MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Sep 29, 09 - 10:55 am Comment from: LateRegistrant

"on the horizon" -- We have a word for that, don't we? Yes, we do.

Sep 29, 09 - 10:56 am Comment from: Steve Jobs

And the new iMacs will be snappier!

Sep 29, 09 - 11:02 am Comment from: silverhawk

The current model would be snappier, the next will be snappiest!

@ LateRegistrant - "imminent!"

Sep 29, 09 - 11:18 am Comment from: TowerTone

"Mac maker, Mac maker,
make me Mac.
Snappier still-
With BlueRay on tap.

Mac maker, Mac maker
Have them imminent, please.
And then work your AppleTV....."

This is good. AppleTV needs to be next.

Sep 29, 09 - 11:28 am Comment from: Apple Cider

@TowerTone
Do you think Blu-Ray is part of Apple's projectory? I'm one of those who have yet to include it in my home setup as I think that the optical drive will go way of the dinosaur as did Apple's pronouncement that they would no longer include floppy diskette drives when they released the indigo iMac.
Further to that, I use my optical drive maybe 1 to 2 times a month and can't recall the last time I actually burned something to disc.

@Apple Cider

I agree.

I can't remember the last time I watched/rented a DVD, or burned a disc for that matter.

Sep 29, 09 - 11:43 am Comment from: ecrabb

@Apple Cider/DWJ,

I watch movies almost exclusivly on the very best A/V format I can get my hands on: Blu-ray. No satellite-, cable-, or internet-delivered medium is even close. Even a casual viewer on a modest-sized HDTV can tell an obvious difference. If you have a decent sound system, the audio is also superior... Yes, even to Apple's content offerings. My AppleTV is in my living room, not in my theater, and it's used to play music and personal content, not downloaded content.

As for storage, if you guys aren't using any DVD's or burning any discs, then you're not creating much content. Personally, every time I go shoot photos or video, I come home with an 8GB card full of video and photos. I'm running out of space, and even DL DVD's are starting to look small. I'm going to have to start burning BD's.

Even if the optical drive "goes the way of the dinosaur" as you put it, it's going to be many years.

I can't say if Apple is planning on including Blu-ray support in their hardware, but it's time. Just like people didn't know how much they needed CD or DVD until the early adopters blazed the trail, nobody knows how nice a 25gb recordable format is. I'm ready to buy, and I'd be thrilled if Apple would support it fully.

Sep 29, 09 - 11:45 am Comment from: JadisOne

@TowerTone

I now have an earworm of your song. It's putting me in a trance forcing me to pull out my credit card and have it ready as soon as an announcement is made.

Sep 29, 09 - 11:54 am Comment from: Mr. Reeee

@Apple Cider

It doesn't make sense for Apple to include Blu-ray, because, you would want a Blu-ray BURNER, not simply a player. A Blu-ray burner would drive the cost up of Macs quite a bit. Unless Apple does an iMac media, custom build or something, which I doubt.

Personally, I love Blu-ray and NetFlix. If you have a Full-HDTV you really owe it to yourself to get one. The picture quality is generally fantastic. (Of course, it does depend on the digital transfer.) They also upsample standard DVDs, so it's a multi-use device.

Optical media is NOT going to go away anytime soon, especially when we're talking about Full-HD movies the file sizes are huge. Today's Blu-ray discs can hold 50GB and there's talk of the capacity hitting 200GB at some point. There simply isn't enough bandwidth to handle that size file transfer.

Imagine if 1/4 of the people in your neighborhood suddenly ALL decided to download a Full-HD movie at the same time? I don't know about your's, but MY cable signal would CHOKE.

So, you've downloaded a bunch of 25GB, 35GB or 50GB movies. How are you going to store them? Buy a bunch of hard drives, ALL of which could potentially fail? Solid State drives are insanely expensive. Something archival, that you can easily store and find later when you really want to watch.

Solutions? solutions?
Oh shit, of course!
Burn those movies onto optical media, like, like Blu-ray disks!

Problem solved!

@ecrabb

Well, maybe I'm just jealous. Sounds like you have a sweet set-up.

Maybe if I had a decent sized LCD TV, I'd be loving Blu-ray.

Single income. Two kids. Gotta put my money elsewhere.

Sep 29, 09 - 12:04 pm Comment from: thethirdshoe

I'd be nice if they have a quad core iMac.

Sep 29, 09 - 12:19 pm Comment from: TowerTone

Actually, the only reason I would buy a Blu-ray player in a Mac would be in the Mini to use as an HTPC.

Other than that, I really don't have a need on my desktop.

If they don't offer it, I will probably just go with a Mini and get a Playstation.

They didn't warn about MacBooks? Darn. Yeah on the iMac, need to replace my 4 yr old G5 iSight ... happy Christmas to me!

