Why doesn't apple support blu ray playback?

[ControlD]

Since we are talking about BD's, I just got through watching the newly released "Jaws" on BD and it looks FANTASTIC! Universal did an amazing job on the transfer and I'd definitely recommend anyone interested in it to go buy it. Again gorgeous movie, and hard to believe it was released in 1975.

Awesome. I didn't know this had been released yet. Jaws is in my top five all time favorites so I will make sure to pick this one up ASAP.

 

[JackBurton]

Awesome. I didn't know this had been released yet. Jaws is in my top five all time favorites so I will make sure to pick this one up ASAP.

Make sure to check out the "Making of Jaws" and "The Restoration" on the disc. Really interesting stuff, especially the restoration part. It shows the very expensive and time consuming process that Universal went through to restore the movie from the pretty beat up negative to the HD version on BD. Like I said, amazing job.

 

[cheez]

I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here. Blu-Ray discs have a 1080p video on them. The PS3 outputs at 1080p. That is 1:1 pixel mapping.

I have a 720p (768p) native screen.

For smaller screens, it can downscale to 1080i or 720p (or 480i/p, but at point, just watch a DVD.)

It doesn't need down scale for the 1080i resolution-wise. But it requires down scaling from 1080 to 720.

As for picture quality, as with any digital video, it's an all or nothing situation. Either the hardware is capable of playing it back, or it is not.

It's not that simple as you would think. Playing an mp3 file is digital. Copying a file is digital too, duh. D:
There is more to it than just 1's and 0's.

I have been using a PS3 to watch Blu-Rays for 4 years and have never encountered a playback issue.

That doesn't mean anything. Playing BD titles for 4 years off a console game means you've been used to the quality it generates, whether it's poor or descent. I wasn't asking about playback issues. I was talking about onboard video processor for the console device. This isn't a dedicated BD drive or player. It's designed for "video games".

 

[cheez]

Just to expand a little bit on this firmware update issue. I have been using standalone BD players (have two of them) almost since the format came out (well, at least since players became affordable). I have never been required to update the firmware to actually play the main feature of a disc. I have had to update the firmware on a couple of occasions to access some of the special features on discs however,

So it doesn't function fully, meaning incomplete.
You also got lucky with your standalone BD player... Other owners don't get such luck.

Nearly every BD player out there has some type of internet connectivity built in to it.

What if the user doesn't have internet access?

D:

On my players, both of which cost well south of $200 and have wireless adapters integrated, updating the firmware takes maybe three menu clicks. System --> firmware --> update. The rest is taken care of by the player. Trying to talk people out of BD players simply because of the firmware issue is not a valid argument IMO.

No the firmware issues isn't the only one. It's about "needing" the updates, or / and firmware which is the problem.... What if the user doesn't have internet like I asked above? The act of requiring updates is the problem already.

I haven't updated the firmware on my oldest player in well over a year (probably two years) and it will play any movie I throw at it.

And what if the user / consumer doesn't want to buy a standalone BD player? What if the user wants a PC to play BD titles. D:

 

[cheez]

Video processing on a BD player is only important if you are watching DVD's. BD quality will be the same. The PS3 does have a mediocre scaler, so if DVD performance is REALLY important to you, you can pick up an Oppo 93 BD player. Pretty much does everything you need PLUS has the ability to play SACD's and DVD-A's discs.

I'm not a fan of external / standalone DVD or BD player.... Consumers like me will find this inconvenient, or troublesome.

Again, if you don't want to buy a PS3 and video upscaling is important to you, get an Oppo 93.

I want to use my HTPC. Video processing and scaling out of my video card is superb. Why should I buy a standalone BD player just to play BD titles... not good for me.

 

[ControlD]

No the firmware issues isn't the only one. It's about "needing" the updates, or / and firmware which is the problem.... What if the user doesn't have internet like I asked above? The act of requiring updates is the problem already.



And what if the user / consumer doesn't want to buy a standalone BD player? What if the user wants a PC to play BD titles. D:

I agree that BD is not even close to a perfect standard. Because it is an open format, unlike DVD, it can lead to the need for updates which certainly is not perfect.

Now, as far as the no internet access goes. How is your solution of downloading media from the internet any better here? I am going to go out on a limb here and assume pretty much everyone technologically adventurous enough to have a HD television and BD player will also have some sort of internet access. If that same person wants to use a HTPC for BluRay playback this is going to be even more the case.

