OT: Blu-ray on Macs soon? Don't hold your breath.

Just saw this in an article about Apple's latest, internal town-hall meeting. Steve Jobs apparently said that "Blu-Ray software is a mess, and Apple will wait until sales really start to take off before implementing it." [Macrumors]

So, are sales really not taking off? I know there's been slow growth but I feel like BR is finally starting to get some real penetration into the market. In any case, don't expect to be able to add a BR burner to any Mac in the Apple Store or experience BR playback in OSX any time soon...

JK

(original article: Macrumors: Apple town hall meeting

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SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!

Looks like Steve hasn't cooled off from his "bag of hurt" assessment last year.



www.strypesinpost.com

John K Wrote:
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<snip> In any case, don't expect to be able
> to add a BR burner to any Mac in the Apple Store
> or experience BR playback in OSX any time soon...
>
> JK
I'm assuming you mean not being able to order a pre-configured Mac from the Apple Store with a BR burner in it, right? I'm curious if there are any issues or problems with putting a BR burner into my MacPro's second drive bay? Any suggestions as to which brands are most problem-free?

Dave

FCP 7.0.3, PPro CS5.5, MPro Octo 2.8, 16 gigs RAM, Matrox MXO2, Sony EX1

Quote
Dave Morrison
I'm assuming you mean not being able to order a pre-configured Mac from the Apple Store with a BR burner in it, right?

Yes. I would look at any of the bundles offered by OWC, I think they work pretty well. Apple has supported BR burners in the new FCS but I doubt they'll offer any as BTO until they actually implement the BR standards into their hardware to allow playback.

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SCQT! Self-contained QuickTime ? pass it on!

I just put one of these in a 2009 Mac Pro for a client. Pretty simple. The only issue is that you have to remove the faceplate from the drive tray. It is too big to fit through the opening in the front of the case on eject. It snaps off easily. Otherwise the installation is a snap. All the cables and even the mounting screws are already in the computer.

[eshop.macsales.com]

Apple wants you to by movies and TV shows from their store. Things like Blu-ray and DVRs are competition which is why, IMO, Apple has not adopted BR and not added DVR functionality to AppleTV.


-Andrew

Apple won't implement BR in their hardware because they believe physical delivery is outmoded and would certainly hurt their content distribution model. As far as using BR for data storage is concerned, there are other technologies on the horizon that promise more, since these things move forward without regard to current technologies. Remember, BR is what? 5 years old at this point, at least from engineering inception to now? And internally, the studios acknowledge that the public simply isn't buying into BR. Dead on the vine.

FWIW, and I find this interesting, a boss of mine from a long time ago, whose audio facility made its fortune retasking audio assets for first Laser Disc & then DVD, and whose clients include pretty much every studio in Hollywood, has said publicly - in print - that on the manufacturing side of things, studio executives have been surprised that their libraries aren't translating very well to the format. It costs serious money to get picture pristine. DVD, being SD, was forgiving. Blu-Ray is not. In other words, the clarity the format offers, as well as the space it affords, means there are few limits, IF the money was there. But it's not. WIth DVD, content owners could hide behind the resolution limitations AND the space limitations. Can't do that anymore.

VPiccin Wrote:
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> I just put one of these in a 2009 Mac Pro... The only issue is that you
> have to remove the faceplate from the drive tray.

There is another place that sells Blu-ray burners for the Mac: MCE.

As I recall, there is implementation of stripped down BR burning inside Final Cut Studio 3, part of the Share dialog, (away from FCP at the moment).

I don't think Blu-Ray is dying, I think it's growing. Best Buy has racks of the stuff now, they never did before, major and minor titles. And most important, the price of BR players, which are backward compatible with DVD, are now becoming as cheap as DVD players of a few years ago.

It may be a "mess" according to Steve, (and I'm not sure what he means) but I think it's a delivery format to contend with, and it sure is pretty to look at. The next gen of DVD Studio Pro really should have the BR spec well implemented.

- Loren

Today's FCP 7 keytip:
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I think the future of Blu-Ray will depend on how fast HD televisions can come down in price. Right now, most people I know still won't blow over a grand on an HDTV, and the ones under $1,000 mostly don't look big enough to give a markedly different experience. After all, if you don't have the space to look at it, and a very nice sound system to match, and lots of time to watch cinema-worthy programming, there's no point. I see BD players as cheap as DVD players used to be, under $200, but without an HDTV to play this stuff, again, there's no point shelling out $20 to $40 more per title to buy Blu-Ray Discs rather than DVDs.

