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Portables (Apple) Data Storage Hardware

Blu-Ray Drive For Apple Notebooks 148

Posted by kdawson from the but-not-from-Apple dept.
Sean Jackson writes "Fastmac has beaten Apple to the Blu-Ray punch and has a new slimline Blu-Ray drive that works in PowerBooks, iBooks, Mac Minis, the MacBook Pro 17", and a few other systems. It's pricey ($800), but you have to admit that burning 45 GB is pretty sweet. Here are technical specs. Fastmac says that playing Blu-Ray movies isn't currently supported since there is no software player. However, several solutions are in the works and there is always a chance OS X 10.5 will support playing movies. Perhaps this means that Apple isn't far behind and will be offering Blu-Ray with the next MacBook and MacBook Pro revisions."
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Blu-Ray Drive For Apple Notebooks More

Blu-Ray Drive For Apple Notebooks

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  • perhaps (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 26, 2007 @10:17AM (#18885133)
    However, several solutions are in the works and there is always a chance OS X 10.5 will support playing movies. Perhaps this means that Apple isn't far behind and will be offering Blu-Ray with the next MacBook and MacBook Pro revisions.

    Perhaps, but it's purely speculation. There's a chance that OS X 10.5 will also come with a full installation of Windows Vista included in the box. Perhaps this means that Apple is planning on buying Microsoft.

    See the problem with drawing conclusions from items that are pure speculation to begin with?
    • According to comments posted by users of 10.5, there is already some software support for blu-ray discs.

      I can't find the link in a cursory glance, but ThinkSecret also published some "rumors" about this.

      So it's not purely speculation. It still may not happen, though.

  • Multi-boot? (Score:2, Funny)

    by iainl ( 136759 )
    If the only problem is lack of software, does it work if you boot into Windows, I wonder?

    Although, since all my HD movies are in the other format, it's kind of moot anyway. Mind you, some would say that about my not owning a MacBook, too.

  • Wow.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mockylock ( 1087585 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @10:20AM (#18885205) Homepage
    Incredible. NOW the overpriced Blu-Ray drive is available in BOTH of your massive-selling flavors! MAC and PS3!

    • Re:Wow.. (Score:4, Informative)

      by jimstapleton ( 999106 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @10:31AM (#18885415) Journal
      It's available for the PC too...

      But nobody cares (can't say I blame them, I sure don't).

  • Dell already offers them... (Score:4, Informative)

    by MSFanBoi2 ( 930319 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @10:21AM (#18885213)
    Dell offers BluRay in their XPS and has done so for quite a while...

    • I'm pretty sure the point of the article was that this is a Blu-Ray drive for Macs, not PCs. We know there are PC drives already.

      Could be wrong though O_o

      Aikon-

      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by dreamchaser ( 49529 )
        True, but every time something appears on Macs before PC's, the Mac fanbois all come running out to make sure everyone knows that Apple did it first.

        Personally I want to see Blu Ray everywhere, but that's just my preference and has been since before it started to look like Blu Ray was winning the format war. The jury is still out but it looks like that trend will continue, especially with the PS/3 picking up some steam and now this development.

  • Meh (Score:1, Troll)

    by giorgiofr ( 887762 )
    What the heck would you use this for? I doubt you're going to burn 45Gb while on the move, and for backup purposes HDs are way cheaper. Of course you need to rotate them, but then again I wouldn't expect a consumer-grade BR-W (sp?) to last longer than a couple of years.
    • Harddrives are notoriously prone to failure. Plus, you can't stash four or five in a briefcase or the average laptop bag... Grabbin g the data off the disks would be a tedious process of unhooking and rehooking up an external drive. Even with the ATA overhead, the bluray drive might be faster.
      • Of course you can stash four or five... Let's see one DVD is 45 Gigs? I have two 2.5 Hard disks which is about the size of four or five CD's, and that stores at least 320 Gigs. With five BluRay I have 225 Gigs... Considering that 2.5 drives will cost you less than 200 USD I think hard disks are the better buy....

