Blu-ray and Apple

Didn't want to derail other threads, so continuing the discussion here.

Shane I agree with you about the desirability of physical media -- all you have to do is look at my DVD & CD collections

But I think you are totally wrong about ISPs (or any other force) killing downloads. First, IMO the current administration in DC will kill via regulation or arm twisting any serious attempt at imposing bandwidth caps. They are already concerned about how far behind US end user bandwidth is compared to many Asian and European countries. Second, if current ISP somehow manage to get their way Apple/Google have more than enough cash and ability to raise more money to buy/build a national ISP that will have no caps. Probably just threatening to do it will be enough to stop the current ones from playing games.

So, the bottom line is that downloads will be the most popular way for distributing (HD) movies/tv shows. The only question is when.

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i finally went blu this weekend and i was in the camp that downloads and dvds were 'good enough'. i was wrong. So far i've watched dark knight, transformers and the original superman and no download i;ve had has even came close to the physical media. But then im also in the camp that audio is as important as the video.

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Considering Apple and Blu Ray support, I hope they will support it for those that want it. There is a small contingent of pros and hobbyists that need or want it.

But for myself, and by extension many others, Blu Ray in the computer is irrelevant. Movie watching is on the living room TV, not the office computer; done with remote-controlled player not keyboard-and-mouse computer. Blu Ray can't be ripped and re-played on an iPod, eliminating the last use of a "movie" media on the computer.

As for storage, I gave up two years ago managing backups on discs. It's easier to use 500GB+ hard drives with a good backup program. Or upgrade the internal drive if you're otherwise removing data due to storage limitations.

For the typical consumer, I think Blu Ray has no value and it may be Apple agrees.

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In theory, I buy much of what you're saying. Right now, I do all of my Bu-ray viewing in the family room. This is out of necessity since I only have one player and that is where it's located. That said, I think it would be incredibly convenient if I could watch one of my many (and rapidly growing library of) Blu-ray discs on my iMac or Macbook. If I am traveling or just relaxing in a different room, I don't think it is unreasonable to pop in a Blur-ay disc (just like any CD or DVD) into a Macbook and expect it to play. The fact that Apple's QuickTime player already supports 1080p and the company aggressively promotes its full HD 1080p movie trailers on their Web site leads me to believe that with the right kind of drive, it should be a fairly low lift to facilitate Blu-ray support on the Mac.

I'm not complaining mind you (I love my Mac gear,) but as Blu-ray continues to proliferate, I think not supporting it may be unwise, because in the future "average" consumers will be specifically looking for this feature and it may well impact on their buying decision.

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i don't think it has anything to do with the hardware/software and the ability to do it, i think its all about money and licensing. Few things i've read, bluray is very expensive with all the fees.

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More to the point, Apple is competing with Blu-ray for "HD" supremacy, and may, along with others, consider Blu-ray to have already failed. See this:
I, Cringely Blog Archive Is Blu-Ray a Failure? - Cringely on technology

What Cringely is saying is that promises were made by Sony, in order to end the format war, about BD/PS3 market penetration that have not been met. He says that likely BD will survive as a 5% cinephile format, but that something very similar to HD-DVD will make a comeback as a higher capacity computer data media (and possibly video media). His logic (and factual basis) seem sound to me.

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I'm not opposed to BR on the Mac. But I think your goals represent a vanishing number of customers.

Who says they wish they could watch their HD movies on the office computer through tinny laptop speakers instead of the big, living room TV with surround?

How many people travel with a laptop to watch a DVD, let alone a Blu Ray? Travel-movie watching has moved to iPods and portable players. Until Blu Ray can be ripped and put on an iPod it's worthless on the computer. In fact, since there aren't portable Blu Ray players yet (??) this argues further to Blu Ray's weaknesses.

I suppose the counterpoint to my assertions is that Mac has a large youth / urban demo. This group tends to not have big TVs and houses and watches movies on laptops in dorm rooms. And being young, they don't have pressing financial constraints and spend more of their money on Mac stuff than the middleclass suburban family types. And so there is a big market for Blu-Ray in laptop / desktop computers.

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You are correct, although I would posit there are other users as well: anyone with an HTPC (HTMac) connected to their HDTV/projector. There are many reasons to want to rip disks -- frequently watched children's films, concert/music stuff, etc. BD ripping is done on the PC side, and would no doubt be done on the Mac side as well were playback supported.

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Perhaps, but I don't think I am too far off from the mainstream in my thinking.

For the record, I never said anything about watching a Blu-ray disc on an office computer. The point I was trying to make is that since we bought our player, we pretty much only buy and rent (Netflix) BD discs now. There are plenty of occasions where my wife and I want to watch different things. If I am watching the BD of Transformers on the big rig, she would be perfectly content to watch the BD of Revolutionary Road on her Macbook. As it is now, she can't.