And Apple is going the other way, smaller rather than bigger. I think the wave of the future isn't bigger, it's faster and easier -- such as LG's model that interfaces with Netflix directly, downloading content. Physical media will always have their fans, but casual viewers will probably go with downloadable content and that medium will grow faster than Blu-Ray.

My theory about DVDs isn't that they looked better; it's that they were cheap enough (compared with LaserDiscs), and you can fly from place to place much faster. If quality were people's true concern, LaserDiscs would have caught on much more than they had. And even now in Asia, long after DVDs had become the standard in North America, people are still content watching MPEG-1 VCDs, because they're cheap and still have random access -- no bonus materials, much poorer image quality.


www.derekmok.com

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Apple wants you to by movies and TV shows from their store.

Quote

Apple won't implement BR in their hardware because they believe physical delivery is outmoded and would certainly hurt their content distribution model.

I think it'd be just great if we prefaced statements like that with "I think" or "It is my opinion that." Because I see that sentiment thrown around a lot ? not just about Blu-Ray but on a variety of topics ? and it's bollocks. Even if it's technically correct, it's still bollocks, because it's an assertion completely unsupported by facts. If it happens to be right, it's purely a lucky guess.

As for my part, I think (see how that works?) Blu-Ray adoption hasn't taken off like crazy because DVD is still good enough. I have a really nice HDTV, one on which it's very easy to see the difference between SD and HD. I haven't bought a Blu-Ray player because DVD is, frankly, good enough.

I think Derek's theory is right. DVD had a lot of tangible advantages over VHS: better picture and sound, extras like commentary tracks, random access, smaller physical size. Blu-Ray has precisely one advantage over DVD, and it's the one that matters the least of all those.

And don't forget- we have 3D Blu-Ray coming this summer from Sony and Panasonic. So that means buying a new player, TV/projector and rebuying any movies you have that are coming in a new 3D version.... YAY!

Noah

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Jeff Harrell Wrote:
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> I think it'd be just great if we prefaced
> statements like that with "I think" or "It is my
> opinion that." Because I see that sentiment thrown
> around a lot ? not just about Blu-Ray but on a
> variety of topics ? and it's bollocks.

It's not bollocks stating that Apple wants people to buy media from the iTunes Store as that's the whole point of the store. And when I speculated that that was the reason Apple was giving BR and DVR functionality the cold shoulder I did say, "in my opinion" thank you very much.

I do agree though that it's easy to come off as matter of fact when in fact one is speculating or making an educated guess and that adding 'IMO' doesn't take all that much effort.

I also agree that the jump from VHS to DVD was much bigger than the current jump from DVD to BR.


-Andrew

> I also agree that the jump from VHS to DVD was much bigger than the current jump from DVD
> to BR.

Touché. That's why I don't think Blu-Ray is going to revolutionize things. The next big jump, I suspect, will be to digital downloading. Perhaps even digitally delivered physical media -- such as ability to print a sleeve or make a disc with the artwork. If we think even crazier, since people are now so into DIY (especially videography and web-type design), maybe studios will even allow different templates of artwork to be downloaded.


www.derekmok.com

I've always felt that the big leap to DVD was big because of all the extra content you could get on one disk. When you go back and look at the state of the web and the quality of VHS at the dawn of the DVD era you can see why one disk with a bunch of extras and language options and director commentary was so inviting. That and the pay once/watch forever(no scratches allowed) format of DVD is still worth it for so many people over the complications of DRM'd downloads that don't come with anything other than the main program. BluRay is an improvement on the visual quality of the program but the interface is generally the same. BluRay live is not significantly unique yet to pull people just for that.
Has there been a BluRay only release yet? How long before that happens?

BTW. I know videodisks had commentary tracks before DVD's but they had a problem with price point.

ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

> BTW. I know videodisks had commentary tracks before DVD's but they had a problem with price
> point.

Price and bulk. Makes your living room look like an old record collection without the innocent charm of vinyl. Those suckers were heavy, too. I worked in Hong Kong in 1996 and 1997 and used my father's LD rental membership. It was like carrying a whole family takeout.


www.derekmok.com

Yeah, DVDs have way more tech-sex appeal than some big ol' LaserDisc that has to be flipped mid-movie.


-Andrew

The first batch of DVDs I bought included Amadeus, which, wait for it, had to be flipped mid-movie.

Oh, yeah, I forgot some of the earlier DVDs had to be flipped.

Kids today...

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

What Jobs means by the "mess" is the licensing scheme involved with creating any commercially distributed bluray title, even small runs.