        Regarding failure... Not true. I know for the past five years all I do is buy two drives per year, and copy the old information to the new drives. Beats any other backup system on price, performance

        • Re:Meh (Score:5, Informative)

          by jimstapleton ( 999106 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @10:59AM (#18885977) Journal
          To put facts with your point:

          Cheapest Blu-Ray burner: $529 + 1 25GB DVD (requires a decently powerful video card???)
          http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16827106037 [newegg.com]

          Cheapest per-GB BD Disks: $32.99 (150GB total ~$0.22/GB)
          http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16817131063 [newegg.com]

          Blue ray in it's /best/ light financially...

          HDs in better light
          HDDs:
          750GB: $254.99 ($0.33/GB, 15 BD's worth of data)
          http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16822148134 [newegg.com]
          500GB: $129.99 (26/GB, 10 BD's worth of data)
          http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8 2E16822136073 [newegg.com]

          OK, ignoring the cost of the BD drive, which we'll assume you only need to buy once, per-GB the BD is cheaper. However, assuming you don't use unlimited BDs, then you you are cost effective with BDs, only if you have to have simultaneous backup of up to X GB:
          529 + .22x = .26x -> 529 = .04x -> 13,225 = x

          So, you must need at least 13TB of backup at any given time for BD to be more effective in terms of cost. (NOTE: if you do a rolling backup, you'll never reach this, and unless the BDs are -RW, they'll probably not be cost-effective)

          And I'm petty sure 10 optical disks are about the same size standard HD or larger. With a good/small enclosure, you'll still have less space than 15BDs, and you only need one enclusre, just swap the drives. Heck you can get a dongle type setup that doesn't even require the enclosure.

          So, HDs have space /and/ cost advantages in several (but not all) situations).
          • But which standard has the most pr0n available for it?
          • You can use HTML in these posts, you know, instead of putting /slashes/ you can actually italicize things.
          • Don't you have to add the cost of the hard drive in there somewhere?
            • In the calculation you mean? Yes, it was in there. There is no sunk cost o use the hard drive (maybe $25 for a usb enclosur), the rest is per-gigabyte (the 0.26).
          • So, HDs have space /and/ cost advantages in several (but not all) situations).

            If you get a good enclosure they're closer to $40, then you need at least two of them for RAID, you need controllers to drive them - if that's USB you're stuck at slow rates, if it's e.SATA you have expensive controllers and/or port limitations. Now you need to handle hot-swapping effectively for hard drives which takes some admin experience or an expensive hard drive shelf.

            I use hard drives for my business's backups, but the che

            • If you get a good enclosure they're closer to $40, then you need at least two of them for RAID, you need controllers to drive them - if that's USB you're stuck at slow rates, if it's e.SATA you have expensive controllers and/or port limitations. Now you need to handle hot-swapping effectively for hard drives which takes some admin experience or an expensive hard drive shelf.

              I got a good/fast enclosure with USB, Firewire and eSATA for $30 with shipping and handling. It's extremely fast and reliable.

              The eSATA

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Retric ( 704075 )
          Umm, you can fit Blue-Ray disks in a case the size of 2 HDD. That's ~1125Gigs. But HDD tend to die a lot easer than disks. And you don't need external power to access them. After all the point of a laptop is portability vs. showing up with 2 external drives that need power.

          PS: They are Blue-Ray disks not DVD's.

      • Harddrives are notoriously prone to failure.
        And cds/dvds are notoriously prone to scratches.

        My external hard drive (120gb) has been good for well over two years now. Plus, I've dropped the thing several times. I never had a cd-rw work for more than a few weeks or a dvd-rw for a few days due to scratches.

        Plus, you can't stash four or five in a briefcase or the average laptop bag
        It's fairly easy to stash a 200gb external in a bag.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Danga ( 307709 )
          And cds/dvds are notoriously prone to scratches.

          My external hard drive (120gb) has been good for well over two years now. Plus, I've dropped the thing several times. I never had a cd-rw work for more than a few weeks or a dvd-rw for a few days due to scratches.

          Well I have had 2 external HD's fail in the last 3 years and zero of my DVD's fail. It's all anecdotal evidence.

