Native BluRay Support! (1 Viewer)

[Sam Posten]

In Pro Apps... =(

http://www.apple.com/au/finalcutstudio/whats-new.html

Cool, you can burn to a BluRay natively in FCS but Apple still doesnt sell a BTO BluRay burner. Explain that one Jobsy!

To be clear, a few Pro Apps already had limited BD support this is just expanding it and making it native and more visible.

 

[Carlo_M]

Isn't BluRay still a "bag of hurt"?

 

[DaveF]

Yes, but now you can put stuff in the bag with your Mac.

 

[DavidJ]

Still no Apple authoring solution as DVD Studio Pro didn't receive an upgrade.

 

[Ted Todorov]

www.makemkv.com/
This software can best be described as a Handbrake that supports Blu-ray and has a Mac OS X version. The resulting files can be played back using programs such as Plex.

Note I don't have a Blu-ray drive like this one store.fastmac.com/product_info.php and have not tried the above software, but it is getting good reviews. Caveat: for it to work the BD drive has to be able to write something (CDs is fine). If it is totally a ROM drive in all supported formats, OS X won't allow MakeMKV to access it -- see http://www.makemkv.com/osxmmc/

 

[Ted Todorov]

Boy Genius claims BD support in iTunes 9. Possible BS but, I'm reporting it just in case.

 

[Ted Todorov]

Steve Jobs:

- Blu-Ray software is a mess, and Apple will wait until sales really start to take off before implementing it.

So reports MacRumors, the occasion being an Apple internal "town hall" meeting which took place this week.

 

[Sam Posten]

Thanks for that heads up Ted. At least he didn't say 'Never' =) Remember tho that when Apple says they see a 'Mess', that leads to an opportunity for being a white knight 6 months later showing everyone else what they did wrong. Nobody disputes that for movies that downloads are the future. But I still maintain that BluRay is going to be the future for portable file movement that is bigger than flash drives but smaller than hard disks, and cheaper to mass mail out to boot. Time will tell if they get on board or not. Until then I will be rocking in a corner in the fetal position crying....

http://www.macrumors.com/2010/01/31/steve-jobs-at-apple-town-hall-meeting-google-adobe-next-iphone-2010-macs-and-more/

 

[Oswald Pascual]

What are the odds of blu-ray native on an iMac within the next two years?It just does not seem right that one can edit a nice HD video with Final Cut and then not be able to put it on a blu-ray unless I use some third party drive that may or may not work.

 

[Ted Todorov]

Who knows. Apple is selling more 27" iMacs than they can manufacture without a BD drive. They have no incentive to hurry.

Once the software suport is there, I don't see why you'd have trouble with an external burner -- I've never had problems with external DVD burners.

 

[DaveF]

Except for the few people authoring Blu Ray discs, is Blu Ray in a home or office computer anything more than a spec-sheet bulletpoint?

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

1920x1080 monitors are quickly becoming standard. My current desktop has a Blu-Ray reader that also burns CDs and DVDs. The biggest problem is software; there's no free player out there like VLC for SD-DVD, and the commercial software has to keep cranking out new keys as updates because the studios are dumping them as soon as they're cracked.

 

[DaveF]

I guess my social circle is too old school: do people watch movies on computers? I'm almost to where I think media drives aren't needed on computers: much less needing newer and fancier ones.

 

[Sam Posten]

Again, I don't merely want Bluray support 'just for' movies. I want a "super super drive" for the professional market that combines packaged movie playback along with RW-Blu media that is apple approved and supported from firmware to OS to application, not some hack that sort of allows 3rd party drives to kind of work. I realize this is not what the hordes want. But it's certainly something that Apples "Pro" users, particularly their Final Cut Studio users (I use adobe and iMovie personally) would want.

The bottom line is that I question how long Apple will continue to delude themselves into thinking they can support the very small pro market while catering to the average iPod citizen. When you compare markets of tens of thousands of high price items versus hundreds of millions of high MARGIN items, something's gotta give.

More hot air:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=5928

 

[DaveF]

I wouldn't object to a 50GB backup disc option, to complement my hard drive backups. Although in short order flash memory of comparable size could be price competitive.

But you drive to the heart of my question: does Apple still want this high-end media market? Will they let it go without a fight? How will they survive without it? (currently, it seems "quite well")

 

[Ted Todorov]

It ain't coming -- email from El Jobso via 9to5mac:

 

[mattCR]

Wow. "Youtube supports HD".. yes, at insanely low bitrates that looks like a--!

Sam has it right. I have a client who uses a lot of Adobe, but switched from Premiere to FCS a few years ago. They recently landed all FCS3. It's a pretty hard sell to them that they can develop their content for something but they can't output it worth s---, unless they export the file, take it over to a PC as a finished product, or if they walk it into Toast.

For the end user, a vast majority, it may not matter right now. For those buying FCS, it matters. I don't know, the whole thing just strikes me as ridiculous at this point. Far more so then debating with Adobe.

 

[DaveF]

Just like I said in the other thread: you have to think like Jobs / Apple. Media is dead. Push the HD content to the cloud. For Johnny Flip Video, filming the kids and the cats and the Disney World vacation, this is easy -- arguably easier than making an actual disc.

For the pro? Sounds like Apple is irrelevant for Blu Ray production. Does this affect TV or cinema production?

 

[mattCR]

It potentially effects what I call "mid-level" pros in a big way. There are several who digitally edit together small TV shows (think Syndication or Cable) are moving quickly to the direction of capturing in HD, editing in HD, and outputting BD to send to their end target. It is easier to do that then it is to shoot a hard drive across the country or city. i have two programs we take care of here that record almost everything using RedOne Cameras (which are great stuff) Edit in FCS, and right now, they move the content off to a PC for BD authoring once they have a final product.
Now, this isn't an unworkable solution, but it is an annoying one. The longer it goes on, the more interesting it is for them to just grab Premiere on the PC, especially now that it has native RED support.

Yes, it's still possible to us FCS to do you work, then output then take it into something else to make final product. But then, what the hell was the point of FCS? You could do all that in Adobe and save yourself the $999 you just shelled out on FCS.

The thing is, Apple has no incentive to really work on the BD output interface, which means anything anyone does, Adobe or Toast or whatever is done outside of the apple guidelines. Which is fine, it just means that since it's not a native support, you've got a lot of Apple-afficiandos who don' t view it so kindly to have an external burning device. And sorry, but burning Bluray at USB speed isn't necessarily ideal.

It's apple's perogative. Realistically, less and less money comes into their pocket from the mac, and more and more from phones, mobile media (ipod/ipad), and content.

So, this may not be the highest priority. But graphic designers and video editors were at one point their complete break and butter. One of the things they hoped to gain when they bought up NeXT was to gobble up those who were using SGI and other platforms.

 

[DaveF]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mattCR

So, this may not be the highest priority. But graphic designers and video editors were at one point their complete break and butter.

Your comments on the mid-range pros is interesting. This comment caught my eye, since my wife is a freelance graphic designer and 100% Mac for her Photoshop, etc work. I talked with her about this this week, noting that everything I've read in recent years says that Adobe's products are now superior on Windows. Mac is now the secondary, inferior platform for graphic design, it seems. And I just put it out there, that if she thought she needed the best, fastest Adobe products, it would be worth examining if a switch to Windows makes sense.

Practically, my wife isn't doing work that requires the ultimate in performance, and the overall Mac experience is best for her. But it seems Apple is ceding the professional platform for the consumer market.