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Sure after HD is dead, now come the problems. Almost like politics.

surely the next revision of the iMac must be due soon and include blu-ray drive. No power issues and even Dull have got them out the door already. Here's hoping necxt week SJ will announce iMac BD.

Feb 29, 08 - 05:31 pm Comment from: Ampar

You know, I have one simple request.
And that is to have sharks with frickin' Blu-Rays attached to their heads.

Why does my cursor disappear in Safari when I go into the upper left corner to select my bookmarks or do anything else up in that area?

Anyone else?

Apple?

And this one time, at Useless Tool Camp . . .

I killed an Ampar.

"Why does my cursor disappear in Safari when I go into the upper left corner to select my bookmarks or do anything else up in that area?"

It often has something to do with those pesky advertisements that change your cursor from the Mac cursor to a cursor within the advertisement. For some reason, sometimes they act on the cursor outside the area that the advertisement is contained. Don't ask me why, but this is my theory on why it happens...

--mAc

Feb 29, 08 - 05:56 pm Comment from: Unfettered

Pat called these "problems," but it's just a fact. Maybe a hybrid drive has/would have both kinds of lasers. And maybe it would use regular power on non-Blue Ray discs. Maybe Apple - just hypothesizing here - maybe they could design a slightly thicker MacBook (considering the Air is going the other way - thinner) and re-introduce the old swappable drive modules like the PowerBook 3400c had back in the day. You could pull out the optical battery and swap for a hard drive - or a second battery... Anyway, why not have a standard DVD/-R/RW and optionally swap for a Blue Ray when needed or something? I don't know. These are just questions I need to consider before embracing panic or disdain.

Feb 29, 08 - 05:57 pm Comment from: Famous Grouse

Blu-ray, schmoo-ray. I'm happily watching HD on my Macbook Air already, courtesy of HDHomerun, EyeTv and the Ethernet dongle...

No CD/DVD drive = a true vision of the future
Ethernet = needs a smaller connector.

mAc-Warrior

So... Your theory.... to paraphrase Miss Anne Elk: "... this is what it is - my theory that I have, that is to say, which is mine, is mine"

And now for something completely different...

Well, this doesn't explain why Apple hasn't added Blu-Ray to the iMac and MacPro. No battery problem with these computers.

The other shoe to drop is the very high cost of the drive.

Feb 29, 08 - 06:40 pm Comment from: Wingsy

"Why does my cursor disappear in Safari when I go into the upper left corner to select my bookmarks or do anything else up in that area?"

I used to see that but it's been a while. Maybe it quit with 10.5.1 or 10.5.2, or maybe when I started using Safari's WebKit nightly builds (but I think it quit long before that).

You should try WebKit. It's damn fast. http://www.webkit.org

Feb 29, 08 - 07:11 pm Comment from: R

Restart your computer, repair permissions...

"The Mobile GM45/47 chipsets are an integral part of Montevina and will feature the new GMA X4500HD graphics core. The X4500HD will add full hardware H.264 decode acceleration, so Apple could begin shipping MacBook Pros with Blu-ray drives after the Montevina upgrade without them being a futile addition. With full hardware H.264 decode acceleration your CPU would be somewhere in the 0 - 10% range of utilization while watching a high definition movie, allowing you to watch a 1080p movie while on battery power. The new graphics core will also add integrated HDMI and DisplayPort support."

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=3246&p=2

Blu-ray battery life is obviously a huge concern

But I thought Blu-ray was superior. Where was this concern before HD-DVD died?

I agree with Pat, this IS like politics. Promise a better way, then be no different than the guy you just beat.

Maybe Apple can fast-forward the bandwidth and wi-fi things, making Blu-ray a non-issue.

But I thought Optical Disk market was dead in a few. Why Blu-Ray now SJ?

Suck on that, Mac nerds..

Feb 29, 08 - 11:20 pm Comment from: Mr. Reeee

Yep, WebKit is fast. There are few bugs, but it's FAST!

There was no HD disk debate, because it was up in the air until a few weeks ago. Now that Blu-ray wins, the question arises.

As for the headline... there's NO WAY the MacBook (or an iMac or mini) would get a Blu-ray drive. Maybe we'll see them offered for Pro machines, but not too soon, though.

Suck on THIS, MAC dorks.

Modern graphics chips handle H.264 so there's no CPU load, but the laser is another issue. Let's just hope that those nano technology lithium ion batteries start rolling out of the production line straight in to MacBooks.

@ Fric Frac

Mine too, on a MDD Wind Tunnel Twin, 10.4.11. . . . It's not consistent, on mine.
You have my permission to repair the face of the next guru who offers that "old chestnut" solution.