Huh?? This must be a generational thing. I have two iPods, my wife has an iPod, and my son and daughter have two iPods each. Ripping a movie to iTunes so I can synch it to my iPod is the absolute last thing I want to do. I would much prefer to simply insert a BD disc into my 24" iMac or my Macbook and watch it. Why would I want to go through all kinds of gyrations just so I can watch a movie on a tiny iPod screen and listen to it through ear buds? If I'm on a plane, then sure, but otherwise, I don't think so. What if I decide ten minutes into a film I don't care for it? IMO, doing anything with iTunes and an iPod takes time and requires a commitment that I find myself increasingly unwilling to make. As always YMMV, and I guess I am really far away from the norm, but I still prefer the convenience of clunky old physical media...

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From another thread concerning a claim by a Harris poll that 7% of those surveyed had BD; 11% had HD-DVD.
If I were to look at my circle of (flesh and blood, not virtual) friends ONE has a PS3 (for kids gaming) and has never bought a single Blu-ray disc -- his only one is the Taladega Nights BD that shipped with the machine. I have more BDs, and I don't even have a player! So by my anecdotal evidence, both formats are colossal failures. I do not claim my friends to be a representative sample, but it is telling that many people I know were eager DVD early adopters in the late '90s. A similar rush to BD just didn't happen. Not at all.

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On that I will agree with you Ted, sort of. Most of the people I know who have HDTVs but no High Definition Disk Player of any kind have not bought one for one of the following reasons:

-It is clear the PS3 is the best BluRay player and it is further clear that the PS3 is long overdue for at least a $100 price cut.

-Verizon FioS for sure and Comcast to a lesser extent have fixed many of the dumb things they were doing in removing bandwidth from HD broadcasts and increased the number of HD channels. And the cable cos are doing VOD. AND bundling in DVRs. DVD brought with it the pleasure of random access, but people really missed the ability to record. Don't expect them to give that feature up a second time now that they got it back.

-$30 BluRay new releases indicates the studios are still on crack. Even 2 year old releases do not make it into a bargain bin where browsers can pick up a stack of $5 movies to build a library and share the excitement with friends. Blu will have finally arrived when you can reach into a trash barrel in BestBuy and come up with a handful of guilty pleasures.

-For the most part, even with limited bandwidth channels broadcast HD looks pretty damn good, at least as good as DVD to the average user.

-DVDs look damn good on HDTVs to the average user. Even being the HD snob I am, I personally am content to watch a DVD on my sister's 52" 1080p screen in a pinch. Show the average user a BD and a DVD head to head and they will go with the full detail Blu, but show them the cost differential and they will think twice.

-Netflix has made getting BluRays harder and dumber than it should not to mention more expensive

There's plenty of blame to go around here. I don't think it's necessarily Apple being evil or trying to get people hooked on downloads. If that really is their strategy then I expect them to regret it when Hulu and Boxee start to eat their lunch on those paid downloads by giving the people what they want for free at best or a couple of ad views at worst. When that happens expect to see Apple swing back to blu for the higher quality.

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That and they just had to drag region coding back in there. I've been region free in with DVDs since almost a decade ago. I'm not going back. That's one reason I was very bummed about HD-DVD losing the war. And Oppo's BD player won't be region free. So even the knowledgeable cinephiles are getting shafted.

Apple cares about selling hardware. iTunes is there to sell hardware (and prevent standards incompatible with Apple hardware from being established). Basically Apple is not adding BD to their systems because it doesn't believe it will help them sell any hardware. And they see no reason to help a competitor who is failing on their own. If BD was a profit center, Sony wouldn't be posting gargantuan losses.

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Let me put it this way....

As much as I want a laptop with BD capability, I would happy
to buy an expensive Apple Macbook Pro without it rather than
go back to a PC.

I think most Apple customers agree with that. However, at the
same time, they certainly aren't going to win over any PC users
that want BD functionality.

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^ Thank you Ron! That is pretty much the point I was trying to make... but you did it a whole lot more succinctly.

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Sorry, your wife wants to watch BR movies on the office computer with tinny laptop speakers

I can't take a 24" iMac to the gym or on a plane. My ipod however...I've watched two seasons of 24 so far on my nano at the gym and traveling. (but yes, ripping is a thing most people don't care about.)

As I acknowledged, there's a demand for Blu Ray on Mac. Hopefully Apple will provide product offering to meet that. And I don't dismiss your desire for it. But I think it's not representative of the "marketplace". Similar to my desire for a great PDA: the market has spoken and no one wants a "PDA" anymore. (They want mobile email clients and web browsers.)

