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Apple should offer HD or BluRay...and do it SOON!

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Why yes, I would like to pay an extra 25-50% for my computer, so I can have the pleasure of burning on $20 discs.

Apple includes things like that as an option when they think a significant number of their customers will actually buy the thing.

In the meantime you might be able to put a generic BD or HD or BD/HD burner in your Mac Pro. If you want one in your MacBook or MPB you'll probably have to wait... I doubt there are any drives thin enough to fit yet.

--
Robb

 
I'm not trying to argue with you. I just don't see why Apple needs to offer this now and was wondering what your perspective is.

HD DVD and Blu-ray still haven't made the move to the mass market. This holiday season will be the first real strides in that direction by likely it'll be another year or two before HD optical media is truely a mass market product.

Since far less people create media than watch it, we're talking about a very small population of people right now that wants a burner for either format. I guess some people might want it for backing up data, but hard drives are cheaper, faster, and more reliable.

--
Joe

My craptacular photos: http://www.pbase.com/pyogenes/favorites

Any perceived rudeness, condescending tone, or insults are not intended, but rather the result of my inability to properly express myself with the written word.
 
ceoyoyo said:
If you want one in your MacBook or MPB
you'll probably have to wait... I doubt there are any drives thin
enough to fit yet.
Click to expand...
They're available now for a mere $999. hehe.

--
Joe

My craptacular photos: http://www.pbase.com/pyogenes/favorites

Any perceived rudeness, condescending tone, or insults are not intended, but rather the result of my inability to properly express myself with the written word.
 
I will welcome the day that apple does away with all optical drives on their portables. It's a matter of having something capable of replacing the dvd for installation and maintenance (a large enough sd card or some such).

With a fast wireless network, big cheap hard drives (and, eventually, capacious affordable card storage), the next generation of floppies kind of flopped for me personally.
 
You all make very good points. BRD are not for the masses…but then again neither is a Mac Pro fully decked out with the latest quad core Intel processors for $4,000. Since you can already get a BRD for a Mac Pro now for about $700 seems logical they offer a custom configuration option for those that live on the bleeding edge. Not sure what the holdup is.
 
jmaditto said:
You all make very good points. BRD are not for the masses…but then
again neither is a Mac Pro fully decked out with the latest quad core
Intel processors for $4,000. Since you can already get a BRD for a
Mac Pro now for about $700 seems logical they offer a custom
configuration option for those that live on the bleeding edge. Not
sure what the holdup is.
Click to expand...
The reasons for not offering BD options are quite obvious - no software on the Mac can play BD Video discs, you cannot author BD Video discs; even if you could play them, you could not show them on a Cinema Display (lack of HDCP). Data storage on BD, based on current media pricing, makes no sense whatsoever. By the time all these issues are resolved - there will be the second or third generation of players, faster, cheaper and more reliable. Why should Apple offer something that offers absolutely zero advantage? You can easily add a BD burner to a Mac Pro in ten minutes.

Cheers,
Uwe
 
Are you SURE? Thin ones, yes, but my MPB doesn't have a dual layer burner because there wasn't one that would fit (even the thin ones were a touch too thick). There is now, but there wasn't back when I bought mine.

--
Robb

 
I quite like having a DVD burner in my notebook. I can watch movies on the road, burn backups and it's the best way I know of to give too-large-for-email things to other people.

Solid state memory cards have two problems that keep them from filling that niche: there are too many formats and they cost too much for me to burn one full of photos and give it to my mother over Christmas (who does not have a computer with her so she can't just make a copy and give it back).

It would be nice to have the option of more battery space instead, but the drives in modern Macs are pretty small... quite a bit smaller than the existing battery.

--
Robb

 
ceoyoyo said:
Are you SURE? Thin ones, yes, but my MPB doesn't have a dual layer
burner because there wasn't one that would fit (even the thin ones
were a touch too thick). There is now, but there wasn't back when I
bought mine.
Click to expand...
Dual layer but looks like it only fits in the 17" MBP:
http://store.fastmac.com/product_info.php?products_id=338

--
Joe

My craptacular photos: http://www.pbase.com/pyogenes/favorites

Any perceived rudeness, condescending tone, or insults are not intended, but rather the result of my inability to properly express myself with the written word.
 
I'm gonna be adding the LG drive to my iMac soon, of course in a firewire external enclosure though, for $299 it can read HD DVD and Blu-Ray and burn DVD/DL at up to 16x, but for $399 you can get a blu-ray burner version that also reads HD DVD too. The drive used to be $1000 a few months ago, dropped a lot.