          Most likely the reason your discs started to fail was either you were not taking care of them AT ALL (since they failed so quickly), they

          • It's all anecdotal evidence.

            True.

            Most likely the reason your discs started to fail was either you were not taking care of them AT ALL (since they failed so quickly), they were just low quality media, and/or your drive was crap.

            They were either in a case or in a drive. Still somehow they managed to get scratched. I'd usually have to put three or four copies of everything just make sure I'd be able to copy it off later.

            cd-r's I don't have a problem. I burn cds all the time and they still play well, even with visible scratches. I usually use the memorex black ones. For dvd-rs I use various brands. No real problems. Just with rw-s. All the brands I've tried tend to start giving read errors fairly quickly.

            For burners, p

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Danga ( 307709 )
              They were either in a case or in a drive. Still somehow they managed to get scratched. I'd usually have to put three or four copies of everything just make sure I'd be able to copy it off later.

              Hmm, that is very odd, what burning software were you using? Some software...cough Roxio... has a bad habit of writing the file system first then starting to write the actual file contents and FAILING (but without any warnings or messages) and basically saying the burn process completed without a problem. The user

    • Re: (Score:1, Redundant)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      I doubt you're going to burn 45Gb while on the move

      I burn forty-five gigabits all the time.

      Maybe what you meant to say is 45GB.

      Look on the bright side, you were off by less than an order of magnitude... though not by much.

    • oh it's even worse than that. who needed to burn 4GB of data before dvd-films were being ripped? i bet, amongst the kiddies, 80 percent of content on DVD-Rs is films and other media (illegally) ripped for giving to their friends. of course, most kiddies nowadays have 120GB external usb harddrives.

      so this leaves the question, how are the kiddies going to get 45GB together to put on a blu-ray disk? you have three guesses... (hint, the answer's in the question)

  • SuperDrive (Score:4, Interesting)

    by j00r0m4nc3r ( 959816 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @10:22AM (#18885233)
    I would be more interested in a SuperDrive that supports both HDDVD and BR
    • I would be more interested in a SuperDrive that supports both HDDVD and BR

      And I'd be more interested if OS 10.5 came with a real, live, spotted leopard in the box, but I guess we're both just going to have to learn to live with disappointment, won't we?
    • I would be more interested in a drive that supports both ZipDisk and Jazz.

  • per dollar (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cinnamon colbert ( 732724 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @10:23AM (#18885245) Journal
    you can buy external hardrives at about 30 cents a gig, on special, so 800 bucks is ~~ 2400 gig of hardrive, or about 53 bluray disks, assuming you can efficiently fill the disks at 45 gig each, neglecting the cost of the disk..

    as usual, for early adopters YMWV (your mileage Will vary)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by mfh ( 56 )
      You know, I think that gross margin is really GROSS. Can you believe how much money they are charging for these burners? What a waste. Although they do have to recover some of the costs, but they are pricing themselves out of the market.

      Hold out till the price comes down. You don't need 45gigs toss away storage... which is what these are, really. Just get external hard drives and keep swapping, or use Nero Ultimate Enhanced [nero.com] for the DVD set options and encrypted backups. What a great product that is! ZOMG
    • Well, the discs add up to a lot more than the player. With the cost of the discs (about $30 each for dual layer,) the equation would be something like this:

      X = n/50*30+800 = .3n

      Where n is storage, in Gb, and X is dollars. But of course, x occurs at a negative; about $-800, or n=2,666

      So assuming the best, blu-ray is still never as efficient as external hard drives.
    • Hard drives are fine for near-line backups, but they aren't very good for archival use. I expect the cost of drives and media to go down quicker than the cost of hard drives goes down. DVDs are something like a tenth the cost per GB, but the media trading does get to be tedious.
    • Of course for backup reasons that point's moot -- multiple blu-ray discs have a much lower probability of all failing than a single 2.4 TB drive.
  • It's a bad idea to rush into selling something that isn't ready. There is no PLAYER! Although this is a real juicy project for an OSS lover............ :-)