Please PM me. This is news to me.

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Besides the regular ripping he is referring to, look up BD Managed Copy:
ManagedCopy -- Engadget HD

You guys are all missing the point tho. Macbook Pros are NOT consumer laptops. There is no reason in the world today to deny media professionals access to larger storage disk formats that BD-R provides other than their association to the assclown restrictions that come bundled with BD-Rom. Which have been proven time and time and time and time again to be ineffective.

Locks only keep the honest people out.

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Sam, the thing is, as a professional (I do 100% of my work on my MacBook Pro), I have never had the urge to burn something to a BD-R. Indeed I never burn anything on DVD/CD due to work.

OK, "Media" professional? Again, I don't see it. I don't think I ever upgraded past Toast 6 or 7 (which one was current during the Tiger/Leopard transition)? and haven't used it to burn a DVD in years. Is Toast 10 reliable? Considering the number of coaster DL -DVD-R+- (even the Verbatim ones) generated, the idea of using even more expensive BD-R disks for backups seems crazy. (there is also the question of how long burned disks of any kind last post successful burn/verification).

Hard Drives are at < $100 per terabyte. Why bother with BD-R? For anyone who doesn't author Blu-rays for a living, I just don't see it. At work we have done away with media backups -- everything happens over the network, to other off-site disk drives. That way, if a backup becomes unreadable due to HD failure, we know immediately, cause the HD failed and generated errors -- if a tape or CD/DVD/BD sitting in a box fails, no one knows about it until you need it, and then -- oops.

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Because you don't send hard disks in the mail or to customer sites.

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i burn a ton of dvd back ups of all the images we've shot. 2 copies. one for here and one for offsite

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Me too. But using 8 GB cards 1 card > 1 DVD. And whenever the D700 replacement comes out with video capabilities I expect to move from 8GB cards to at least 16GB cards if not 32s. And the 32s will be bigger than a single bluray and fill more than 4 DVDs!

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Interesting results:
Gizmodo - Are You Finally Ready To Replace Your DVD Player With Blu-Ray? - Blu-Ray

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Adam Gregorich and I were out in Los Angeles last week and stopped
by Panasonic to see our friends over there.

Adam was handed Panasonic's new portable DVD player that is due
to be released in a few months. I think it is the first portable player
of its kind.

Of course, Adam was not allowed to keep it, but he was able to take
it home and review it for this forum. Hopefully he will have a review
up shortly.

On quick observation the player looked no bigger or bulkier than
most portable DVD players out there. The battery was certainly small
and it contained a built-in stand and car headrest attachment.

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But some people have started doing EXACTLY that. On Mac Break Weekly Alex Lindsay from the Pixel Corps has stated that they have been delivering projects to clients on Drobo's (the cost is built-in to their fees). The client plugs it into a USB port, plugs in the power, and they're good to go. He says their clients are delighted with this solution.

Sam, you've been very vocal for quite some time about wanting a BD option in your MacBookPro. I'm curious - why?? Just to back up photos? Although I agree with Dave & Ted on this issue, I'm not trying to be combative. I'm genuinely curious as to why this is such a big deal to you.

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May I step in and state why Blu-ray on a Mac is important for me?

High Definition Camcorders.

I take a fair amount of footage while on vacation using a high definition
camcorder.

That footage has to be dumbed down for DVD. It still looks good, but
I would rather be able to burn it to Blu-ray and watch it in its
uncompressed glory.

Now granted, I could just hook the camcorder up to my HD display
and watch it that way. However, for archival purposes and for sharing
with friends and family, I like to have an authored disc complete with
menus and chapter stops.

Finally, when it comes to backing up things I don't like external hard
drives, that is, unless they are solid state (which is just coming into
its own). Drives break. I would rather be able to back up huge amounts
of data (several DVDs worth) onto one single BD disc.

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Ron, in your post #22 above, did you mean Adam got the portable BD player? If so, that would be very cool.

And yes, I too have wished to burn data backup on a Blu-ray disc. Nothing like getting 50GBs on a disc especially with my Canon DSLR taking 15MB RAW files a pop. I plan on getting an HD camcorder in the near future, and I find that my data, music and movie files are consistently totaling in the gigabyte range, making DVD (even dual layer) not really a feasible backup option without having hundreds on hand.

I do have terabytes of HDs, but HDs fail. Yes I know discs can fail as well, but they tend to last longer and as people have said, it's cheaper to burn two copies of a disc for backup than to keep buying hard drive after hard drive, or setting up RAID configurations.

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Yes, they gave Adam one of the first final product samples to review.

