Apple’s iTunes Store “is the largest retailer of music in the world and when Apple announces that customers are now renting over 50,000 movies and TV shows per day, and you’ll get a sense of why Apple is stalling on Blu-ray,” Danny Gorog writes for APC Magazine.
“There’s likely to be one winner in the HD space, and the less legitimacy Apple (who is the leader in the video production space via its Final Cut franchise) gives to Blu-ray, the less likely the format is to succeed,” Gorog writes.
“In Apple’s world of course, all media should come via the iTunes cloud. And if it doesn’t come from iTunes it should be created or ripped by the user. In Apple’s world, the more media that consumers purchase from iTunes, the more powerful and valuable its formats, platform and hardware proposition becomes,” Gorog writes.
“Apple is stalling on Blu-ray for as long as it can, and consumers don’t care. The longer Apple can hold off Blu-ray the better its chances of dominating the market for video and TV show downloads, like it does for music,” Gorog writes.
Full article here.
I disagree. People are going to go blu-ray anyway. Whenever you compare a real HD movie on Blu-ray with the “HD” content you download from iTunes, there’s no comparison. This is not to say that iTunes movie downloads won’t be successful. There’s plenty of room for mediocrity in the world — just look at how many Windows machines there are.
Which is going to look better:
* 2 hour movie in h.264 at 1920×1080 and 1GB file size
or
* 2 hour movie in h.264 at 1920×1080 and 30GB file size
All of you who say the downloaded version is good enough, to be consistent, should also agree that 128k mp3 is good enough.
If Apple wanted to make major inroads with Apple TV, it should add DVD streaming from your Mac or PC. That would allow people to get rid of their DVD players and replace them with an Apple TV instead of a Blu-ray player (which many people are probably preparing to do over the next couple years). I would think it would be pretty easy to leverage the MacBook Air DVD streaming software if the bandwidth isn’t too high for it to be streamed wirelessly.
The only reason why I want a blu-ray drive is to use blu-ray discs as storage media for data.
I think they are missing the true point.
Renting movies on iTunes doesn’t help me get wedding videos in HD to customers.
Also Blu-Ray will allow people like me to backup video projects WITH the media!
Seriously, the reason I give a rat’s ass about Blu-ray is because I can make decent backups on that media and keep ’em off-site.
I could care less about the TV aspects.
I buy Blu-rays to watch on my home theater systems. iTunes downloads have no extra features or content, and even the HD downloads are not even close to the quality of Blu-rays. But having bought the discs, I also want to be able to watch them on my Macs.
BTW anyone else wondering whether this Gorog fellow is related to Napster’s Chris Gorog? That would be pretty funny.
Blu-ray shmoo-ray
I desperately want blu-ray on my next mac. And it must burn blu-ray dvds too. My new Sony HD camcorder would be very happy along side it, and it’s high time we had it.
I bet they’ll announce it within 6 months. They simply must offer it on at least the Mac Pro desktop line.
I own a 52″ Sony 1080p lcd tv and Blue Ray does look nice. But I actually watch more items from my AppleTV from itunes and those that I converted myself. The difference between the HD format that I rent on the AppleTV and blue ray really isn’t that different. It is amazing how those that pimp Blueray make it out to be the 2nd coming of something. Most people on a smaller flat panel tv are not going to notice a difference nor do they really care. 99% of the population will buy an upconvert DVD player and that will be enough. My parents don’t care whether they watch a blueray disc. The leap from VHS to dvd was huge. The leap from DVD to Blueray not so much. People that watch HD tv (particularly over cable and satellite) will see about the same quality as they rent off of Itunes. The quality of cable and satellite HDtv ill only get worse as their bandwidth is eaten up by more and more HD stattions having to cross the same wires. Blueray is not a deal breaker at all.
This guy misses the boat. Yes, there will only be one winner in the HD war. Perhaps he didn’t notice, but Blu-Ray is that winner. There are several formats of HD, but only one clear winner in the disc media format, and that is Blu-Ray. Furthermore, blu-ray players can be set up to read (and write) not only blu-ray discs, but also DVD’s, and CD’s as well. So it’s all encompassing.
Adding a blu-ray to the mac and either adding one to the AppleTV or as suggested above, having the capability to use that drive across the network would make huge inroads in the success of both.
Apple would have a clear advantage (well, they already have it, this would just further it) if they added blu-ray drives to mac as a standard before other guys do (at this price point).
Blue ray quality is much better than HD downloads. Not to mention that I buy Blu-ray’s for the extra content. I love being able to skip to a deleted scene in the middle of the show where it was deleted from.
I suspect the reason apple has yet to do it is because the slot loading drive that apple likes to use would be too thick at this point to work in the current configuration let alone a thinner one. I think once they can get them thin enough, and at a decent price point, they will pop into the macs and appletv’s alike.
I don’t think I want to shell out $$$$ for BR movies.
