5 ms·

Blu-ray apparently isn't coming to Macs

9 points by mjfern 16y ago

younata 16y ago
well, Blu-ray isn't that great. Jobs is right, the world is moving towards downloadable content. The only viable long term usage for blu-ray would be backups. One blu-ray disk is roughly equivalent to 5 dvds in terms of storage. Unfortunately, in the coming years, blu-ray will become too small to be viable for backups, the same way dvds have become.
robryan 16y ago
He's right, but right now there is a lot of value in a player. Especially in places outside the US, here in Australia were only really just coming out of the dark ages of download caps, 8gig is still a sizeable chunk of download. I think it comes down to the player cost, which would move the mac mini out of the range their comfortable with. Wouldn't surprise me at all if they do an about face and market a blu ray player as a great feature in a future product iteration.
- nailer 16y ago
  Thing is, Australia will catch up - streaming is the permanent solution, Blu Ray is the last gasp of discs.
  - robryan 16y ago
    True they are, two things though. 1. At very least they are still going to be strong through at least one more product cycle. 2. For people not on the cutting edge of technology they are going to be relevant for some time, unless they decide just to stick with DVD's for the next 5 years.
    - philwelch 16y ago
      As far as I can see, people are just sticking with DVD's for the next 5 years.
humblepatience 16y ago
I wish he would say why blueray sucks
- stuff4ben 16y ago
  Because he doesn't say it does suck. It's just not where he sees the industry moving. As any good executive, he tries to see where his market is shifting and makes the decision to go in that direction. It may cause some short-term pain but if he's right, then he's saved himself a lot of money by not having to do bluray development.
bombs 16y ago
The BD standard also includes support for downloadable and streamable content via BD-Live.
- philwelch 16y ago
  Sure, but who wants to buy an easily-scratched bit of plastic that actually has to be shipped around like a physical object if you're going to download and stream content?
walkon 16y ago
I do hate optical media, but the problem I have with this is that adequate 10mbps+ connections are still hard to come by in a lot of places. Adequate in the sense that if you have a few people in the house using the network at the same time, streaming high def video, gaming, downloading files, etc, there is a limit to what the bandwidth can handle. Also, it seems like (with Netflix anyway), I'll get the occasion when either my ISP hiccups, my router, or servers, that cause significant issues or completely prevents streaming. If I'm feeling the urge to still watch something in these situations, I just pop in a movie and enjoy the optical goodness.

9 points by mjfern 16y ago

well, Blu-ray isn't that great. Jobs is right, the world is moving towards downloadable content. The only viable long term usage for blu-ray would be backups. One blu-ray disk is roughly equivalent to 5 dvds in terms of storage. Unfortunately, in the coming years, blu-ray will become too small to be viable for backups, the same way dvds have become.

robryan 16y ago

He's right, but right now there is a lot of value in a player. Especially in places outside the US, here in Australia were only really just coming out of the dark ages of download caps, 8gig is still a sizeable chunk of download. I think it comes down to the player cost, which would move the mac mini out of the range their comfortable with. Wouldn't surprise me at all if they do an about face and market a blu ray player as a great feature in a future product iteration.

nailer 16y ago
Thing is, Australia will catch up - streaming is the permanent solution, Blu Ray is the last gasp of discs.
- robryan 16y ago
  True they are, two things though. 1. At very least they are still going to be strong through at least one more product cycle. 2. For people not on the cutting edge of technology they are going to be relevant for some time, unless they decide just to stick with DVD's for the next 5 years.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    As far as I can see, people are just sticking with DVD's for the next 5 years.

humblepatience 16y ago

I wish he would say why blueray sucks

stuff4ben 16y ago
Because he doesn't say it does suck. It's just not where he sees the industry moving. As any good executive, he tries to see where his market is shifting and makes the decision to go in that direction. It may cause some short-term pain but if he's right, then he's saved himself a lot of money by not having to do bluray development.

bombs 16y ago

The BD standard also includes support for downloadable and streamable content via BD-Live.

philwelch 16y ago
Sure, but who wants to buy an easily-scratched bit of plastic that actually has to be shipped around like a physical object if you're going to download and stream content?

walkon 16y ago

I do hate optical media, but the problem I have with this is that adequate 10mbps+ connections are still hard to come by in a lot of places. Adequate in the sense that if you have a few people in the house using the network at the same time, streaming high def video, gaming, downloading files, etc, there is a limit to what the bandwidth can handle. Also, it seems like (with Netflix anyway), I'll get the occasion when either my ISP hiccups, my router, or servers, that cause significant issues or completely prevents streaming. If I'm feeling the urge to still watch something in these situations, I just pop in a movie and enjoy the optical goodness.