Apple and Blu-ray - painful, slow, needed?
Apple has no immediate plans to deploy Blu-ray in its Macs, citing the cost of licensing as cause.
Speaking during the MacBook family launch last night Apple CEO Steve Jobs said: "You know, Blu-ray is a bag of hurt. I don't mean from a consumer point of view - it's great to watch movies - but the licensing is so complex.
"We're waiting until things settle down and Blu-ray takes off in the marketplace before we burden our customers with the cost of the licensing and the cost of the drives."
While Apple is a member of the Blu-ray Disc Association, the company hopes to avoid the $30 per Mac royalty that would be required should the company deploy players across its computers.
Never say never, of course, but Apple management may also have a less enthusiastic view on the Blu-ray format, as film in HD is already available online from services like iTunes or NetFlix. Has Blu-ray missed its moment as physical media distribution goes digital?
» posted by ITworld staff
Macworld.co.uk
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Mad as Hell!
I am mad as hell that I can't burn a Blu-Ray disc out ofFinal Cut Pro!
I have been a Mac guy from the start and have used FCP since it came out. This might actually make me buy Premier Pro. With Premier you can burn Blu-Ray no problem.
We produce Broadcast and corporate projects and have been shooting with a Varicam for years now. Lots of great HD projects that I need to put on DVD.
Clients are asking for this! I have been telling them
"Any day now" for months!
Almost ready to lose a loyal customer Apple!
Bluray will be...
Hardware is cheap.Bandwidth is cheap.
Time should be the focus.
What do you use your Internet Connection for?
VOIP Phone, Browsing, PC Gaming, Torrents, Consoles (Wii, PS3, XboxLive) Streaming Media, NetRadio?
Do you Share you Internet Connection with others?
Family, Friends, Roomates?
Bandwidth in all of its glory reaches its limit at some point. How much do you want to rely on the Internet? We are only talking about endusers here arent we, the logic of disaster recovery without being able to use large media may not matter to everyone.(Harddrives are cheap right?)
The speed of even the fastest connections may not be far behind the increasing size of the content. But why cant we have both? Use technology to its fullest. Ever wanted to save money by not getting a gb network card? ever regretted it cause its was a good laptop in every other way?(so what if the network is now limited by THAT computer?)
It will again be true down the road when someone wants to load software that was on bluray and the haunting feeling comes when you realize, they never thought to put on in for the extra 30$ BRICK.
Rant or Reason, thank you for reading.
J
The Truth
I'm an Apple fan but excluding Blu-ray from their new line was a huge let down for me. And Steve Jobs' comment about Blu-ray really pissed me off. The tech world thrives on sensationalized news the same way tabloids exploit celebrities. Real facts show Blu-ray is growing and adapting at a successful rate, especially when compared to DVD's timeline. However customers won't adapt something that isn't there, like when they buy their new supposedly "state-of-the-art" MacBook Pro that lacks Blu-ray technology. If tech companies universally offer a said technology as an option then it will have a fair chance to become adapted by large masses. When they don't offer it then there's a catch. In this case Apple is simply trying to stunt Blu-ray's growth in order to promote its own DRM corrupted movie and music download services. The day DRM media becomes universally accepted is the same day consumers surrender themselves as slaves to all the companies of the world.