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Apple Backs Blu-ray

Posted by Hemos on from the beta-vs-vhs dept.

zaxios writes "The New York Times is reporting that Apple has joined the Blu-ray Disc Association, and will use Blu-ray in upcoming versions of iMovie and Final Cut. The move puts Apple among Sony, Matsushita, Dell, HP and Walt Disney in supporting Blu-ray; companies including Toshiba, NEC, Warner Brothers, New Line Cinema, Universal and Paramount are pledged to adopt the competing HD-DVD format. Apple's support confirms Blu-ray's future dominance on the desktop, but the division in Hollywood and notebook manufacturers between the two HD videodiscs will ensure the bona fide format war we were all secretly pining for."

6 of 491 comments (clear)

  1. IBM by static0verdrive · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Now if IBM could jump on the Blu-Ray bandwagon we'd be set!! We (the OSS croud, linux personally) would see a lot more support with HP, Apple plus IBM's support...

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  2. The invisible elephant by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Forget about Sony, HP, Matsushita, Apple, Dell, and Disney...

    The porn industry, which releases 11,000 titles a year, will likely silently decide which format "wins" (previous slashdot coverage).

    And some of the bigger porn houses are coming down on the side of Blu-ray because of its capacity advantage over HD-DVD. That the porn industry would have such an influence comes as no surprise to those who know just how big the industry really is.

  3. Sucks to be an early adopter by Eradicator2k3 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When you consider that DL DVD drives have been out for some time (reasonably priced), yet the media still costs about 10 bucks a pop, can you imagine what the Blu-Ray (or HD) discs will go for? At the risk of dating myself (not like anyone else would, HA), I was an early adopter for the *new* high-density 3.5" floppies at about $80 for a box of 10.

    Realistically, once the next-generation drives and discs are out, it will lower the price of DL media into something more affordable.

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    Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
  4. Re:The diffrence that matters by rdc_uk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No.

    As with DVD-R(W) and DVD+R(W). Prices will be similar, devices will have either singular-support, or very sketchy dual-support.

    Current / Older home DVD-Players and DVD-ROM drives will either be incompatible, or very, very picky.

    Prices will be in fact pretty high for a good time because take up will be slow until the 2nd gen of the technology comes through (reasonably solid dual-format writers, common and solid dual-format players).

    Meanwhile, someone will have produced DivX++, that can re-encode the content of a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray DVD, allowing it to be written to a standard DVD, in a quality that is acceptable for the drop in price. It is these files that will be popular, downloaded from the net.

    After a while of that, people will start to use HD-DVD or Blu Ray DVD to backup their multiple DivX++ images onto one big-ass disc.

    At which point the tech companies will reveal their plans for SDD-DVD (super-duper-density DVD), and the competing standard Puce-Ray DVD. Which will be sony's concept. These discs will be the future because they hold such better-qualtiy movies, and the capacity makes piracy impractical...

    And the big circle-jerk will begin again!

  5. Re:Not really... by porcupine8 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    But in this case, I don't think you need causation. If Apple is just really good at picking winners, then that has the same effect on blu-ray predictions as Apple being really good at causing winners. Either way, if Apple backs a technology there is a very high chance that it will be successful, whether or not it's Apple's fault.

    And with something like this, it could become causation - Apple builds up a good track record of picking winners, other companies notice this, and when Apple makes their pick other companies start to mirror them based on their past performance, thus making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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    Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
  6. Blu-ray has several things going for it. . . by doctor_no · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Blu-ray has several things going for it. . .

    Playstation 3 inclusion of Blu-ray would prove to be a massive boost for the standard as it automatically gives an instant installed base in the tens of millions. As initial players will likely be relatively pricey, it's usually difficult to start the momentum to get enough installed base on the market so that studios would want to produce content for it, and more content usually then convinces more people to buy into the standard. However, by PS3 being Blu-ray compatible automatically creates a massive installed that studios can produce content for to start the ball rolling.

    Secondly, Blu-ray seems to be more scalable then HD-DVD with comapanies planning 4-layer 100GB and 8-layer 200GB multilayered disks. Also, Blu-ray seems to be getting more hardware on the market then HD-DVD, especially since Sony and Matsushita (Panasonic, Technic, Fisher, etc) are backing it. Sony has just annouced Blu-ray drive for the PC that can write to write-once 50GB disks or rewritable-50GB disks.

    BLu-ray drive for PC