    • Although this is a real juicy project for an OSS lover............ :-)

      No it's not. A Free Software author will never be able to write a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player legally (at least not in the United States).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kelnos ( 564113 )

        A Free Software author will never be able to write a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player legally (at least not in the United States).
        So? The same is true for DVD players, but we have several OSS DVD players. They may not be technically legal, but they're still here and very available.
    • It's a bad idea to rush into selling something that isn't ready. There is no PLAYER! Although this is a real juicy project for an OSS lover............ :-)

      'Ready' is a matter of requirements. I have no interest in BluRay movies, but I'd love a 45GB burner for backing up raw DV data. Hard drives are too expensive, fragile, and big for that. For archival stuff, if a BluRay blank is under $15, it's cheaper than a reliable hard drive backup.

      I'm still not buying at $600, but when they hit $199 next spring, I'
      • I have no interest in BluRay movies, but I'd love a 45GB burner for backing up raw DV data.

        I think you'll find that DV tapes are cheaper and more reliable. Less work, too.
        • I think you'll find that DV tapes are cheaper and more reliable. Less work, too.

          My projects typically comprise several tapes' worth of data - 4.5 tapes can fit on a BluRay. Yeah, DV is cheaper this year, but next year it probably won't be, per GB. Also, I can store a whole project folder with the edit lists, etc. on BluRay - on DV tapes, only the DV data. Plus, random access. Also, I've had DV tapes gather bad spots in under a year - I hope BluRay will do better. My file folders for CD's also should wo
    • It's a bad idea to rush into selling something that isn't ready. There is no PLAYER! Although this is a real juicy project for an OSS lover............ :-)


      This is already done.

      BootCamp
      Vista
      Play Movie :)
  • So I guess I won't beable to watch any movies with my brand new non-HDCP compatible 23" DVI monitor.

    • FUD (Score:3, Informative)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )
      1) ICT (Image Constraint Token) will make the movie play at half resolution
      2) Hollywood has agreed to not use ICT before 2012 at earliest if at all
      3) ICT is per disc, so none of your current discs will be degraded in the future

      Running around like chicken little saying the sky is falling, will have none if not the opposite effect. All you'll do is make normal people try it, see that you're wrong and think you're some sort of wierdo conspiracy crackpot. HDCP won't affect many, most won't notice it and for the

      • NotFUD (Score:3, Insightful)

        by plasmacutter ( 901737 )

        2) Hollywood has agreed to not use ICT before 2012 at earliest if at all


        Hollywood also empahtically stated they would not abuse the DMCA. Congress believed them and now consumer rights and computer/electronic producer rights have been reduced to loose poo on a stick.

        GP's claim is not fud.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by mrchaotica ( 681592 ) *

        2) Hollywood has agreed to not use ICT before 2012 at earliest if at all

        Right, they're waiting for more sheeple to buy into their shit before tightening the noose. And yet you're somehow trying to spin that as a good thing?!! FUD, indeed!

      • 1) ICT (Image Constraint Token) will make the movie play at half resolution
        2) Hollywood has agreed to not use ICT before 2012 at earliest if at all
        3) ICT is per disc, so none of your current discs will be degraded in the future

        The GP might have had FUDdy intentions, but the GP was referring to HDCP and DVI. Note that ICT applies to analog inputs/outputs, not digital. Without HDCP, Blu-ray movies will not play back at all over a digital cable today. Not in 2012. Today. If you want to play a Blu-ray movie from your computer's Blu-ray drive and you don't have HDCP, you must use VGA or DVI-to-VGA converter. Who the hell wants to use VGA on their new LCD monitor, or switch between DVI and VGA just for watching Blu-ray movies?

  • Awesome (Score:1, Funny)

    by stratjakt ( 596332 )
    This is the first step to pirati^H^H^H legitimately downloading PS3 games because copyright law is BROKEN and like FUCK YOU GEORGE BUSH TAKE THIS!

    All we need now is for someone to actually release some PS3 games and we're good to go!