Unless it’s porn
Blue Ray is the last of physical media. No one really cares about Blue Ray other than Sony. Upconverting dvd players will be enough for the masses for those that want physical media. Case in point: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9932311-7.html
i think apple is waiting to update their movie production software eg: imove and idvd (probably gonna need a rename) to support bluray just like when they released imovie HD.
it’ll come, just when apple does their whole pr thing
it’s all about bandwith. can bandwith delivery increase fast enough to really make blu-ray not matter?
i can’t get my high quality HD media to people today because I have to give it to them is at least 2 formats – i make the obvious H.264 files, but then i have to also make the WMV files. On top of it, i can’t go anything past 5 mbps or else the files are just so damn big, no one can download them.
I want Blu-ray because I shoot at 35mbps, and i finish off at 35mbps and damnit, it want to deliver 35mbps because it simply looks twice as good as DirecTV HD and 10 times better than upconverted DVD.
Go watch Planet Earth on DirecTV HD and then watch the BluRay. There’s simply no comparison between HD at ~5-8 mbps and 35 mbps on the Blu-ray. Scenes of flocks of birds and animals are so badly compressed with the DirecTV, its hard to watch
To say that nobody cares about Blu-Ray is like saying in 2000 that nobody cares about DVDs. It’s the next evolution of physical media. The discs can hold more data for backup purposes, and you can burn high-definition movies to them. Why is any of that a bad thing? The drives may be a little pricey, but as prices come down, you WILL see them built into more and more computers, especially Macs. The fact that you can get HD content over the internet is irrelevant.
My 2 cents. I would like to see Apple support BlueRay and even offer a BR drive for an additional charge.
That way you can read, write, and watch from a BR disk on your Mac system, but since the little computer screen is not really going to show any difference, its only major advantage is for large storage files. And with video, this is a real advantage.
I just do not see the real push (especially in these times) for moving everything to BR format. Slowly over time I see it being the default system but not really for download. Not until the digital pipeline is a whole lot bigger.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
Just a thought.
en
Who cares about Blu Ray? I do.
Digital downloads may be the future, but physical media is still the present, and I want mine to be as high a quality as possible.
Until it becomes cost effective to download full 1080p HD content, and own the massive storage requirements to keep it all, Blu Ray will continue to be a viable option.
Who cares about Blu-Ray? Not me. Even though I’ve got a 47″ HD LCD, it’s just not that much better than regular DVD to appeal to me. Reason is, my vision at 15′ starts to fall off and I never wear my glasses to watch TV so Hi-Def is naturally downgraded to DVD by my eyeballs.
Blu-Ray never had a future.
You’ll be using some sort of flash type memory card, dirt cheap, with 1000+ times the storage.
I like to call them “Spock” cards, available in many tasty colors.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”tongue rolleye” style=”border:0;” />
blu ray is finished as the future is ssd and ultra fast downloads and this is from a sony bravia / ps3 owner
who wants to rummage around on their shelves , hoping to find the film for that special moment when they can just spotlight search their appletv / mac and watch the film at a similar quality ?
remember the vhs vs betamax wars – ultimate quality didn’t win out , convenience and market penetration did
it will be the same this generation
@Quad Core
“I think they are missing the true point.
Renting movies on iTunes doesn’t help me get wedding videos in HD to customers. “
————————–
How many of your customers actually have a Blu-Ray player to play those wedding videos even if you could give it to them in that format? I’d be willing to guess, very few.
Currently I don’t even own a DVD player. I use my Mac connected to my TV.
When I go to the Video store, there is only a very limited selection of product on Blu-Ray. It’s like thinking about getting a colour tv back in the early ’60s when only Bonanza and Walt Disney were in colour. Not worth the cost.
Blu-Ray will be adopted when there is critical mass. The price/value ratio has to improve much more still.
All of you who say the downloaded version is good enough, to be consistent, should also agree that 128k mp3 is good enough.
The crap coming through regular cable television is “good enough” and HD viewing can’t compensate for the crap coming out of hollywood, nor does it make the loss by your team any more tolerable. HD sucks real good, ya know?
blu-ray storage is where it’s at. If I want high-def entertainment, I go to the movies.
Blu Ray for storage makes sense…
One thing that nobody mentions when discussing this is the overall design of Apple’s media system. Besides maintaining their dominance with iTunes downloads, using iTunes gives the user complete control (once the library is completely stocked).
What’s more empowering to the consumer? Driving to a store, setting up a DVR to record, or just downloading what you want to watch on the spot? The future is going to be downloading, and Apple will lead that. The hardest part of this transition will be getting used to choosing what you want to watch from a list of everything, instead of choosing by what’s on this week or what’s in stock at Blockbuster.
They’ll need to make ad-supported content, so we can get it for free and hit “shuffle” for those times we just want the tv on as a background distraction.
On the design of an Apple Computer… They want to eliminate almost everything that requires a port, cable, or disc. Just look at how intense they are when it comes to the removal of buttons. They are obsessed with getting rid of things. They envision nothing more than a smooth, contoured rectangle and nothing more. The iPhone is the closest thing they have to their ultimate design goal… I bet the Macbook Air is the computer of choice at Apple (but maybe a 15″ version).