Apple's Steve Jobs calls Blu-ray "a bag of hurt"
By Darren Murph 
posted October 14th 2008 1:57PM
posted October 14th 2008 1:57PM
posted October 14th 2008 1:57PM
powered by gdgt
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
Wow, I guess I'll not be buying a MBP any time soon. I was waiting for one with Blu-Ray Write support like every other OS and Laptop without a fruit for a logo. Not everyone wants a Blu-Ray drive to watch movies. You would think that Apple would know that some of its users are into content creation. But we already know Apple doesn't listen to any of its users about adding features to their products. Don't believe me? Cut and Paste this post back to me with your iPhone.
If you're just looking for storage/backup space, HDD's are far less expensive per storage unit than BD's are. Heck, you can get 500GB external backup drives for $80-$100 now. BD doesn't even come close to that economy.
Now, if you're looking to record video, that's completely different.
While his comment about HDMI is inaccurate, his comment about DisplayPort is quite true. DisplayPort has always been the "will replace HDMI someday" video cable form-factor.
As far as Blu-Ray goes, I don't blame him. Blu-Ray was destined to fail miserably before it ever won the format wars. It's too expensive, DVD + upscaling is perfectly adequate for 99% of the people out there, and the beat-all is he's right about AppleTV. Not so much specifically about aTV, but more about downloadable content in general. Digital Distribution is absolutely the "true" format-wars winner.
Hey for most people out there, money still matters - using HD itunes has much less lower downpayment for installation than any blu-ray player. The quality of resolution is competitive and I will take $6 per movie over $40 per blu-ray disk any day. The licensing of blu-ray technology is non-trivial. The cost per unit licensing fee is much high than if it is a BTO add-on option, and that will the price higher. Currently Apple is trying to a maintain low competitive price, and that means it has to balance the number of features for base unit with their inherent cost. So the high-def optical def fanboys can feel free to complain all they want, but their selfish perogative will not mean that adding blu-ray options will necessarily pay-off yet. If you look at the struggling economy at present with such a "rosy" future, I think they should realize that good things can still come to those who wait.
Oh by the way, there is a next generation optical disk technology in the works using holographic technology, and the usual lifespan of new technology is about 10-15 years, and then is surpassed the next thing. HD-DVD and blu-ray have had 5+ years already, but don't expect them to profiteer much past their initial patent life of 17 years. Tera-size hard disks are a thing of the present, and backing one up to blu-ray with 50-60 gig capacity takes 15-20 disks, which at $40-50 per disk is $600-1000 dollars, and you can 5-6 terabyte drives for the same price. Optical disk technology needs to make an order of magnitude improvement to catch up with current hard disk capacity. Not to mention the connector bandwidth, which needs to go past Gigabyte/sec speeds to allow one to burn a terabyte drive to disc or even a blu-ray disc, in less than 4 hours.
Dude, you can take your $6 POS compressed quality movies from the iTunes Store.
BD's aren't $40, most are in the $20 - $27 range.
I think that's worth it to have uncompressed picture and sound.
Are you getting DTS-HD Master Audio from an iTunes Store movie? Don't think so. You won't even get a full 720p picture let alone 1080p.
Read up a little bit.
And by the way...
I know people who still buy vinyl, so optical media isn't going anywhere, I like to have my movies and music in a physical form, so I hope the digital download things work out for you.
This holographic technology is going to be great, but not right now, the human eye can only take so much resolution in.
when did they start making optical turn tables?
Excuse my ignorance, I meant physical media, not optical.
how are you exactly supposed to connect you Apple TV to the LED Cinema Display
Sony can manage to connect a PS3 to a BRAVIA, but apparently apple products aren't meant to interconnect.
why don't they just make all USB ports into some proprietary mini-USB port, then you can throw dongles to connect to non brand spanking new apple hardware.
YOU HAVE A GLORIOUS LED-BACK-LIT 24" DISPLAY and you can't even be bothered to find enough space on the back to offer DVI and HDMI connections.
the LED display was designed for use with a computer NOT as a tv. so the lack of being able to attach an Apple TV should not be shocking.
if anything you should be pissed that the adapters can only go one way. I can get one that lets me connect my new MacBookPro to any monitor but I can't use the LED with any computer.
And he is right
Where is this black room with the humongous screen that steve makes all these announcements from? No one ever seems to know where this mysterious room is.
