Blu-ray and Apple - Page 2

Re: Blu-ray and Apple

we've already shot over 6,000 images (avg 30mbs per tif) this year and thats just whats been picked and shipped to the separator. When you count in all the multi poses from location shots that number gets even bigger. Anything stored on the network gets backed up along with the corporate nightlies and weeklies.

What i burn to dvd is just the picks thats been put into our database because those only reside as rgbs on our server in about a 3 month rotation. now all of our cmyk's are stored on another system and never rotate out. But i have had to go back to a original rgb that was shot over a year ago to reprocess and having those on dvds in the rack in the old film storage room is a massive time saver, and tons cheaper than just adding more and more space to the san. I just looked and i have 400 back up cds and 243 dvds and all those are replicated at the off site too. Thats just from the about the last 7 years.

Re: Blu-ray and Apple

Craig,

Will these BD burners work with a Mac?

As for playback purposes do the graphic cards in the Mac Pro
and iMacs support BD playback?

Re: Blu-ray and Apple

Yes the new MacPro video cards support HDCP and you can put a 3rd Party Blu ray Burner in a mac pro for as cheap as $200. Toast Titanium supports burning your own BluRay deck playable disks as do several other manufacturers but there is no software on the mac platform that will allow you to play back a BluRay ROM at all. Even OSX Leopard itself has most of the pieces but they are not all together yet to do so.

Re: Blu-ray and Apple

Ron, Other World Computing (macsales.com) has a whole page of Blu-Ray drives, both internal and external. They all should work with a Mac.

But yeah, no commercial BD playback on the Mac as yet, because they haven't licensed the technology. This was what Jobs was referring to with his "bag of hurt" comment last year.

Re: Blu-ray and Apple

The HDCP path through the OS is already implemented, as evidenced by the guys who had trouble with the new Macbooks to an external device that is not HDCP protected like the 24" LED display:
Faster Forward - Apple's DRM Breaks MacBook Movie-Download Viewing

Apple brings HDCP to a new aluminum MacBook near you - Ars Technica

Re: Blu-ray and Apple

Yes, by definition.
High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You may be confusing it with TCP:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_Computing

To my knowledge BluRay is not a TCP platform but I have not researched it. TCP is worse than DRM, in it your computer conspires against your freedoms. And yes, unfortunately I do own several computers that adhere to it (Win 7)... I hope this dies before DRM does.

Steve Jobs' job is to make sure Apple's customers get what they want, not what he (Jobs) thinks they should have. Like most politicians, Jobs seems to forget this. There seems to be a not-insignificant group of people that want Blu-Ray on Macintosh.

 

I do not believe that this is too difficult for Apple. They pressured the music industry into allowing lower prices, allowing no DRM, etc. And Apple is on the Board of Directors for Blu-Ray Disc Association, the organization from which Jobs says it is too difficult or expensive to license Blu-Ray. Are we to believe that despite all Jobs has been able to accomplish for Apple, he can't get an organization for which he is on their Executive Board to make it easy for Apple to adopt that organization's technology? Is that Jobs' fault or Blu-Ray's? There seems to be some rather large disconnects going on here. It seems like Apple should want Blu-Ray, and it seems like it should be easy for Apple to get Blu-Ray. Yet Jobs says it won't happen. I just don't get it.

As someone who very much wants Blu on Mac,I do feel compelled to point out that Apple's resurgence has been primarily due to exactly the opposite of what you state. Jobs came back from exile and enforced his vision regardless of whether it was what the public wanted or not. The iPod, iPhone, iTunes, OSX and iPad are so successful now that people forget how those products were questioned (some very harshly so) upon their initial release. Whether we like the current BD/Apple situation or not, it's Apple's pursuit of what Steve wanted to create, regardless of what popular opinion at the time was.

 

And how ironic is this? Despite what I wrote a few posts up, I'm now back squarely on the My Next PC Will Be a Mac side, even if it doesn't do Blu.

 

Why?

 

Windows 7.

 

Those cross-platform programs I listed above? Well I'm having a hell of time getting Pro Tools to run on it (with Strike 1.5 plugin). I've uninstalled, reinstalled, cleared the registry, updated to the latest W7 supported official build, etc. Still bombs out whenever I launch the plugin. The irony? Runs fine on my Vista partition. Eventually I want to wipe out that partition and go with only one Windows OS, and that's going to be 7. Not being able to run PT on it is a deal breaker.

Guess I'm going to have to solely watch my Blu on my HT.

I avoided Blu-Ray until last Fall, in part because of the chronic reports of incompatibilities. What's wrong with these BR people, making it so difficult and annoying to watch new movies? Since then, I've had some scattered weirdnesses with the audio output on HDMI failing at times...still don't understand it but somehow it always gets back to normal.