  • How long? (Score:5, Informative)

    by hansamurai ( 907719 ) <hansamurai@gmail.com> on Thursday April 26, 2007 @10:29AM (#18885373) Homepage Journal
    How long would it take to burn a 45GB disc? Blu-ray.com says 1x is 36Mbs, so that would be 4.5MB/s. 45GB is approximately 45000MB, so it would take about 10,000 seconds at max speed the whole way. So that's like what, 2 hours and 50 minutes? Not that bad for massive backup if you just start it when you go to bed.

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The discs are 50 GB. The submitter felt it would be "sweet" to leave 5 GB unused.
    • Neglecting whatever increased power requirements the new optical drive might introduce, 2.5 hours is cutting it close for burning on a battery. Now certainly it's always possible to plug in when you're on the road, but if you have a socket nearby, an external hard disk can be plugged in too (or you can beat this by using a "self-powered" USB disk).

      Not to mention that, at best, you could have ~3 Blu-Ray discs worth of data stored on your hard disk.

    • So that's like what, 2 hours and 50 minutes? Not that bad for massive backup if you just start it when you go to bed.


      So, in other words, no burning CD's on your Powerbook without being plugged in.
  • >> System administrators and database administrators can archive and retrieve large amounts of data on 1 convenient disk. Blu-ray is the next generation of storage technology and it's available today, only from Fastmac.

    Really? Last I looked I can now get a terrabyte of hard disk space under 300 USD. If I want a terrabyte of RAID it will probably cost me 400 USD, maybe 500 USD. A terrabyte of blueray is 20 DVD's burning at 8x. Oh yeah I am going to pay 800 USD and 20x CD's + more time to do the same ba

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kjart ( 941720 )

      A terrabyte of blueray is 20 DVD's burning at 8x.

      Sorry for being pedantic, but it's actually Blu-ray, and a Blu-ray Disc != a DVD.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by naden ( 206984 )
      CD's, DVD's are history for backing up purposes. Even the original intention of CD's for music is starting to become irrelevant. Times have changed.

      No they haven't.

      I still own a 40MB external SCSI hard drive and from then until now external hard disks have always been better value for money than optical media. However external hard disks require cables, a power supply (for the large terabyte drives) and a huge form factor. Whereas I can fit 20 BluRay discs in a CD wallet (1TB) and have no problem carrying t
  • Give me an external firewire option and I am on board.
  • It says that it burns at 1x BD-R. How fast is this? I'll tell you, 4.5 MB/s. That means 10,000 seconds for a 45 GB disc. That's 166 minutes. That isn't slow, I guess, but it sure sounds slow.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pikine ( 771084 )
      Apple hasn't caught up yet. It's a third party drive, but it's nice to be able to retrofit old powerbook to Blu-ray, although I seriously doubt if these older systems (back to G3 Pismo) have enough juice to operate it practically.

  • Beaten? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mikey-San ( 582838 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @10:47AM (#18885733) Homepage Journal
    Fastmac has beaten Apple to the Blu-Ray punch and has a new slimline Blu-Ray drive that works in PowerBooks, iBooks, Mac Minis, the MacBook Pro 17", and a few other systems. [. . .] Fastmac says that playing Blu-Ray movies isn't currently supported since there is no software player.

    Yeah, they totally beat Apple to the punch of selling a product that the OS doesn't support at all. Hurp. It's not that Apple can't get hardware from vendors, it's that they have to implement the software side as well, which isn't very likely until the next big OS update. I mean, we're kinda at the end of the Tiger line, here, after all.
    • selling a product that the OS doesn't support

      How is this new for Mac users? 90% of the hardware and software is not supported by OSX.

      BTW the drive has native OSX drivers, and can burn and read from the drive, there is just no Movie player. (Remember when people were making fun of Vista supporting HD because it require MFR DRM, Mac users get ready for you turn.)

      PS you can always bootcamp and play the movies in Vista on your Mac.
  • On the PC side of the world, we've been enjoying various 3rd-party Blu-Ray drives and various third-party Blu-Ray video players for a year now.

    As a Mac user, I'm rather disappiointed. But that's why I'm also a PC user - it helps me avoid disappointment when Apple decides to sit on the fence.

