Hold off on buying a new macbook / macbook pro for just a bit - Page 4

I may be the only one who finds it laughably funny that we've seen/heard numerous apple people... even some who work for Apple, discuss in forums that Blueray isn't that big, because, you know, you can rip it to MKV so easy on a PC and watch it that way...   wha wha what?

So, to enjoy BD on a Mac, you need to use ripping software and an external drive or have a PC nearby that can re-encode it for you or at least decant to MKV.

Now that is a rebel posture.

Apple's position on BD is really at this point foolish.  Yes, I realize their opinion, but come on.  The drives themselves are now insanely cheap.  You can grab readers, or even combo drives on the PC for $80-$100.  And that's end user costs.  Writers are about $150.  

Blueray, at this point in it's existance, has better adoption then DVD did at the exact same point in it's timeframe.  And, people who edit video are looking for easy means by which to produce Blueray.  I mean, how often do you hear people saying "man, I'm really eager to use Final Cut Studio 3, and my goal is to go out to DVD"  what?  Oh yes, that's what we need these high end machines for, to encode MPEG2.  Something a PentiumII could do.  And yes, FCS3 will now do BD.. if you have an external drive, or preferrably just folders to go out to.  And no, it's menuing system still isn't correct and the inlays are still messed up.  But FCS hasn't dropped support for HD-DVD, who knows, might make a comeback.

Apple doesn't like Bluray.  For whatever reason, maybe tons of reasons.  Fine.  There are lots of things that have happens in the production world I hated.  But it doesn't mean I ever got to say "well, I dislike it, so I won't do it".  Apple originally really wanted ADC to prevail.  It didn't, DVI interface did.   And, Apple jumped on board.  

The longer apple waits on this, the more of a disservice it is to their clients who find bluray is now the output format that they are looking for. 

Capture video from a $150 HD 720P "Flip" camera, and output it to.. DVD?  Or just convert to a web video that a big part of them will see highly compressed and in crap quality?  Or, do you go out and get an external BD drive, deal with folder creation, image makeup and output.  

*shrug* who knows.  Maybe in another year or two.. or maybe apple just intends to pass it all by.  Hell, it's not like a PC user with $40 bucks can't go out and buy basic Bluray Burning software that works point and click.  (or, several, actually, there are three decent ones on the market).  Maybe not as classy as FCS.  But then again, FCS doesn't get it right, either.  Toast manages to actually figure it out.  Kind of strange that.

I have an older MacBook pro.  I'll keep hold of it.  It's an Intel series so not that old ;)  But we don't use it as much.  I really think Apple has to look at the high end laptop game and do something different and I'm not sure what they did.  The stats just aren't as impressive and there isn't a real wow feature.  Bluray would have been a wow feature.  I admit, I also held out hope for a Netbook type model, a very small but fully functional laptop in the 8.9/10 marketplace.

These are nice processor bumps, but since they are all Clarksdale (Dual core with HT) then it's not a big advantage.. and if past benchmarks are right, then unless OSX has some sort of change of heart then HT doesn't help it nearly as much as on the PC side.. its just not the nature of how the processors handle the predictive branching.

 

These aren't bad offerings, I think I was just expecting something to come out with Wow factor.  Love or hate the iPad, it has "wow" and hot debate factor.  This doesn't.

Quote:
That's your fundamental disconnect: you're still thinking "output". From the Apple perspective (and mine, now) there is no "output". Record with your Flip camera. Edit in iMovie. Watching on the computer. Or upload to YouTube or Vimeo -- both of which support 720p. Or Connect your computer (or AppleTV or iPod or iPad) directly to your TV and watch the video there.

There is no interest in output to DVD or BluRay.

I now ascribe to this: I've been recording speeches from my Toastmasters meetings. Originally, I'd edit, title, and create a DVD. But I realized that was a waste. I'm never going to watch this on TV, with the nuisance of fiddling with a DVD in the HT. It's easier to just watch the few minutes on my computer. If someone else wants a video, I can email it to them or post it online. DVD was too timeconsuming and overkill.

Certainly this doesn't describe everyone. But this is the "person" Apple has in mind to sell their products to. This is fulfilled with the iPad: In this day of 50"+ 1080p displays, 7.2 surround sound, and Blu Ray players, they're selling 9", sub-720p, stereo-sound, compressed-movie handheld playback device for movies. And this is a sure bet to crush the AppleTV as a content device.

I think the problem with that idea, and I agree with you that's obviously how Apple feels, is that a big part of their base.. definitely the people who buy Final Cut Studio at $1,000 are most certainly concerned about output.  If they thought output was dead, they'd just buy iMove and call it a day.

Most of the things I have I'm not that concerned about putting for output either.  It stays in my PC.  But I admit, once a month, I do worry about output, as I send out nice DVDs to my inlaws and parents, who are unfortunately a very long way away and like to see their grandkids.  And, while Mac may be convenient, you try teaching a 72 year old chinese woman how to use the computer.. we're better off just sending a disc so she can pop it in and watch the kids.

And big events?  Yes, I want output on those to.  A hard drive can fail.  Several copies of the Son's elementary school graduation?  I'll take that.

But for other people, the reason to output Bluray is more serious.  People who buy Final Cut Studio etc. are making those discs to use as presentations, promotional and advertising material.  Blueray for some of them is great stuff.  I know one who walks through all of their products (they design a special kind of product) and they create Blurays walking through the process of creation.  And they do it in HD because at a lower resolution, it's really difficult to see a see-through plastic mold that's less then 3" big.  It just hides.  But they send those discs out to Target, Walmart, and every one of their clients so they can see them working on new products as part of their pitch.  

