“Apple has never been one for alliances, coalitions or other formal (or informal) industry-wide groupings. Case in point: The company joined the Blu-ray Disc Association in 2005 promising to help promote the high definition format and then did pretty much nothing (at least in a commercial sense) for close to three years,” Bryan Gardiner blogs or Wired.
“This despite Jobs acknowledging that ‘consumers are…anxiously awaiting a way to burn their own high def DVDs.’ Apparently, they weren’t anxious enough to warrant sticking Blu-ray drives in Macs,” Gardiner writes.
“Given the ongoing format war, Apple’s hesitation is more than understandable. But with Toshiba finally waving the white HD flag on Tuesday — and other BDA members like HP and Dell starting to offer more Blu-ray equipped systems — that reluctance could finally be changing,” Gardiner writes.
“Some Apple watchers seem to think we’ll start to see Blu-ray drives in Mac Pros by late spring…which is what some were also saying in back in 2006. I would only say that at this point Apple is in no hurry,” Gardiner writes. “In fact, with downloadable HD content via iTunes, it’s in even less of hurry. Apple would much rather sell (or rent) you a HD movie than help you watch it with a Blu-ray drive.”
More in the full article here.
@ Kevin
Stop sticking the disks in the spokes of your bike tires and they will work just fine.
with no DHCP on the cinema displays would we even be able to play (view) a blu ray disk?
@ Kevin
I have three kids under 13. We have had a PS2 for over 5 years.
Right from the getgo I taught them how to handle the discs. Every game we own still works and not one scratch on any discs.
If you handle them like rocks, they will scratch. Can’t believe how many houses I visit and I see a stack of CDs and DVD piled up by the computer or TV not in cases. Idiots.
I could be wrong but I don’t think plopping meets ISO standards.
Apple TV 3 with a Blu-ray player. That would be nice.
@ Cubert
That’s nothing. You should hear me when I haven’t had any caffeine for a couple of days.
@ silverhawk: that or an add-on drive for that USB connection on the back. Is that even possible?
Blu-ray’s have an extra protective coating. They are much more difficult to scratch than a normal dvd.
Optical backup will always have a place in the market. Sad reality is hard drives fail. So the only real alternative for hard drive back ups is MULTIPLE hard drive back ups. I’d rather just burn it to a 50gb disc (or 250gb if ritek releases their 7 layer br), than just back up to an accident prone hard drive. I work on my mac and I want to know my back ups will be there 5 years from now. Just like they are currently on CDs and DVDs.
Kevin.
The industry likes the fact that if you scratch your media and ruin it you are potentially going to buy it again.
Sony had it with the MiniDiscs.
Well, that format failed, but I mean they were affordable, yet protected in a thin plastic enclosure… nothing could happen to them and they would have the capacity of a CD if the diameter was identical.
It’s got the benefits of a cd, is as secure as a hard drive… but doesn t need to be plugged
Just put a Blu-Ray in a thin standard case, and make a standard for blu-ray slots.
Anyway, never gonna happen…
I just don’t get all this fuss over a blurry disc.
I like mine shiny.
Pro Video guys will obviously now want BR to produce end-to-end HD-projects, but man, I’d love just to be able to do system back ups.
Does a “Super-Duper” drive exist yet that can record CDRs, DVDRs and BRDVDRs?
re <Granted, few consumers watch movies on their desktop>
well, I am one of those folks who DOES watch movies on their desktop. Because my iMac 20″ is larger than my 13″ TV (CRT) and has better resolution. Admittedly, my setup is not typical.
But point being that I think a lot more folks do watch video on their desktop, esp if iMacs, and so may be a market there for the blu-ray drive eventually
I think when CDs and DVDs first came out they were more scratch resistent than they are now. Over time they got cheaper (in quality).
DVD RAM discs come in a protective ‘cartridge’ type case, thats how BRay should be made. But yeah wont happen. More plastic needed, and tiny screws and moving parts. Plus you couldn’t have a slot loading cartridge drive, although come to think of it I have a RAM disc that is removable from the case, Verbatim 9.4gig (orange), hmm….
Man I just pick up my MacPro this week,I knew should of waited a bit longer, hope I can buy the Blu-ray drive by itself.
I know I am in the EXTREME minority in what I am about to say, but here it goes.
When I watch a movie at my home, I want to experience this movie as the director intended. If the original screen format was 2.35:1, 1.85:1 or whatever screen ratio; I want to view it as such. The same goes for the audio track (Dolby Digital, DTS et all); I want the audio and video to be compressed as LITTLE as possible.
When I looked through the iTunes video rental/purchase titles, I noticed that they read anywhere from about 1.25GB to maybe 1.6GB per feature length movie. Now it doesn’t take a genius to realize how much information is lost when you see a DVD movie will occupy anywhere from 5GB to 8GB. Keep in mind that this is Standard Definition content, and is already compressed so that it will fit on a single side (dual layer of course).
Now comes the question of HD content: how will they serve/hack this information up just so they can sell it to me in a reasonable file size? I am willing to purchase media; CD’s(which is sonically SUPERIOR to mp3, and yes I can hear a MAJOR difference), DVD’s(I have over 250 titles), computer software and eventually Blu-Ray’s. If I am going to pay for High Def content, then by God I want all of it (1080P, Dolby True HD, DTS Master HD et al)!
By purchasing this material, I believe I should be able to view this content on my Home Theater PC; providing I have the appropriate software and hardware. If Apple refuses to accommodate consumers/users like me, then I think they are loosing a potentially strong market niche for their systems. Apple has convinced the world that they are the “friendlier” option for home users, as well as the “premium” option for professional media users. If this is true, then they should be the “best” option for home entertainment users. This will only happen if they allow their systems to playback HD content the best it can be, and right now that’s Blu-Ray.