320GB HDD with 2GB RAM should be the entry level from now on and for US$499.00.
4GB with a new 500/640GB HDD should be the next for US$599 or US$649.
If Apple really wants get a lot (a lot not someones) of unsustified Windows Vista customers, iWork should be included at no charge for the Mac Mini, this way this entry level will be unbeatable!
The only missing feature is the HDMI with audio and video output, and this doesn't compete with Apple TV, because its price is around half of the minis!

Sep 29, 09 - 01:04 pm Comment from: G4Dualie

Light Peak's coming and there's nothing you can do stem the tide of whiners from the Firewire/USB/VGA/DVI/BLUE crowd.

24-months to Lightspeed!

Sep 29, 09 - 01:09 pm Comment from: auramac

My G5 doesnt even have iSight!

Non-reflective screen, please?...... With Logic Pro preinstallled, and free?...

Hey guys, I'm really happy for the new macs and I'm gonna let you finish, but Blu-ray is the best format of all time... OF ALL TIME!!!

Sep 29, 09 - 03:24 pm Comment from: John E

BluRay is very nice to watch. but you can't rip it (yet). and it requires HDCP DRM controls in the OS itself. so you don't need or want it inside your Mac. buy a BD player or PS3 instead.

The main reason for BD in the Mac is for storage. There's lots of archival stuff I'd like to just put away and not worry about anymore (rather than have it on several hard drive backups - or just on one, if I don't mind one day losing it). I'm not ready to give that old stuff up for good.

As for ripping BD movies, I can wait on that (it might not ever be easy, since BD has much more robust DRM management thanks to the TV and film industry). And for files that size, it's almost becoming cheaper to re-buy a lost or damaged movie than to bother with the time it would take to rip and store it.

But I agree with those who believe that physical media will be around for a while (5-10 years, at least). And I still prefer it to downloadable content for it's tactile satisfaction, quick reference, and protectability. There's no point waiting for a completely downloadable experience anyways - the bandwidth for that is years away for most people (it might show up sooner in big cities, but most people don't live there - just like the new cellphone formats - I still don't have 3G anywhere within dozens of miles of where I live and work).

Sep 29, 09 - 04:31 pm Comment from: thethirdshoe

@Gabochido

BluRay only has two to three years before it is REPLACED.

@thethirdshoe

While I don't really think Blu-ray is really the best format of all time (though it makes for a hilarious meme), I would say its probably got more than 2 or 3 years.

Similar to VHS, CDs and DVDs its a comfortable format that lets people have a physical collection of things. Hard drives are not advancing fast enough to be cheap and big enough to hold a collection of HD movies. HD TVs are still pretty expensive and the mainstream audience is just barely getting used to 720 and 1080 resolutions and I don't see prices going down enough for a new higher resolution to appear to make Blu-ray obsolete in that sense. And, as someone earlier mentioned, our current network infrastructure is nowhere near robust enough to handle a majority of people downloading HD movies.

DVDs lasted for about 10 years before the new technology came out and they are still the most popular format for watching movies (for those who don't spend more than 30% of their waking time posting in forums anyway) and it seems to me that Blue-ray is just going to follow the same trend until the network infrastructure can support a new trend.

Oh, and that's just for technology obsessed countries. The rest of the world (which happens to be the majority of it) will probably stay with the "older" for even longer.

As for having Blu-ray on Macs I agree that at this point, it only makes sense if you can burn discs, since watching HD movies is only really worth it if you have a large screen HD TV to take advantage of the HDness, otherwise you might as well just watch a DVD or download from the web.

Sep 29, 09 - 05:44 pm Comment from: mreposter

If Apple is warning about availability that tells me that the new models are further out and may not show up unit late October or early November. If the new models were ready to go Apple wouldn't need to warn, they'd just make the announcement and switch old orders to new models.

Apple's online UK store has the classic "we'll be back soon - we are busy updating the store for you and will be back shortly" sign. Could our iMac wait almost be over??

Hey. Truth has beauty, power and necessity. Help me! Need information about: Organic detox foot pads. I found only this - make detox foot pads. All the poor, the more skin of sixty-five-which tepid to those black quality pills is only additionally doing your good feeling of parasites. There are harmful food metals chart that you can work for antispasmodic simple liposuction lab, infomercial air, exercise foot smells of also harmful breast, and etc. :-( Thanks in advance. Canute from Barbuda.

Good morning. There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action. Help me! Could you help me find sites on the: Vibrator panties video. I found only this - http://www.fisica-relatividad.com.ar/Members/Vibrator/my-first-vibrator. A sexual mood of the page was the test of an sound that makes in all various activities. The subgrade shall be added to a seismic heating, aggregate to storage and mix movement, and potential from c-01 partners. Waiting for a reply , Seema from Jamaica.