Apple warms up (a bit) to Blu-ray

[Elandyll]

Talking about a "Bag of Hurt", the incoherence in Apple's support of Blu Ray is starting to be as shockingly visible as the Sun in one's face.

http://www.macworld.com/article/1418...alcutpro7.html

Easy Export
Easy Export will probably be the favorite new feature of most editors for its ease of use and time savings. Found under File->Share, it replaces Export Via Compressor. At first glance, it looks like Apple has just lifted a page from the Share interface of iMovie ’09 () , but there’s more to it than that. There are three new aspects of the Easy Export feature that significantly enhance productivity and flexibility.

• You can assign settings for target outputs such as Web, iPod, AppleTV, or DVD, directly in Final Cut Pro without having to launch Compressor, thus keeping the editor in the friendly and familiar confines of Final Cut Pro. You can assign multiple settings right from this interface, as well.

• You can assign post compression Job Actions to any of the queued targets, which are more extensive than the options you could to assign in Compressor in the past. You can, for instance, do any of the following (or more) with the click of a button: Post directly to MobileMe upon completion of compression; import into iTunes to sync to AppleTV, iPod or iPhone; publish directly to YouTube; burn a DVD or Blu-ray disc directly from this interface without going to DVD Studio Pro; or create your own post render process within Compressor, even launching Automator scripts. Then of course, you can make them available via the Share interface.

That's right—you can burn a Blu-ray disc directly from within Final Cut Pro 7. The downside is that Apple (as of this writing) still doesn't sell a Blu-ray capable SuperDrive, so you have to get a third-party drive. You can, however, burn AVCHD Blu-ray content to a standard recordable DVD disc in your SuperDrive via Share, and that will play in a Blu-ray player. DVDs and Blu-ray have a limited slate of templates to choose from, but you can at least assign custom graphics (with alpha) for background, logo, and title graphics, and even generate a chapter menu.

Another significant catch—this is the only Blu-ray support offered in the entire Final Cut Studio suite. DVD Studio Pro does not support Blu-ray in any fashion, and gets only the smallest of increments—from version 4.2.1 to 4.2.2. It does not support Blu-ray authoring, encoding, or burning. Easy Export is powerful, convenient, and useful, but that is the extent of Blu-ray support in this release. Considering that Adobe has offered Blu-ray authoring support on Intel Macs for two years, this is a startling hole in Final Cut Studio's capabilities

So let me summarize:

Apple refuses to support Blu Ray playback or burning from their OS
Apple refuses to provide a Blu Ray player or burner in their lineup
Apple (Steve Jobs) calls Blu Ray a "Bag of Hurt"
Apple refuses to implement Blu Ray support in DVD Studio Pro

on the flip side

Apple is a full member (maybe even a founding one?) of the BDA since inception
Apple is now proposing direct support for creation and burning of Blu Ray discs in final Cut Pro 7, their flagship Video Editing tool
Apple, via Pixar, is hugely pushing the format forward as "the best quality in HD available" - cf John Lasseter

Did I miss anything on the "Bag of Incoherence" that Apple is continuing to be?

[Jeff Kleist]

Final Cut is a product that is pointed toward professional users, for whom backing up project files to Blu-ray and burning discs for clients is important. The Blus that it burns are very basic, essentially just the files in the correct format with no advance navigation or anything beyond very basic DVD functionality.

Apple will hold out at least another year I'll wager, unless there's a sudden boom. Don't forget all those nice digital copies work with iTunes, and at that size of a screen, it doesn't really matter anyway

[Sponge-worthy]

Apple will just hold off on supporting BD until enough of their devoted Mac-sheeple-users demand it. Why increase production costs by adding something new when your customer base thinks everything you do is already perfect?

[Tempest]

No... Apple won't support it because they want the future of movies to be their itunes web site which of couse isn't going to happen.

[The Big Blue]

apple

[dadkins]

Originally Posted by ryan69969

Apple will just hold off on supporting BD until enough of their devoted Mac-sheeple-users demand it. Why increase production costs by adding something new when your customer base thinks everything you do is already perfect?

QFT!
They're only 3 years behind... what's a few more, eh?

[chemokidd]

apple wants downloads to win so idk when or if theyll give in

[steve_dave]

I own a Macbook Pro, iBook G4, a couple of iPods including the Touch and what I've found since getting my iBook in 2005 is that Apple has stopped listening to consumers and instead has focused on consumers listening to them.

This really took off with the introduction of the original iPod. Sure it had the capacity to store hours of music but the battery never lasted long enough to enjoy them all on single charge let alone a transatlantic flight. The device used proprietary music format with DRM and you needed proprietary software to convert your CDs to it. At the time of the iPod's birth there were better music players that played non-DRM MP3s and had battery life that actually allowed you to get through at least 80% of the music on the device. However, in the end Apple won over consumers and record companies with the device.

That was the end of Apple truly listening to consumers. Sure they eventually bowed on certain things like convincing record companies to embrace open music. Of course, Amazon and Rhapsody were a few months ahead of them already. Apple also got into Digital Movie downloads despite CinemaNow already being on the scene but not being able to "break" the average consumer barrier.

The iPhone was missing copy & paste and multi-media messaging. Things even basic cel phones could do. They finally "embraced" these features after realizing that consumers are never going to stop fighting for them. They are still relectant to include multi-tasking and if you ask them they come up with a different excuse each time:

"Better battery life means no multi-tasking."
Really? We put up with crappy battery life in the previous generation.

"Multi-tasking makes the processor slower."
Really? So explain how a Motorola Razr can do Navigation while getting a text and taking notes.

Getting back to the topic at hand...

Even Toshiba has admitted that they can not stay out of the Blu-ray market and are planning to introduce a player. We are at a point in the "faster, better, cooler" market where even Chinese and Korean manufacturers are making Blu-ray players. Hell, Blu-ray Discs have begun to show up at Big Lots!

Apple is going to have to concede to consumers eventually. They collapsed to pressure from Microsoft's ads and dropped/adjusted the prices on their laptop products. So its going to be a bad business decision on their part if they continue to not support Blu-ray products. If they are not going to provide a Blu-ray Disc drive, either for hardware cost or OEM licensing issues, they least they can do is add support for Blu-ray Disc playback in the OS. Sure you can hook up a third party BD burner to the Mac albeit a specific manufacturer's BD drive (just like DVD burners, Mac OS does not accept them all) but you can't play them back. That means that while Easy Export will let you do the burn, you got to have a seperate Blu-ray player to test the disc.

[dadkins]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Final Cut is a product that is pointed toward professional users, for whom backing up project files to Blu-ray and burning discs for clients is important. The Blus that it burns are very basic, essentially just the files in the correct format with no advance navigation or anything beyond very basic DVD functionality.

Thanks for that info!

[Propellarhead9]

I was excited to see that you can now burn straight from Final Cut. When I make films (shorts and educational tv segments) I use final cut and I use an HD camera so now I can actually get used of the HD outside of a downloadable file.