 

But to what normal person has their HT system networked: while many people don't, it's becomingly increasingly common. Anyone with a game console (Wii, PS3, Xbox 360 likely has network access for HT gear. Likewise, Tivo, AppleTV, GoogleTV, Roku. And if you don't have ethernet, you can use a $99 Apple Airport to connect to  your LAN. And more and more BR players have WiFi built in.

 

You got stuck, which is annoying. But it's becoming easier and more common to have all these peripherals networked for simple updating. Even my $100 Panasonic BD60 is networked.

 

But to your point...any computer with a Blu Ray player will obviously have network access for trivial updates. By your expectations, a PC-based BR player would be the easiest of all solutions

Yeah the whole burning a firmware disc process stinks. Even I, a techie, have problems with upgrading my parents' Panny BD player. They have Windows Vista and apparently the disc burning software doesn't burn the image right, so I had to download a free separate burn program to burn the update disc correctly (after four coasters).

 

And the funny thing? The damned player has a USB slot, which would be ideal for updating the firmware, but it cannot be used for that purpose. It must be a burned CD.

 

The player does have ethernet, but the cabinet where it's stored is like 60' away from their cable modem, so I'm not about to run 60' worth of Cat5 cable just to upgrade firmware.

60' of cable wound through the house for an hour might be easier than dealing with burning a magic CD.

 

I had 25' running from office to living room, through the hallway, before I got the direct connection made. It's an easy temporary solution, if you have spare cable.

They should have used a "fixed target" scenario, like a game system (PS3/360) for BD. Both allow for consistent updating with very little problems going forward, and users who bought them were well informed that upgrading was going to be a requirement moving forward. BD's need for updating was never well communicated nor well understood outside of the early adopters and techie community.

 

Also, by leaving it up to the hardware manufacturers to do their own firmware updates, they are already running into the Windows platform problem of lots of hardware to support in different ways, which leads to playback and compatibility problems.

 

By using a fixed target, they could have required that a core set of hardware be in place for which standardized firmware would be issued regularly, and made that part of the BDA certification process.

Yes, updates are fundamentally due to studios making life difficult on the end user in futile and misguided efforts to combat counterfeiting by organized crime. We didn't need firmware updates for a decade of DVDs. But here we are, needing a firmware upgrade every six months to watch Iron Man on Blu-ray. I guess I'm glad I only infrequently watch BR, so it's not a practical problem for me.

 

And Blu-ray players should have big labels that say, "DO NOT BUY IF YOU CANNOT CONNECT TO BROADBAND INTERNET". I wonder how such truth-in-advertising would affect sales?
 

That said, network access is increasingly less of a problem, especially for those that can afford HDTVs and Blu-ray players. I've got a Tivo, Xbox and Blu-ray on ethernet, and another Tivo on wifi. And in y our case, if you've got a wired hub by your BY, why don't just connect it for 20 minutes to get the update (your Xbox or Tivo will surive being disconnected briefly), and then put things back to normal. That sounds much easier than futzing with Nero and FAT32 and perfectly burned CDs.

 

Maybe I'm wrong about the Airport Express: I thought it had an ethernet port to extend a wifi network to a wired device. Likewise, I thought you could use a $50 wifi router to bridge a wifi network back to wired devices. Maybe not. If push comes to shove, a person can get a Wifi Blu-ray playerfor $200.

 

And that's the state of affairs. We can rail against the annoyance, but this is only going to be more common. Blu-ray players, Tivos, Xboxes. GoogleTVs, ... everything now needs firmware updates. So we have to deal with it. And in practice, my annoyance now are devices that *don't* have online access for firmware updates, like my Onkyo receiver.

Edited by DaveF - 11/8/10 at 1:25pm

 

Neighbor A is a decent, law-abiding citizen who lives in a quiet suburban neighborhood. Neighbor B is also a decent, law-abiding citizen and lives a few houses down. Neighbor A and Neighbor B are both men, both have spouses, and the two families are friends with each other, and frequently visit each other's houses. None of them has ever illegally downloaded movies, music, or software. Neighbor A had a very nice home theater setup in his living room; it is much nicer than Neighbor B's, but Neighbor B has a much larger collection of movies.

 

One afternoon, Neighbor A sees Neighbor B and invites B and his wife to come over that evening, and bring any movie they'd like.

 

If optical disks go away, how is Neighbor B going to be able to pick any movie he legally owns in his collection and bring it somewhere else to play on someone else's setup? Such sharing is extremely easy with optical discs, and it's legal, too. Where exactly is the movie, anyway? If it's not on a disc, then it must be a file somewhere. Where? On a computer that's connected to the home theater? On a set-top box (STB), like a DVR drive? Or is it stored on some remove server somewhere, and Neighbor B has to have a box connected to his system in his own, and the box authorizes the remote server to stream the movie to it? Again, how can he watch the movie at someone else's house—which is perfectly legal—with this kind of configuration?

