and iPhone)... I love my Macs.. but.. .this is where Apple just absolutely stinks. They've been calling their platform HD for years now with invent of iMovie HD years ago yet it's not HD... there's no support for it.. to continue to act like they're on the cutting edge of HD by naming each version HD or "you can make HD movies" blah blah blah.. is just ridiculous.
   
   I don't see why they don't support the format now, and change when the times change. This pleases your core. This is one area, that if you shoot a lot of home movies (and more and more people will be using HD cams for home movies now that more people have widescreen TVs in their home and won't like cropped low-rez pictures) that a Windows platform is the way to go. Why drive people to Windows? Seriously? I have to install Parallels and Windows and a DVD app to be able to edit and view my HD movies on my widescreen TV in my family room or to give to a friend or family member to watch on their HD display? It's just stupid.

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1. zunipus

   Fresh-Faced Recruit

   Joined: Feb 2007

   +1
   07/04, 11:43pm | report spam | close reply

   Sony & the MPAA Killed Blu-Ray On Mac

   If the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) had not insisted upon diabolical Digital Rights Manglement (DRM) on Blu-Ray (as well as the now dead HD-DVD format), we would not be having this conversation. We'd have Blu-Ray player/writers on our Macs right now.
   
   If I were Apple I'd be taking exactly the same course. Who needs the grief of customers complaining about DRM-h*** and having their Blu-Ray device BRICKED because they did something that Sony thinks was akin to piracy. Let Sony deal with that.
   
   Solution: Buy a separate Blu-Ray device for your purposes and plug it into your Mac. Use the plentiful DRM foiling software programs, with great care (!) whenever you choose to back up your Blu-Ray movie discs. If anyone complains, remind them that The #1 Rule Of Computing is: "MAKE A BACKUP!" And of course, don't pirate Blu-Ray movies.
   
   My usual 'DRM Inspires Piracy' theory: We'd have considerably LESS piracy in the current age if DRM had never happened. DRM is a slap in the face of all customers. Customers respond to abuse by companies, as per usual, by turning on them and showing them the same disrespect. Thus piracy as retaliation. But the RIAA and MPAA are too paranoid and money grubbing to get the clue. Sad and stooopid.