It doesn't actually exist, the room is a projection from the Reality Distortion Field
Town Hall Auditorium. #4 Infinite Loop Apple Computer Campus Cupertino, California, USA.
Hmm, Blu-ray's a bag of hurt? That's funny cause at my local Best Buy and Circuit City, even Target and Wal-Mart, there were either 1 or 0 copies of Iron Man on BD left the day it came out 2 weeks ago.
I'm getting a laptop before I head of to Film School in January, and I was going to go with Apple, because I heard new MBP's were coming out. Looks like I'm headed to Sony.
Blu-ray is becoming the next medium, and Apple needs to get with it. This is just like Jobsy, saying stuff about MMS, how no one wants it, and it is not going to survive. Well MMS is still here, and I still need to go to viewmymessage.com to get a simple picture.
HDMI is just as good as DisplayPort, and you say it goes 2500 x 1600? WHO CARES? Are any TVs in the near future supporting that type of resolution? No. They support 1080p though, so I'll be happy with my HDMI. There are very few monitors supporting those types of resolutions, and on Apple's 30'' Display, it really doesn't matter, you would need about a 70''+ screen to start noticing the higher resolutions.
Job's is right... He made a mistake with siding with blu-ray.. It's not catching on like many (including the fanboys) would have hoped. Take it as a sign coming from Apple.. Digital downloads will rule, followed by dvd NOT blu-ray.
*Flicks open communicator*
"BEE-DEEP!!!"
"this is HB... 1 to fade out.."
..........................................
"Blu-ray is becoming the next medium"
PFFffttTT!! Yeah right... It fought and won a battle only to lose the war. The REAL war is now with DVD AND Digital downloads.. And I'm sorry.. Being attacked on two fronts?? Bye-bye blu-ray..
You may keep believing that Digital Downloads will catch on, but people like myself like having a physical medium.
DVD is going to start being phased out after the Digital TV transition.
Digital Downloads have been great for music, but as stated before, CDs are still around, why won't a physical form of movies still be? I don't want a compressed movie file. I want uncompressed picture and lossless audio with my movies, thank you very much.
Ralph,
I hate to tell you this, DVD is a digital medium. The Digital Change over will have little direct effect on HD, because it has nothing to do with HD, it is taking an analog wave length and converting it to the much smaller digital wave length, it is to clean up the "airwaves" most people aren't even being affected by the Digital change over anyway, only some 10m people in the US, thanks to cable and satellite most of the US is perfectly fine using what ever TV they currently have, so there wont be any people being forced into buying an HDTV, and those who will have to buy a digital reciver or new TV probably won't be very interested in Blu-ray, these people are mostly rural and the elderly, both of which hardly support DVD.
full of craps
Apple is way too set in it's own little world. Because every man woman and child has an iPod, they seem to cater to people who don't know shit about computers.
On the MacBook Air page of Apple's site, when talking about the new NVidia graphics, it says "even cover flow flips more smoothly"
Wow, Apple, cover flow!
And Phil Shiller saying (paraphrase) "Apple has the best HD options from iTunes" Yeah, Apple, don't include a BD drive so we have to buy an HD movie to watch it on our two thousand dollar computer.
As a consumer looking to buy a laptop, I would want my $2000 Mac to be able to do the same things as any $600 no name. When someone hands me a Blu-ray disc and I have to tell them I can't play it because "Blu-ray is a bag of hurt", my Mac is going to feel even more like a over priced "brick".
Guys! This is the Steve way, he says NO then next year here comes your blu-ray drive and HDMI port. What did he say about iPod nano - no video! iPhone - no 3G!. They just want you to wait or a reason to upgrade next year. Keep whining coz Steve-O listens that's what he gonna say on his next keynote.
I've said it before: the real reason that Jobs doesn't like Blu Ray is because you NEED to be buying movies from iTunes. Not on some stinking physical disc. Jobs is a monopolist now in his success. All your dollars are belong to us!
That said, when my sweet old Dell lappie bites the dust, I'll be in a Macbook Pro with an external hard drive full of Handbraked DVD movies on it... My wife's iMac 24" has been a rock solid computer even with a monkey banging at the keyboard... ;-0
Always the same thing with Apple.
Like when they told everybody that watching videos on an iPod wasn't useful. People didn't want that.
So every Apple fanboy agreed with that.
Later they added video support and every Apple fanboy was raving about it.
Now they don't add BluRay. Apple lovers claim they don't care.