So, the end home user, maybe less and less.. but it's still a feature they want.  And saying "well, you can watch if you rip it via a PC or you use this software to rip it to MKV" is most definitely not the most studio friendly take apple can have ;)  (Even though, thankfully, it appears as though the studios have completely lost the valid argument on those point if the owner shows the prescence of legal first editions, which is all anyone asks)

I can't speak to the professional side. Apple may well be failing to meet professional needs.

But as a consumer, other than parity in specs with Wintel, I see no value in Blu Ray in a computer. I only use my DVD drive to rip my movies for my iPod and the quasi-annual iWork / iLife / OS X upgrade.

As for backups: writeable discs fail too. Are DVDs & Blu Ray discs more robust than a hard drive as archive medium?

I won't say Apple shouldn't have Blu Ray. But I'll say that as a home user, I don't care. And I think I'm similar to many Joe Users in that regard.

At the very least Apple should allow their OS to
have Blu-ray support so some of us can go out
and buy external drives.

I don't want a laptop or desktop with a built-in
drive because chances are Apple will charge an
exorbitant fee to add the hardware.

For me, I just want to be able to burn Hi-Def
camcorder footage to BD media.  As of right
now any HD editing that I do on iMovie is
ultimately downconverted to DVD. 

 

Quote:

I believe this, not the hardware, is the big holdup. When Jobs called Blu a "bag of hurt" he was, I believe, referring to the work they would have to do to comply with Blu licensing requirements. Now, I'm not totally buying this excuse, but I think that's their position.

You can do this now with a copy of Roxio Toast Titanium and an external BDR drive. 

Craig,

Can I actually hook up an external BD drive to my

Mac and expect it to work?

 

Will it work with iMovie/iDVD in addition to Toast? 

Ron:

 

You can.  Within iMovie, you must export out as a HD File (1920x1080, if you use the lesser resolutions, you'll run into Toast issues that can be solved but require more hoops)

Then, important this file into Toast, Toast will conver this into a BD ready M2TS setup (usually H264) and burn out to an external BD.
 

It's not as "slick" as going straight from iMovie, but it does work.

As a happy MBP owner (2007 15" model), I see the new MBP's and think, "I'd rather have an iPad". I'm curious if and how the iPad will change the buying habits of Apple customers. I spent about $2500 on my current MBP, and figured that come next upgrade, I'd again spend $2000+ on another Mac laptop.

But now, instead of a MBP upgrade, I could spend less and get two 64GB 3G iPads for my wife and myself. But maybe it's a wash? Because while I upgrade computers only every 5+ years, I can imagine buying less expensive tablets more frequently. And it will be easier to buy the less expensive software more frequently. So Apple might get from me a smaller, but more continuous revenue stream that nets out the same?

I agree, although as they have record quarter after record quarter it appears that their foolishness is inflicting minimal pain.  Apple would never release a computer with read-only optical media at this point so you have to look at the writer prices and they still seem high (isn't an internal DVD-R drive something like $20 at this point?)

But ultimately that two shouldn't matter -- they can release the BDs as a BTO only option, thus not changing their standard config prices.

My guess is, as Craig suggests that it is a software issue.  Possibly also a business issue -- Apple wanting to extract better terms from the BD consortium, etc.  I doubt Jobs wants to kill Blu-ray -- as Disney's largest stock holder it would be very much against his own interest.

Other World Computing has a good selection of BD drives that work with Macs (of course lot of vendors sell these, but I like to research on the OWC site because they specialize in Mac add-ons). They sell drives in enclosures with USB and Firewire 400/800 interfaces. Just plug the drive in and OS X will recognize it as an optical drive. You just need extra software (like Toast) to access any of the BD functions as OS X doesn't have the built-in support. OWC has this detailed writeup on how the whole process works:

http://eshop.macsales.com/Reviews/Framework.cfm?page=/Tips/burn-bluray/index.html

As Matt said, for iMovie you just export your movie in the proper resolution. I don't believe there's any way to get iDVD-authored menu systems onto BD. However, Toast does have rudimentary menuing capabilities, which are fine for home use.

Now, I haven't done any of this myself (I use Toast mainly to transfer TV episodes from my TiVos and burn 'em to DVD) - I've been waiting for BD burner & media prices to drop a little more before I take the plunge.

BD Media is so cheap right now it's sick.  It just depends on where you grab it.  I'm picking up BD @ around $2.20/disc.  Completely worth it.  Even when I'm not using it for Video in BD format, it makes for a great archive/hold format to file away.

That's good to hear. I haven't really been paying attention to media prices. The burners, while not that bad, are still a bit higher than I'd like to pay given the limited use I'll get out of one.

Quote: It must be a matter of perspective: my reference frame for "so cheap" is a 100-CD spindle for $10 with $10 rebate

Ok, that's true, so you're figuring 10 cents for 700MB. 
Meanwhile, $2.20 for 25GB
35CDs = 1 BD 25GB.
35CDs @ 10 cents a disc = $3.50.
$3.50 is greater then $2.20.

:)

(because by the time you get that rebate... oh, never mind, I just hate rebates.. but if you buy select BD writers, you get up to 4 free discs on a rebate through NewEgg and Amazon.. so that's the equivelent of 100GB, or 140 CDs)

Ah, the dot-com era, how I miss ya ;) Practically getting paid to buy computer stuff.

I went to the Apple refurb page and ordered this:

Refurbished MacBook Pro 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

It should be delivered to my office tomorrow.  Oh, and the total with tax came in south of $2K, which is where I wanted to be.

My MacBook Pro arrived.  Can't wait to get it home.

You demanded and here you are.  I'll be doing the set up once I get home.