  • & How Long Will the Disks Last (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BoRegardless ( 721219 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @10:55AM (#18885905)
    I want to see some very heavy results from independent testing labs that give me an idea that if I put data on such disks that it will be readable in at least 5 years @ 99.99% reliability.

    If not, hard drives are way better as they read and write at far higher speeds.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by LoudMusic ( 199347 )

      I want to see some very heavy results from independent testing labs that give me an idea that if I put data on such disks that it will be readable in at least 5 years @ 99.99% reliability.

      If not, hard drives are way better as they read and write at far higher speeds.

      Hard drives will ALWAYS be more reliable than any flat piece of plastic. But you can't throw a hard drive in an envelope and mail it for $0.41 in the US like you can a CD / DVD / HD|BR-DVD. Families enjoy this because they can send home movies around the nation very easily, and business find it useful for mailing out data that would otherwise take a long time to send over their already busy internet connection.

      But for all my archival needs I use big ass external hard drives.

  • Good (Score:2)

    by Jethro ( 14165 )
    I hope the next MacBooks (specifically the 13.3" MacBookPro I've been whining for for a while now) has a BluRay option.

    That'll make the version without the BluRay reader $200 cheaper, which works just fine for me.

  • hmm (Score:1, Interesting)

    by TinBromide ( 921574 )
    I saw the mac, had some mod points and thought that i'd revenge myself for the rabid mods who down vote me every time i poo poo macs, no matter how logic, right, obvious, or stupid i may feel at the time that i click the submit reply button.

    However, if this means that i could install a *cough* open source player to play blu-ray discs on a pc that wasn't crippled by drm issues *cough vista coughcough*, it might be worth my next laptop replacement.
    • I agree. I do own a couple Macs and I get shot down on several occasions any time I said something that members of the Mac cult disagree with.

      I don't assume that Apple is good and right all the time, and I don't assume they are wrong all the time. I think it's unfortunate that there are so many cultists out there, pro- or anti-Apple or Mac.

      I think the open source people have had access to BR drives, they've been available for many months now. They seem to be more the type to try to make a free player, a

  • Pretty slow (Score:3)

    by massysett ( 910130 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @11:11AM (#18886191) Homepage
    burning 45 GB is pretty sweet

    If it's as slow as burning a DVD is, then not really. I gave up on optical media for backup long ago because it's just too slow. I just use an extra hard drive instead. Does anybody know if burning Bluray is any faster per GB than burning a DVD?

    • Does anybody know if burning Bluray is any faster per GB than burning a DVD?

      If burning Blu-ray at 4x speed, then it's about as fast (per GB) as burning a DVD at 18x. However, the only Blu-ray burner reviews I've seen have only supported 2x burning speed with possible 4x speed via future firmware updates.

      The "Reviews" section [cdfreaks.com] of cdfreaks.com is my favorite source of thorough burner reviews.

      Their most recent review (Feb 2007) of a Blu-ray burner (Philips SPD7000BD Blu-ray TripleWriter) shows that a single-layer Blu-ray disc (22.56GB) at 2x speed takes about 46:34 [cdfreaks.com]. Dual-layer Blu

  • "Sweet?" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Illbay ( 700081 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @11:18AM (#18886301) Journal
    ...burning 45 GB is pretty sweet.

    Okay, I can get a dual-layer DVD Burner for about seventy bucks [amazon.com] currently, which means I can burn about 8 GB (or 18% of 45 GB) for less than one-tenth of the price--nearly twice as "cost effective."

    Then you consider that I can buy the six dual-layer DVDs for about $1.50 each ($9 total), whereas a single "sweet-burnin'" dual-layer Blu-Ray disc (the kind you need to hold 45 GB) is gonna cost me at LEAST thirty bucks--four times as much for the same amount of data.

    Hm. When you consider the trend, I think I can hold off for, say, two years when Blu-Ray or HD-DVD or whoever wins that war costs about what a dual-layer DVD burner costs now (and ditto for the discs).