Next year they'll add it and Apple fans call it the biggest thing ever.
It doesn't matter what they do. They could replace the HDD with a floppydrive and people would still buy it.
What wankers....the lot of you whining about Blu-Ray. It's as though Blu-Ray is like f*#ing rosemary on potatoes. What movies are even worth watching on Blu-Ray? Step Brothers, Cloverfield,(okay i'll give you the Dark Knight), but do I need to watch a rom com at all let alone Blu-Ray. You're actually calling for the Mac Book to be $200 more expensive, so you can buy your double priced crap movie on Blu-Ray.
Who says the economy is dying? There is a bunch of tards out there wanting to spend more money like it grows on trees. Do it Apple! You've got the smartest and dumbest customers alive.
Voted up for searing cynicism.
So it looks more & more that Steve is holding out for the Red Ray system coming in April which will display from 2-4 K resolution from a standard D5 DVD & the top of the line Apple Cinema Display will have at
least 2K capability. NAB should be very interesting this April.
Dave
... if Apple bothers to show up...
DisplayPort’s bidirectional channel provides the ability to perform additional functions, such as notebook-backlight control.
Although LVDS (what HDMI runs over) is very well-accepted in the industry, as semiconductor processes shrink, it’s not the most optimal technology. For LVDS to handle 1920×1200-pixel resolution and 8 bits per color, it needs 10 high-speed differential-signal pairs, or 20 wires. For the same function, DisplayPort reduces this requirement to only two pairs, or four wires. An LVDS implementation requires at least 3.3 or 2.5V, so it’s becoming increasingly difficult at 45-nm and smaller process geometries.
Because DisplayPort is ac-coupled, instead of dc-coupled like HDMI, it has a lower voltage swing and a different termination scheme. You must terminate HDMI only at the receiver and pull it up to 3.3V. But you can terminate DisplayPort at both the source and the receiver, and it can never exceed 2V, per the spec, helping to lower power consumption.
HDMI’s I/O-voltage limitation becomes more of a constraint with shrinking process geometries, increasing cost and die size. DisplayPort’s lower voltage swing also helps reduce EMI (electromagnetic interference).
That not even counting the .4 cents per device and $10,000 annual fee for HDMI.
So yes, Steve was right in saying that displayport is the future of computing display tech, and it does have a higher max resolution than HDMI, as explained by 'Chris C'.
I do think they're a little ahead of the curve on this one, but they'll be ahead of it when displayport really comes into its own.
Well I don't think Blu-ray is a hurt, but I don't think it will be around for much long for anything else other than PS3 games, even that could also be limited since it seems that downloading games into the PS3 hard disc seems to be the new way of playing games. Sony I believe really did a good job of selling the mainstream media a good looking format, that actually is inferior for everyday use. Toshiba if you can read this be smart and bring back HD DVD as it could take over Blu-ray because people always like another choice, and as much as Hollywood won't like it they will have to jump onboard because it's that or big budget films, low ticket sales & breakable DVD format so thus pirating.
To all of you who bought AppleTV: it sucks great heights.
www.mvixusa.com has the best player out there, end of story.
Forcing you to be stuck with crappy iTunes is Apple's way of adding insult to injury. Another example: I use the best Media Center out there (www.jrmediacenter.com) and those moronic imbeciles at Apple made sure it wasn't compatible with the iPhone, which is one of my biggest frustrations this week.
Hackers unit and crack that firmware. Free us of the iTunes mass-rape now, someone, somewhere, please.
This message was paid by the Anti-Fascist Association of America, who will hire more powerful lawyers than the ones the RIAA, MPAA and other AA can afford as soon as people will start realizing that being insulted while saying "please, again, more, please" is not the best way to spend our short moments on Earth.
cheers
melkiades
.MKV?
didn't see it on Mvix' site
holy crap!
Phil, you seems didn't realize iTunes store's movie rental is not worldwide, and yet you won't have all titles to be download in Full HD format.
Besides, who have ever said that we need Blu-ray on Mac for watching HD movie on-the-go?! We need BD-R! Double layer burner, please!
Steve, I am sure HDMI support 2560 x 1600, else if you would like to release a even higher resolution display! btw I hate those display adapters.
Back to Holy Cow . . Its not news. Come on Engadget, you can do better.