Sony has mentioned some kind of streamlined licensing method with lower fees, but the fees are likely still pretty high.

Plus Sony has not show any signs of licensing the various patents involved with authoring bluray disks to an inexpensive application like DVD Studio Pro.

They are still trying to push their $50,000/seat authoring software to get any bluray functionality beyond an extremely basic menu.

Sonic has something less expensive, but it's still too expensive for the masses.

I find it interesting that it seems everyone is talking about the consumer side of things rather than client delivery.

I have corporate clients who find disadvantages with web download distribution. They want to hand discs to people they meet/present to. It's easier for them than gathering email addresses and sending web links to people. They find handing a disc to someone more concrete marketing. Of course they're using DVD at the moment but Blu-ray would work IF/WHEN the market penetration warrants it.

Given the drop in prices for Blu-ray players, I wouldn't be surprised that that will be pretty much all you can buy within a couple of years.

On the consumer side, Blu-ray will never dominate like DVD did but I think it'll be a viable portion of the market. I believe HDTV households are about 50% give or take in the USA about now. Broadband (and that can include some fairly slow speeds) is about 60%. For many people the $99 Blu-ray player will be their next player purchase.

Also on the consumer side it would be interesting to compare Netflix Blu-ray rental vs their "instant" online view (only some of which are "HD". Of course I got that feature when I got my inexpensive home theater system which has a Blu-ray player with Netflix access. I use the instant view often. I have yet to rent a Blu-ray disc but I'm considering it. The compression on instant view ranges from pretty bad for SD to slightly worse than mediocre for HD.

Clients still want discs and it's only a matter of time before the base of Blu-ray will result in them asking for that format IMHO.

> I find it interesting that it seems everyone is talking about the consumer side of things rather
> than client delivery.

True, true. It could be that Blu-Ray would slip into a niche similar to DigiBeta...while it seems like apples and oranges, I've noticed that many of my corporate clients are really, really inept when it comes to tapeless workflows, archiving high-quality movie files of material for which there is no master tape. They keep handing us "high-quality" DVDs to cut their corporate reels with. At least we might get Blu-Rays now. But how fast is the burning speed on Blu-Rays these days? That was a major concern of mine when looking at it as an archival format.

And if we do start seeing Blu-Ray discs as delivery media, we'll also have to figure out how to extract footage from a BD. Theoretically speaking it should be simpler, since it's H.264? Anybody know anything about that aspect?


www.derekmok.com

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ak
Sleeplings, AWAKE!

From what I understand burn speed for 25GB are getting much faster with the newer burners. The 50GB discs are still slow.

I think Blu-ray will definitely be a viable professional format. It is viable (IMHO) for archival of raw footage from file based workflows. It will be for client delivery within a couple of years as the only consumer players on the market will be Blu-ray . . . but they'll still be lots of DVD players around as I'm not sure there's much consumer incentive to upgrade. Basically the change will happen by attrition.

Even as file data delivery medium Blu-ray makes sense compared to file online download. Sure it's getting easier to watch an HD movie from iTunes, Netflix, Hulu but are you going to ask your clients to download a 10GB master file? We're years away from that kind of broadband capabilities in much of the country and the world.

Yeah but the uptake has been SO slow. How many years since it was introduced? I don't think the benefits are high enough for the typical consumer. Someone in this thread said they have the capability of playing them and has 'considered' renting one. Even WITH the ability to use them, the incentive is .. boredom. It's just not got enough sexy to bother.

Just throwing a different hat in the ring. I see BR data disc as a useful storage medium. At 25 gigs, it's a viable storage medium over tape for formats like DV, HDV etc... This way you could archive a full rez QT movie at 12 gigs per hour to BR data instead of a tape or hard drive archive.

> Just throwing a different hat in the ring. I see BR data disc as a useful storage medium. At 25
> gigs, it's a viable storage medium over tape for formats like DV, HDV etc... This way you could
> archive a full rez QT movie at 12 gigs per hour to BR data instead of a tape or hard drive archive.

True, but since movie files are getting larger and larger -- imagine when 12K becomes viable -- 25GB is really quite measly. You can get a 32GB USB flash drive for about $60, and the write speeds at this stage are still much faster. At 25GB, if the write speed is up to par, it'd be more useful for audio technicians, or project-type files, or short effects clips, and commercials.

It'd be great to have a fast-writing, cheap, and read-only format for crucial files. I still find comfort in making a data disc that's much harder to corrupt, impossible to alter or overwrite, and stays on a shelf with a much better chance of remaining intact. But the trends seem to be going towards rewritable storage.


www.derekmok.com