Blu Ray disk in a Mac - When?

[viridian]

First about Sony products:
The PS2 is the most sold/widely used and longest running game system
The Sony Walkman series CD, Tape, or FM radio was the highest grossing and sold portable entertainment device until recently which was topped by the Ipod in $ sales bu t not yet in units sold. But as slashjunior said the mini-disc and hi-fi etc. failed miserably.

But back to Apple having Blu-Ray. I wouldn't doubt that it would be an available upgrade but I doubt that it would be a standard feature any time soon. One reason is that you can purchase internal and external burners for about $600. Another is that it may just be a popular item right now but never actually sell well. Plus, if you really need 25gb on a disk, just get an another HDD. And for now, DVD-DL are good enough at the moment.

 

[slashjunior]

Admittedly Sony have made some life changing products like the walkman, and yes I admit I do have a Sony Hi-Fi, which the CD Player broke and had to be repairer.

The PS2 wasn't necessarily the best console though, I think the XBox probably came too late to the market so there wasn't really a massive take up of it so most developers made games for PS2 so that became the obvious choice to buy. The GameCube I don't think is seen as a 'proper' gamers console as it were, it targets a different market.

The XBox 360 has really stepped up the game and I think Microsoft has done the right thing by releasing it first. A lot of people have got the XBox 360, will they want to buy the PS3? I think the PS3 is over-hyped just as Vista is and I think sales will be lower than anticipated. Sony has lost what made it special in the first place. The innovative ideas, such as the walkman, instead in a similar fashion to Microsoft they have been greedy, noticed the threats of the competition and trying to lock consumers into one particular format.

 

[MacHeadCase]

Actually, there is a company offering a Blu-Ray drive for Macs.

http://www.mcetech.com/blu-ray/

OWC now offers one too: OWC offers Blu-ray internal, external drives. :girl:

 

[iRye]

Holy...thats expensive, almost as much as my powerbook is worth...:O

 

[TheThirdMan]

I guess blue ray drive will be in the next mac pro.

For consumers, blu ray is the way to go. Whereas hd dvd is essentially a dvd squashed up, blue ray uses more advanced technology (some companies have already built 10 layer models, with 250GB on one side!).

Both will be obselete when holographic discs come out anyway...

 

[schweb]

Here's a good article on Blu-Ray adoption...if AppleInsider is right, HD-DVD is in big trouble:
http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2574

 

[BIG D 04]

The problem is that with HD DVD is the best one for the consumer the disc's it has created with multiple layers, double sided for both DVD and HD DVD making switching better and the cheap manufacturing costs of HD DVD.

However Blu Ray has the biggest amount of Support and Sony won't want to see there product die again and again and again, it's more of less there last chance of staying successful in the Home Entertainment Market.

Although they have sacrificed the Playstation 3 with the Blu-Ray Drive that at this moment in time isn't necessary but could be down the line as we know how people hate Multiple Discs.

So the way I see it is that although HD DVD seems the Consumer choice, I expect Sony's Blu Ray to win purely because of the Amount of Companies especially Big Motion Pictures behind it. However with The Porn Industry going towards HD DVD it still might win it....

Although you could question whether it matters that much as with the success of several downloading stores for both Music and Video and the Success of Services like the Video Marketplace maybe the money should be put on the Hard Disk Drive winning the Format War.

 

[biscotti.a]

I would love if macs came out with blu-ray technology, but like someone said above, it would be pretty expensive but after a year or two it would be reasonable.

 

[Amen-Moses]

The Playstation 3 is still the trump card for Blu Ray. I see no reason why it shouldn't emerge as the top console once again - there's a massive Playstation userbase out there who will probably stick with what they know and go for a PS3.

I just bought one, not because I'm "sticking with what I know" but because I wanted a Wii and the store didn't have any!

Nintendo have well and truly shot themselves in the foot by only selling through selected stores and in small quantities, I've been waiting for a Wii for bloody months yet on the first day of European release of the PS3 they were in massive quantities in virtually every store in town.

Am I happy with my purchase? You bet, the Graphics are superb, even better than my top end PC games machine, everything "just works" like I'm used to with my Apple hardware, it linked up wih my existing wireless network wih no trouble, I'm currently sat here waiting for it to download the 4th game demo of the evening (each being around 600MB in size!) and the three games I bought with it are all fantastic.

I'm still going to buy a Wii eventually (if I ever see one in a store that is) but with the fact that well over half the PS1 & PS2 games work on it (and boy do they look good, far better than on the PS2) and that it is wireless and has a large (compared to the competition) hard drive this baby is gonna get a lot of use in my household.

In fact I'm already planning to buy a Sony HD TV to go with it as my old 36 inch 100Hz progressive CRT just doesn't do it justice.

Oh, did I mention that it is silent in operation, much cooler than the XBox 360 and just looks so darn cool.

Oops, gotta go play one last game before bed ...

Amen-Moses

 

[ptdavey]

There is a need for a BlueRay Burner on a MAC. I produce Corp Videos which need to be distrubuted in editable digital format - AppleProRes422. A 20 minute Video in HD is about 20GB in digital format too large for a DVD. FTP sites take too long to upload and download. Portable Hard drives are expenisve and require shipping there and 'hopefully' back.Other options are 32GB or 64GB chips which are also expensive. BlueRay is the least expensive and most effecient way to share these files. I edit in FCP and save a AppleProRes422 file for export. I save to an extrnal Hard Drive. I reboot to a WIN7 machine via Bootcamp and then use WIN7 to copy the file to a BlueRay. I also edit and export out of Adobe Premiere or Encore to BlueRay disc. It all works beautyfully.