What a joke, I just wanted to slap him silly when I heard that. Just swallow your pride already, Blu Ray is here to stay (for now) and as a creative professional, I hate that Apple is choosing to stay behind the crowd. Bring on the super-duper drive.... please!
Apple only wants to use the best technology - sorry engadget, but no matter how much you get paid by blue ray ain't gonna change that fact that Apple's going to go HD-DVD
Okay Mac wants to be big into movies, but no blue-ray. Why?? How exactly are we suppose to make our HD movies portable. What carry around external hard drives?? If they didn't like blue-ray's licensing then why didn't they support HD-DVD which wasn't so proprietary. This may be some mystical Job's prophecy, the end of optical media, but for now we need something.
To all the Apple fanboys who think watching a 'so-called HD' DL on a computer screen is really experiencing a movie you don't know what you are missing.
DLs look like sh!t when you start blowing them up for todays standard HDTV sizes (40+"). And when you put the BD counterpart next to it its no contest. BD is the best consumer format available.
But what do I know, I only have a 1080p projector paired with a 92" screen along with an Onkyo/Def Tech 7.1 sound system.
Apple and the other computer giant want physical media dead because it will strengthen their revenue stream, but the cold hard fact is that the pipe is not big enough to deliver true HD so their HD offerings are HD in name only. I mean come on a 720p download that is roughly the same file size as dual layer DVD. I know compression has improved but not to the point that DVD bitrates can reliably deliver 'HD' quality.
Plus don't be so quick to give up physical media because as we have already with the current 'HD' downloads that there is no "pay once, unlimited view option." Don't give all the control to the content providers and pipe owners because if they have it all be prepared to fork over cash everytime you want to watch your favorite movie.
of course they're not going to support things that detract from what they sale. why give people blu-ray when they want you to pay for itunes and cinema like he said, and why adopt the standard that everyone else is using when you could use a separate video output, because its not like they didn't do that with firewire and look where that got firewire...
But what's the maximum resolution of AppleTV HD, and does it have lossless audio? I''m assuming you can get 1080i or 720p, with compressed audio, but what the hell is the purpose? That isn't what I bought my HDTV for. I bought my HDTV so I could watch movies in the highest quality possible. It would seem to be that the AppleTV "streaming" experience would be second best, and quite frankly, second best isn't good enough for me. It sounds to me like Jobs is just trying to drive business by putting down the superior competition.
When AppleTV can present me with 1080p and lossless audio, I'll give it a try. But the technology isn't quite there yet.
It's actually very simple. Apple's thin notebooks require a 9.5mm optical drive. Guess what? There isn't a 9.5mm Blu-Ray drive available in the industry. As soon as one is available, Steve will miraculously come out and say the world is now ready for Blu-Ray. Come clean Steve. Stop with the BS.
You can buy an HP notebook with an nvidia 9600M gpu (512MB vram), 4GB ram, and blu-ray drive for $1250. I don't think Apple would have to raise prices to support Blu-ray, they just want to channel people's cash into iTune$ for movie downloads.
So happy Apple spent all their time on designing beautiful, expensive notebooks. NOW can we have copy/paste on the iphone?
I saw that too and it's a great bargain! $800 less and BluRay included. I saw another model UNDER $1000 with BluRay also. Makes Apple's licensing argument look like BS!
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Perhaps Steve should have chimed in about 30 _months_ ago when this all started :-P
Should have supported HD DVD if this means so much to you (i.e. $$) now lol!
Blu-ray is a bitch to implement in a personal computer, but it isn't impossible. Microsoft is still pending a PAVP driver. Seems like Apple would want to take this opportunity to one-up Microsoft. Guess not.
As to the iTunes fanboys hating on Blu-ray, you must be both blind and deaf to even compare the two. The whole point of Blu-ray is for the ultimate home theater experience, not to be the MP3 of video. Comparing Blu-ray iTunes HD is like comparing a 7 Series Beamer to a Chevy Aveo. SO STFU!
Cheers,
Where the hell is blu ray Steve??? Please don't give us these silly excuses - if other manufacturers can get it into their pcs and laptops WHY CAN'T YOU?
Is it because you want to force us to purchase downloaded HD content instead? Not good!! And things like this only ebb away at the Apple's brand loyalty.
I really am considering boycotting Apple products because of this insistance to force, not only, propriety formats, but to prevent users from using alternative products too by means of exclusion (as per blu ray).
Please don't take us for mugs, and start showing us the same respect you get from us.
/Rant Over/