Here is the non blu-ray writer version > http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136133
--
-Kevin-
Equipment specs in profile.
my photo gallery http://www.revtotheredline.com

 
Did you notice the price on that beast? $2400 for a computer with a 20" screen. The 20" iMacs start at $1200, or you can get a 24" one for $1800 or loaded for $2300. Why not just get an iMac and a PS3 (or two) instead?

I'm actually hoping Apple manages to resist the lure of high def for a while longer. As soon as you put a blu-ray drive in a computer you're going to want it to play movies, and as soon as you want it to play movies you have to put in all the DRM software/hardware that's caused so many problems.

--
Robb

 
Of course those issues would already be resolved as well. No sense offering one that is almost useless. It would be an expensive option, like the latest processor that most people don't need, but some people would buy it. Still don't know why Apple is waiting to offer a fully functioning BRD.
uwe_r said:
jmaditto said:
You all make very good points. BRD are not for the masses…but then
again neither is a Mac Pro fully decked out with the latest quad core
Intel processors for $4,000. Since you can already get a BRD for a
Mac Pro now for about $700 seems logical they offer a custom
configuration option for those that live on the bleeding edge. Not
sure what the holdup is.
Click to expand...
The reasons for not offering BD options are quite obvious - no
software on the Mac can play BD Video discs, you cannot author BD
Video discs; even if you could play them, you could not show them on
a Cinema Display (lack of HDCP). Data storage on BD, based on current
media pricing, makes no sense whatsoever. By the time all these
issues are resolved - there will be the second or third generation of
players, faster, cheaper and more reliable. Why should Apple offer
something that offers absolutely zero advantage? You can easily add a
BD burner to a Mac Pro in ten minutes.

Cheers,
Uwe
Click to expand...
 
In the meantime, I'm sure you already know that you can burn HD-DVD video, complete with 5.1 digital sound on a Mac with a standard burner and non-HD DVDs. The HD-DVD video plays back on the Mac or Toshiba players, but the length can't exceed about 50 min.
 
ceoyoyo said:
I'm actually hoping Apple manages to resist the lure of high def for
a while longer. As soon as you put a blu-ray drive in a computer
you're going to want it to play movies, and as soon as you want it to
play movies you have to put in all the DRM software/hardware that's
caused so many problems.
Click to expand...
As much as I would like BR-D for making 25Gb or 50Gb backups to a single disc, I know that as soon as Apple puts a Blu-ray reader/writer in their computers, people will be clamoring for the capability to play pre-recorded movies.

And you can only play pre-recorded movies if you go the same route Vista did... incorporating all the DRM-related software into the OS.

But the problem doesn't stop there for Apple. Microsoft can just add the DRM-hooks into software, and let someone like Dell figure-out the hardware end of it.

Apple would have to:

1. Add the DRM to the Mac OS [AACS, BD+]

2. Adapt video hardware: video cards with HDCP via HDMI for the towers, internal HDCP for iMacs & laptops. HDCP via HDMI for Minis??
3. Add HDCP via HDMI to Cinema displays

I hope Uwe is wrong, in that homemade HD recordings would require HDCP.

Apple is already supporting HD-camcorder input to iMovie '08 & iMovie-HD, so there should be no requirement for copy-protection on "home-grown" content - IMHO.

--



My Picasa albums:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mjvlev
 
When Apple does the price of the mechanisms and likely the media will be a lot more affordable. It's just too expensive now. But that's the reason I agree with the title - so it will be a step closer to being affordable to me. I do work with Final Cut, but won't be needing high def for a bit yet as a high def camera for me is too far off on my own list too. For archiving images apart from 3 hard drives I like a copy on DVD, the idea of having a Blu-Ray is real appealing for the capacity side too.
--
What if the Hoky-Poky really was what it's all about?
 
mikiev said:
I hope Uwe is wrong, in that homemade HD recordings would require HDCP.
Click to expand...
I just figured out what you refer to... this sentence was indeed misleading, sorry. This partial sentence was referring to commercial BD video discs, not home made ones. The copyright flag is optional, so unless the authoring software would not offer that switch (unlikely), you can of course play your own stuff.

Cheers,
Uwe
 
They don't want your network performance to die when you decide to play a music file?

Seriously, invasive DRM is one of the things that's hurting Vista and HD-DVD and BD require invasive DRM. Unless you don't want to play back commercial video... but it would NOT go over well giving people a drive and telling them they can't play movies on it.

--
Robb

 
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