Hi Reality Check,

1/ I don't know what repairing permissions does but in Tiger it solved a host of problems and rejuvenated the system for a time.

2/ I haven't tried it with Leopard because it would hang for hours. That might be fixed now?

3/ Are you the same Reality Check who I see at a certain political blog in the Caribbean?

Mar 01, 08 - 10:11 am Comment from: BiZarRo BaLlmEr

why does anyone need a BR drive on a laptop? Give me a break no one needs BR HD on a 15" computer screen. If you need a disc to store 50gb of data then this is a niche product for a handful of pros.
I'd rather have a better screen first on my macbook.
This will be limited to the pro line for professional photogs.
How many people even use their DVD burning capabilities on notebooks.

BiZarRo,
you're exactly right. Watching a movie on your laptop in this format is absolutely unnecessary. One doesn't need this format unless you have a very large TV. Otherwise regular DVD does just fine.

Blueray on a laptop would only be needed for very large data files. And again very large data files.
They'll put the drives in there, just to sell the machines to the masses, who are duped into thinking this is something they really need.
Wanna watch a movie. Download it and watch it later.

Hey, there was no magic word? (At first. Now there is.)

Ampar, what do you pay those people for ? Honestly ?

LOL. Do the people who recommend repairing permissions for every software fault in existence actually know what this does? Do they have the most basic understanding of UNIX file systems?

It's the modern equivalent of zapping the PRAM and rebuilding the desktop.

Although in the past, repairing permissions has cured strange/erratic problems. Blame it more in confused software than UNIX?

I do not know what the big deal is about blu-ray. I still think it makes much more sense to have the files on the hard drive and access them from there. I think all media will eventually go towards downloadable or streamed content.

Mar 01, 08 - 02:05 pm Comment from: Macintosh

@ Bill,

Amen, brother. I'm not going to touch Blu-Ray anything. I say just get rid of the idea of driving to a store to pick up a computer file on a disc all together.

The more people download the files, the more content will become available. Then more pressure will be but on the service providers to speed things up.

That's going to happen regardless, but the sooner the better.

Mar 01, 08 - 02:16 pm Comment from: Macintosh

I think the Blu-Ray manufacurers and the movie studios are not pushing it with the intention of putting it in laptops. They are probably pushing for a replacement for your stand alone DVD player.

I don't think Sony and the others are going to benefit much on the hardware end by having it in laptops. They want to make stand alone players.

And the movie studios? Probably not to fond of any discs with movies on them getting inserted into a computer.

Mar 01, 08 - 02:58 pm Comment from: Jamie

I'm with Bill. Downloadable content is the future, not this disc garbage.

Mar 01, 08 - 06:34 pm Comment from: Cubert

Poor Ampar. Always got people giving you $#!T about things. I'm always amazed at how quick your wit is and how you think of jokes that would have taken me eons to think of.

Mar 02, 08 - 07:19 am Comment from: Ampar

Thanks, Cubert. But I'm not really concerned. Accidents, anger and stupidity have an efficient way of weeding out the lower half of the bell curve. There's a good reason for the Darwin Awards.

Mar 02, 08 - 08:46 am Comment from: flappo

who needs blu ray ?

apple tv has 720p

Mar 02, 08 - 01:58 pm Comment from: Algr

"apple tv has 720p"

- And the laptops don't - stupid hollywood.

Well, iTunes on Mac/PC is now 856 x 480p which is fine for a laptop screen. Apple will go with Blue Ray if it becomes a standard, but they won't be first out of the gate with it. They want people to download.

I don't think watching Bray on a laptop screen will add much to the experience. Bray or HD is for BIG screen home theatre setups. Stick with regular DVDs (until they're no longer available) for porta viewing.

Its a bit like the old days of owning a small 34cm TV. You go out and buy a whoping 68cm TV and it's great, for about a week. Then it just looks like any ol' TV.

The folks here who say that BR won't make a difference on a laptop screen don't know what they are talking about. The official SMPTE numbers say that to resolve 1080p resolution on a 16x9 screen, one needs to sit closer than 1.5625 times the screen diagonal. So for a 15.4" monitor, if you sit 24" away or closer, you are getting the full benefit of the increased resolution. FYI, the multiple for 480p (DVD resolution) is 3.5, meaning that a 15.4" screen has no increase in sharpness if you sit less than 53" away. So yes, if you sit more than 24" but less than 53" away from your MBP then you won't get any benefit from 1080p, but if, like me, you sit less than 24" away, then you will get the full benefit of the increased resolution. Indeed, computer monitors are the ideal platform for HD viewing because to get the full benefit of the increased resolution, you need to sit pretty close, and most people don't sit close enough to their TVs, but they do with their computer monitors.