All Mac book prices dropping in the US and going up in the UK

[TALON1973]

i think it was basically the same with microsoft .. if they had bundled HD-DVD into teh 360 in the first place the hi-def war probably would have turn out differently .. but ms is trying to push digital downloads ...sighs

 

[bigredshark]

There's also the issue that a blueray drive and DVD-RW in notebook format is £150+ (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-058-SO&groupid=701&catid=10&subcat=314 for example).

Cheaper drives are read only so you loose your DVD writing ability, for me at least thats far more important than being able to read blueray.

So either you somehow accommodate a drive which is more than 25% of the price of a mac mini (which only happens by raising prices and then the same people moaning about blueray moan about prices). Or you **** off the vastly larger part of the user base which uses a DVD Writer and doesn't much care about blueray by using a read only drive.

I doubt blueray will happen until next january at the earliest, purely because I'm sure we'll see an update to ilife (iDVD most obviously) to support writing blueray and hi-def in general at the same time.

To be honest I couldn't care less, blueray or DVD is just clutter around my house, the first thing I do with a disc is digitize it and stuff it on an external drive. I'll never watch it off the disc directly again so downloading HD content from the apple store makes more sense long term. Physical media is a dying format...

 

[Deleted member 651465]

To be honest I couldn't care less, blueray or DVD is just clutter around my house, the first thing I do with a disc is digitize it and stuff it on an external drive. I'll never watch it off the disc directly again so downloading HD content from the apple store makes more sense long term. Physical media is a dying format...

I disagree.

Apple wants the physical media to die, but the broadband infrastructure isn't exactly helping the "digital download" revolution.

Until you can stream full-HD (30-50MB sec) over the internet then there's always going to be people who'd rather the extra quality vs. longer download times.

 

[FreeStream]

I've been turned to blu-ray after seeing Wall-E and Dark Knight on a 27" 1920x1200 screen.

Hence why im buying a Hazro 27" and a PS3

I've downloaded one HD film off iTunes, not as impressive IMO.

Mac Pro really should come with a Blu-Ray drive, along with the top iMac.

 

[bigredshark]

I disagree.

Apple wants the physical media to die, but the broadband infrastructure isn't exactly helping the "digital download" revolution.

Until you can stream full-HD (30-50MB sec) over the internet then there's always going to be people who'd rather the extra quality vs. longer download times.

Sure they do and streaming will happen sooner rather than later, we'll be at 50Mbps in 2 to 3 years in more populous areas. Quicker still if virgin get their network in order.

But more importantly the UK isn't going to govern how apple market their products worldwide. It's too small a market to have much affect on their thinking.

Look what happened to music distribution and how that migrated to downloads.

 

[bigredshark]

I've been turned to blu-ray after seeing Wall-E and Dark Knight on a 27" 1920x1200 screen.

Hence why im buying a Hazro 27" and a PS3

I've downloaded one HD film off iTunes, not as impressive IMO.

Mac Pro really should come with a Blu-Ray drive, along with the top iMac.

Why? It's a professional workstation, not a home PC! The iMac I can somewhat understand but it won't happen until apple have come up with supporting software...

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Sure they do and streaming will happen sooner rather than later, we'll be at 50Mbps in 2 to 3 years in more populous areas. Quicker still if virgin get their network in order.

But more importantly the UK isn't going to govern how apple market their products worldwide. It's too small a market to have much affect on their thinking.

Look what happened to music distribution and how that migrated to downloads.

The UK government has said they want everyone to have 2MB by 2012, so while a lot of people already have access to 24MB ADSL2+/Virgin, it's not looking like a viable alternative in 2 or 3 years, not for the majority.

I can drive to a rental shop, pick up a Blu Ray and be back home in 20 minutes. I may be an extreme case, but BT / Virgin need massive investment in all areas, rural or not if they want to push a new download culture.

I agree that the UK might not be the biggest fish in the sea, but the US is much the same in the bigger rural states (i.e. poor speeds) so it's really only Asia, Sweden and a handful of other countries where fibre is commonplace that will push this.

I'm sure I read that Korea was going 1GBps by 2012.. in this case, yes.. it would work for them

Let me reiterate: I agree with your point, but it needs to be easier to download at the SAME quality as Blu Ray, or people won't bother. The record industry pushed itself off the cliff ages ago when they failed to accept that their own policies were choking sales.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

There's also the issue that a blueray drive and DVD-RW in notebook format is £150+ (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-058-SO&groupid=701&catid=10&subcat=314 for example).

Cheaper drives are read only so you loose your DVD writing ability, for me at least thats far more important than being able to read blueray.

Thats the price for a relativly small order at retail prices.

You can get laptops with BluRay drives in for £600 notes, not that much lower spec than a macbook or mac mini. Infact a dell studio 15 is way higher spec than a macbook and mac mini and its £670. Yeh i know its only a reader, still better than nothing.

On to the second part of your post, BluRay readers can still wite DVD's at 8x like the other slim optical drives.

 

[Mr Spew]

I've been turned to blu-ray after seeing Wall-E and Dark Knight on a 27" 1920x1200 screen.

Hence why im buying a Hazro 27" and a PS3

I've downloaded one HD film off iTunes, not as impressive IMO.

Mac Pro really should come with a Blu-Ray drive, along with the top iMac.

The only BR drive the Mac Pro should have is a writable one - but there's still no need yet.