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Damn sexy! I'm about to go on a long plane flight and I really wish I had one of those to keep me occupied!

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In my case I have a Mac (my MacPro, used to be a Mini) permanently hooked up to the HDTV (indeed 90%+ of my HD viewing comes from the Mac -- HDTV via EyeTV recordings, iTunes HD downloads, upscaled DVDs). Also, as mentioned above none of my relatives and only one friend has BD capability so sending BDs to people won't work either. I also respectfully disagree with Ron about the relative safety of backups -- I think that two HDs are safer than a (DVD/BD)-R disk. Hard drives can be sent off site as well. What is the current price per TB of BD-Rs and what is the coaster rate when burning?

Sam: How large are the client files in question, if you don't mind me asking? Larger then 8.5GB each (DL-DVD-R capacity)?

Don't get me wrong people -- I would LOVE a BD drive on my Mac, because I want to be able to watch BDs as well without having to hook up yet another separate player and encounter the WAF. Please Apple, give us BD! I just don't think it is happening, for the reasons I've laid out in previous posts.

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Again, remember I am an AMATEUR Photographer. I don't get paid for this. All of my Mac gear, all of my photo gear, all of my video gear supports my obsession with being a documentarian of my somewhat banal and pedestrian existance. I am not an artist. I don't covet fame. I just want to take pictures and videos in high quality that will last me my lifetime and if I ever have any kids they and the rest of my family might treasure through their lifetimes.

And as an amateur I am accumulating over 10GB of raw files and final output per month, minimum. I am an outlier as an amateur but I suspect my needs are quite tame compared to a real working professional photographer. At a friends-friends wedding I shot 500+ images at 12MB each, and that was kinda small for me, do the math. The crappy jpeg finals which show up on Flickr are nowhere near as compelling as their color correct equivalents on my hard drive and which come out pixel perfect in the prints which I have matched to Costco's amazing looking and economical large format printer. I do a dozen 8x12s per project and often hundreds of 4x6s. It's my hobby and passion. At the 3 day HTF meetups in Vegas and Hollywood I took over 2000 shots each event. I am over 50000 shots in my main library alone. I am getting better about throwing away the real trash but you never know when that shot of some booth babe turns out to be a Playboy Playmate of the Year:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kadath/883327906/

To keep up with this I am using hard disks and DVDs. I probably should have a Drobo but I think they too are one rev away from 'really' getting it right and when they do I will get one. I do all of this whether I am home or on the road. If its a quiet flight I can take 100 snaps without bothering anyone just out my airplane window! Backing up on the road is something I am totally paranoid about. I am the single point of failure there, so I make sure to not erase any cards till I get home and if I have to I will back up to usb portable and kick off a DVD burn of as many as I can just before I go to sleep. But that doesnt always get me all my images for a weekend where a BD would.

My consumer level video camera has a 120GB hard disk. I would like to dump those files to both a BD-Data disk AND be able to make 'plug and play in any BD reader' video disks just as you can today with DVD.

Have you seen Reverie by Vincent Laforet from the 5D Mark 2? As amazing as that is this is the FIRST DSLR that is capable of doing 1080P without a sweat. I am loving the D5000s 720P videos but I want the whole kit and caboodle for my next camera, 1080p and full iso/aperture/shutter speed selectability like the canons have. It will come, and the files will be huge!

Vincent Laforet : photos : Reverie- powered by SmugMug
Canon Digital Learning Center - Sample EOS 5D Mark II Video: Reverie

Here is what I can do today with no tripod, Streaming:
Cannon Fire on Vimeo

Full size:
http://www.navesink.net/public_html/...CannonFire.mov

And files are only going to get bigger and more detailed from there. Even more so when Image Stabilization comes along and you give no thought to not lugging a tripod around everywhere.

Again, I am an outlier but my needs are not fantasy and they are even more real for real pros.

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Ron, you still have a Mac Pro, right? Why don't you just buy a third-party BD burner and a copy of Toast? You'll be all set to author Blu-Rays. No need to wait on Apple to come around.

Sam, I hear what you're saying. I know a Blu burner would be useful for you. But for how long? As you say, the files are getting bigger. Don't get me wrong, I believe Apple should have offered a Blu option by now, at least on the Mac Pros and MacBook Pros. It's just that I also believe that the "sweet spot" in time for Blu's maximum effectiveness as a storage medium has already passed.
The following is strictly anecdotal, but I listen to some photography podcasts hosted by pros (TWIP, Photofocus). They're all Mac guys. They talk about backup a lot, but I've never once heard any of them talk about Blu-Ray. They're into Drobos in the studio, multiple portable HDs in the field, cloud storage for long-term stuff, and of course backups at multiple sites. They've already moved past optical backup.