 

It's not possible now. I can pay for a premium movie on Verizon or Comcast, and get the right to have it streamed to my house for 24 hours. I can watch it on any TV in my house (at least with Verizon, not sure if Comcast does that now, too). But I can't go to my neighbor's house and watch it there, not even if he also has Verizon. If this is the model "they" want us to move towards, then I, for one, have to say, "No, thanks, I'll keep my discs that I can watch on any player connected to any TV, any time, anywhere, even if I don't have an internet connection, even at a neighbor's/friend's/relative's house, even if I'm 35,000 feet in the air on a jet liner with a portable DVD player in my backpack, thank you very much."

Although I have a problem with the implementation of firmware updates on BD players, I do have to say that I don't find it at all applicable to Macs/Apple, so I don't buy Jobs' "bag of hurt" excuse.

Computers, especially price-premium ones like Apple, are nearly always hooked up to broadband. Maybe 10-15 years ago there were significant percentages of PCs that weren't online, but I can't imagine that is the case today, especially for people with the disposable income to buy a Mac.

 

In those cases, the firmware issue should be fairly easy to update. Heck, Apple puts out software updates nearly as often as Microsoft does (not to the nitpicky little security updates level, but certainly in terms of regular maintenance updates).

 

I think Apple's reticence towards BD has nothing to do with firmware and everything to do with Jobs' vested interest in iTunes/downloadable content. At first we thought it might be due also to reducing their profit margins but BD-playback drives are not much more expensive than DVD drives in computers, and would cost Apple even less with their manufacturer prices they negotiate.

I agree. And still I don't understand it. Because I don't see a Blu-ray player in a computer taking anything away from iTunes or AppleTV. Setting aside content-creators, speaking only of Blu-ray players, which are used to watch movies: Who gets a new Blu-ray and says, "I'm going to watch this on my 15" laptop with tinny laptop speakers" Or even, "I'll watch this on my 27" iMac with 2.0 speakers in a desk chair"? Not when you've got a 40" or 50" or 60" TV with 5.1 surround. Even the cheapest HT system is going to be a superior experience to the typical computer setup.

 

The one thing a Blu-ray player in my Mac would do, would encourage me to buy more Blu-rays so I could rip them for iPod / iPhone playback. That helps Jobs through his Apple hardware sales and his Disney BR sales.

 

I really don't get his stance from a practical perspective on this one.

Dave and Carlo,

BINGO!

 

I don't care that Macs don't come with Blu-ray

drives but the OS should at least have support

for them externally if one chooses to add it.

 

I would like to preserve my Hi-Def camcorder

footage.

Toast has been able to burn files to Blu-Ray for quite some time now.

Did you read what I wrote? I don't defend it. It's a mess; I agree.

 

But it's reality. So deal with it. And as such, as a consumer, I see nothing to Jobs' prohibition to it except for his ploy for online distribution. "Bag of hurt" is marketing deception; if you can get a Blu Ray player for $99 at BestBuy and buy a $500 laptop with a Blu-ray player, then Apple can make it work on their $999+ computers. Tie firmware updates into the Software Updates system and there's no more user pain than already experienced with the various updates already needed on modern computers.

Ted: same question as Dave - not sure you read everything I wrote. I agree with you completely that the BD player situation. Updating firmware is a mess for consumers. There should have been a "fixed target" scenario (like a PS3/360) where there was standardized upgradable hardware/software which would make all discs playable for all consumers. We don't disagree there at all. I personally (as I wrote earlier) have had a tough time updating my parents' BD player...they wouldn't be able to do it without my intervention (and they do have broadband).

 

What I do disagree is that the mess with non-standardized, standalone players somehow gives Jobs "an out" from supporting BD. It absolutely does not. Apple hardware are the definition of fixed targets. They control the hardware and the software. They could accommodate BD for very little cost, and would be easily update-able to the latest specs/standards since I'm going to guess over 98% of new Mac owners (which would be the demographic since older Mac owners won't have BD capability) also have internet access. The PS3 handles new discs without breaking a sweat and I've never had playability issues on it. You can't convince me that the geniuses in Cupertino can't make a Macbook Pro/iMac/Mac Pro do what a PS3 does.

You guys just don't get it. It's not a technology problem. It's a control problem.

Apple cannot and will not utilize a closed to competition technology where they are not firmly in the COMPLETE drivers seat wrt user experience.

If a bluray does not play on your iMac due to bullshit spec creep you aren't going to bitch at the BDA you are going to bitch at Apple. It's game over I think, BD will never come to OSX unless apple can somehow wrest control of that tech, which at this point in time seems impossible.

So yes, I've given up. I'll get the next 15" MBP regardless of whether it has ANY optical media or not, and I strongly suspect it won't, and I won't cry over it.

Be reasonable, do it steves way.

I think this is it.  And it's the part I find most scary about Apple.   They have aimed to move toward the kind of monopoly over product that people feared Microsoft was trying to become.   To control from end to end what is and isn't possible using their product, something which got the hammer thrown at MS.

But it's the happy kind of evil!