    Burning 45 GB onto just one disc will be "sweet," but for the nonce I can stand burning six d-l DVDs without laying out the $800 smackers (esp. since I've already bought the DVD burner with my latest notebook computer anyway).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SeaFox ( 739806 )

      Okay, I can get a dual-layer DVD Burner for about seventy bucks [amazon.com] currently, which means I can burn about 8 GB (or 18% of 45 GB) for less than one-tenth of the price--nearly twice as "cost effective."

      Egad! You need to stop shopping at Amazon for your computer accessories, because you can get a DL DVD burner at NewEgg for $31.99 [newegg.com] - it was right on the front page. It even has LightScribe, too. I bought a DL burner months ago for $40 on NewEgg (no Lightscribe, though).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Illbay ( 700081 )
        Yeah, good one. I am vaguely aware of Newegg, but I admit I shop Amazon a lot so that's where I headed.

        Your argument reinforces mine, however.

        N.B. Love LightScribe, but wish they'd cut the burn-time by at least half.

  • Cool, now I can add a 800$ drive to my 600$ Mac mini.

    Ok, it's a Blu-Ray burner, but still.

  • Why Apple (probably) hasn't made this themselves (Score:4, Funny)

    by Xest ( 935314 ) * on Thursday April 26, 2007 @11:52AM (#18886881)
    I could be completely wrong, I don't know Apple's stance but I'd imagine Apple just aren't ready to commit to Bluray yet, they're probably waiting for more mature drives that support both HDDVD and Bluray together or waiting for a more definitive winner in the format wars, right now it's just too early to take sides and I doubt Apple want the headache of producing/supporting systems that have either Bluray or HDDVD and not both in, I can see it now:

    Customer: I bought this HD movie and it doesn't work in my drive can you help?
    Apple: Sir, it's an HDDVD, you have a Bluray drive
    Customer: But my Bluray drive is for HD isn't it?
    Apple: Yes, but HDDVD and Bluray are different formats
    Customer: But I want to be able to play HD movies!
    Apple: *sigh*
  • At this point in time MacOS X does not have the necessary drivers for either HD-DVD or BluRay. I also don't see MacOS X gaining the necessary drivers until the delivery of Leopard, which is now slated for October. For this reason I don't see any chance of seeing Apple providing either drive as an option until then. At that point in time I would not be surprised that if the drives are offered, then it will be a build-to-order option, given the cost and the fact the competition between HD-DVD and BluRay is ju
  • To be honest I can't see myself ever buying a Blu-Ray drive.

    For one it is too expensive for the drive. $800. I can get a 500GB HDD for about 120 euros. Easier to store, no messing trying to find a disk. No DRM, no region messing.

    It will (imho) go the way of the DAT tapes (niche market).

  • So what (Score:3, Funny)

    by strikeleader ( 937501 ) on Thursday April 26, 2007 @12:20PM (#18887341)
    Shouldn't this be from the "Who gives a Rat's A** Dept".
  • I'm assuming that as a condition of allowing Macs to play Blu-Ray disks, Sony will require Apple to make Leopard require all drivers to be digitally signed so that fake device drivers can't be used to break the DRM. Same reason as Vista 64.

    I honestly hope that someone either builds a large quantum computer or finds a fast discrete logarithm algorithm soon before asymmetric encryption ruins consumer rights.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by argent ( 18001 )
      I'm assuming that as a condition of allowing Macs to play Blu-Ray disks, Sony will require Apple to make Leopard require all drivers to be digitally signed so that fake device drivers can't be used to break the DRM.

      I guess we'll see whether XNU for Darwin 9 gets released. I was half expecting Darwin 8 to go on hold indefinitely to protect the MPAA's precious bodily fluids.
  • I think it would be dangerous for Apple to make a software Blu Ray player. You know that would get hacked in a second, and the Blu Ray Consortium or whoever has no qualms about revoking keys. Can you imagine the hit to Apple's "coolness" when they keep getting their keys revoked and customers have to make sure to install the latest updates just so they can play their discs? Imagine every few months popping in a new disc and being presented with "please download the latest patches from Apple" screen right wh

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