Future of Blu Ray?

[Igor]

Have you seen what Steve Jobs says about future of Blu Ray?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2010/jul/01/apple-jobs-blu-ray-rejection

My own observation from reading this forum and technical support - users of PicturesToExe very rarely ask for Blu Ray support.

Future of personal/home HD video in online video (YouTube, Vimeo, etc) and single video files (MP4)?

[Ken Cox]

If you remember, the guy that invented divx said that if the industry would go with his ideas there would be no need to have a new format

was it Toshiba that tried to buck the rest ? and lost bigtime

suppose bluray does not fit with stevie wonder's future plans ?

most standard 1080i/p up dvd players sold today,come with the divx chip

and

or the wd player interface seems to be working according to some forum members

ken

[Lin Evans]

Hi Igor,

Personally, I believe Steve Jobs is as wrong about BluRay as he is about Flash. His opposition to Flash and not allowing the iPhone or IPad to see Flash has created serious opposition to these devices and opened the door for competition which otherwise would have never happened. People love the iPad because of the many fantastic features, but they hate the fact that when they go to major news sites (essentially all of them) they have big "holes" where the numerous Flash video clips reside. Flash is here to stay and Job's assumption that HTML5 will completely replace Flash is, I believe, a "pipe dream." There are simply too many Flash implementations out there on the web and too much money already invested for major players to abandon it. Steve Jobs is living in a dream world where Apple rules, but unfortunately the world is not going to the come to Apple as he would like.

So it is, I believe, with BluRay. Many years ago, before the MacIntosh was invented and in the days of the Lisa Apple computer I was an Apple Representative selling Apple computers. When the IBM PC and IBM XT became so prevalent the handwriting was on the wall. IBM is here to stay and the business world selected it rather than Apple. I tried very hard to convince Apple management that they should open the architecture and even make a dual processor motherboard so they could run IBM PC applications. It would have been very easy for them to do this at that time. Had they done so, they would have easily been equal and even superior to the PC world and would have a major market share today. But Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak had their heads in the sand and refused to either open their architecture or include IBM applications with appropriate hardware and this decision doomed Apple to a 3% market share for decades. When they finally came to their senses and created a MacIntosh which, with an Intel CPU, could then run PC applications, their market share tripled!

Today we find the same thinking at Apple which held them back in the 1980's and 1990's. BluRay has been adopted by the major movie studios as "the" method for distribution of their state-of-art presentations for home use. Blu-Ray players are being included with the majority of mid-range home computers today. It's here to stay for some time. The industry has accepted this technology as superior to HD, and so it will be until "major" improvements can be implemented.

I think PTE users in general would LOVE to have the ability to create PTE shows in BluRay quality but the cost of BluRay burners has prohibited the majority from getting too excited about it. Also, as a group, I think PTE users are waiting until you are able to have video-clip drop in available for PTE and then I think you will find that most will be asking for the ability to output to BluRay. I also think that PTE users realize how much you have already given us, and how hard you have been working to create a MacIntosh compatible version of PTE.

Now this decision by Steve Jobs throws a major curve at us. To have BluRay or to not have BluRay. If you have BluRay output for the PC, and not for the MacIntosh user, then we are sort of back to square one. The MacIntosh user would have to run Windows to be able to create BluRay discs; just as they now must use Windows to create native MacIntosh executable output.

It's a daunting task to keep up with Steve Job's decisions, which historically have not been exactly good decisions for Apple's growth. It doesn't make your decision any easier either, does it??

Best regards,

Lin

Have you seen what Steve Jobs says about future of Blu Ray?

http://www.guardian....u-ray-rejection

My own observation from reading this forum and technical support - users of PicturesToExe very rarely ask for Blu Ray support.

Future of personal/home HD video in online video (YouTube, Vimeo, etc) and single video files (MP4)?

[stardealer]

All friends of mine like viewing slideshows on TV more than viewing them on their PC.

I'm assuming that in some time (6 to 12 months) nearly all of them will have a BluRay-Player to view films of the major studios.

Then with these modern BluRay-Players all of them have the equipment to show single MP4-files on their TV.

Then it is only about media and comfort.

DVD has 4,7 GB capacity BluRay has 25GB (or 50GB)- I think it is enough for my normal slideshows of half an hour, if it's a 2 hour slideshow, well then I will reduce outputresolution to 1280x720.

Actual DVD prices are about 0,25 - 0,40€, BluRay 25GB about 2 - 4 €

In terms of media DVD is sufficient and cheap.

Now to the question "comfort of use". Do I need a menu or not?

Personally I think - No.

And I don't want to pay higher prices for P2E-Deluxe only for BluRay-Authoring functionality.

Regards, Frank

[Lin Evans]

Hi Tom,

I think you've hit the nail squarely on the head! It's all about money. I've always believed that Apple has been misguided from the top in terms of business acumen. Jobs does a great "job" of collecting and using the best technology available for the company, but has proven that he has little true skills in terms of guiding the company into achieving greater market share. I suppose when you have all the money you need, you can be somewhat arrogant, but this time I think the cards are stacked against him in terms of convincing the world that Flash is inferior. He may love HTML5, and it "may" be superior for some applications, but Flash is not sitting still and has a huge established base. His refusal to embrace it as a viable vehicle has angered a number of people, whom otherwise would have purchased the iPad and iPhone, but who now are turning toward alternatives which do not have the limitation of ignoring the most common method available for displaying active video on the web.

It's a shame because he now has gone public with his doubts about BluRay and his opposition to allowing the Mac users to enjoy this really neat technology. I think he is under the impression that internet downloads via the television receiver will eventually win out over media distributed on disc but I'm not convinced that this will be the overwhelming choice except among the very affluent. Only in the large metropolitan areas of the U.S., for example, are fiber optic and DSL technology advanced enough to really support the super high speed interface required to allow downloads of the signal magnitudes necessary for true HD quality delivered in a timely fashion. The costs for these far exceed the cost for renting a DVD or BluRay at the local video store or for using Netflix, etc. Even if eventually the high speed fiber optic channels become available everywhere, unless the costs are diminished by magnitudes, the overwhelming choice of common folks will be Netflix or video rentals as opposed to direct paid downloads.

Hopefully, Apple management will eventually come to their senses and realize that not everyone spends 30 minutes a day playing with their iPhone apps. Perhaps they are still only seeing the "trees" rather than the forests. Personally, I don't "want" to see advertising on my telephone and I don't spend any time playing with the phone. It's a young people's toy and ideal for those with excellent eyesight, but the population in the US and in many parts of the world is aging. I believe that the true revelation in cell telephone technology will come when manufacturers begin to realize that older users need larger letters and numbers and quickly tire of squinting at the relatively tiny print on miniature screens. Obviously, that's a bias based on my age demographic, but the numbers are increasing daily.

Best regards,

Lin

My phone - This is why I like this little Samsung! BIG NUMBERS FOR OLD CODGERS, LOL