 

[cheez]

Now, as far as the no internet access goes. How is your solution of downloading media from the internet any better here? I am going to go out on a limb here and assume pretty much everyone technologically adventurous enough to have a HD television and BD player will also have some sort of internet access. If that same person wants to use a HTPC for BluRay playback this is going to be even more the case.

Good question.

A guy like me for example, what if I say I don't feel like paying monthly bills for the internet access? Say I spent too much money on something and just feel like stopping the internet service for several months... or a year. I had internet service stopped for a year in the past. I tried to play blu-ray movies but I couldn't, because it required "updates" to play the SAME OLD BD TITLE.... it's some title that used to play fine prior to that. Cyberlink PowerDVD software, I tell ya....

 

[JackBurton]

I have a 720p (768p) native screen.

What exactly is the display and equipment you're using, brand/model? It sounds to me like you need to put more emphasis on your equipment rather than your source since you can't even maximize Blu-ray's capability with your gear.

There is really no sense in debating this if your gear isn't up to snuff.

 

[oRdchaos]

Do you know what MPEG-2 means?

It's a video compression format. There is no such thing as uncompressed MPEG-2. High bitrate MPEG-2 is about as good as it gets in terms of high def video, but it's still compressed. Uncompressed 1080i@60 fields per second would end up at over a terabyte for a 120 minute 'drama.'

And keep trolling about a video format which has higher resolution than your display.

 

[TheStu]

I have a 720p (768p) native screen.

That doesn't mean anything. Playing BD titles for 4 years off a console game means you've been used to the quality it generates, whether it's poor or descent. I wasn't asking about playback issues. I was talking about onboard video processor for the console device. This isn't a dedicated BD drive or player. It's designed for "video games".

It is a 7 core computer with built in wireless, a hard drive, a bluray drive and a dedicated GPU. It just so happens that it is also video game console. And I am not sure why you put "video games" in quotes or why you seemingly hold them in such disdain.

The PS3 for years was regarded as the best BluRay player that you could buy, because it offered everything you could want in a BR player, for less money than the alternatives, and as it turns out, could also play games. Or stream Netflix, or download music or movies from Sony's joke of a store, or browse the web, or serve as a computer since it has USB ports and (used to) support Linux installs.

So hey, you consider yourself an audiophile even though you really just got snookered by snake oil, but can you name another device made for "video games" that just so happened to have other redeeming qualities? That's right, the original Playstation. Sought after by audiophiles for it's CD playback capabilities.

 

[JackBurton]

So hey, you consider yourself an audiophile even though you really just got snookered by snake oil, but can you name another device made for "video games" that just so happened to have other redeeming qualities? That's right, the original Playstation. Sought after by audiophiles for it's CD playback capabilities.

I wouldn't consider someone an audiophile or videophile that's using an HTPC as a source unit. Sorry.

 

[TheStu]

I wouldn't consider someone an audiophile or videophile that's using an HTPC as a source unit. Sorry.

I wouldn't either, but I am not the one that spent $1200 on a freaking aux cable.

 

[JackBurton]

I wouldn't either, but I am not the one that spent $1200 on a freaking aux cable.

That's my point. I'm not going to criticize someone for buying expensive cables, but I WILL criticize them if they are connecting them to anything but reference quality equipment. And an HTPC is FAR from reference.

In the end though, it's the other person's money. If they want to buy a $2K HDMI cable and connect it to a Vizio TV, hey, it's their money. But don't pretend to be a videophile just because you bought an expensive cable. It just means you don't know enough about balancing a system to get the best possible results.

 

[JAG87]

I wouldn't consider someone an audiophile or videophile that's using an HTPC as a source unit. Sorry.

What the hell. This sentence needs some serious explaining.

If you're using a digital interconnect, how exactly does 'reference quality equipment' perform better? Please explain in regards to both audio and video.

 

[Phanuel]

What the hell. This sentence needs some serious explaining.

If you're using a digital interconnect, how exactly does 'reference quality equipment' perform better? Please explain in regards to both audio and video.

Yeah, this doesn't make any sense to me either. The HTPC is just sending 0s and 1s down an HDMI cable to a receiver for the actual decoding. How is this somehow hugely worse than a stand alone Blu-ray player?

 

[Oyeve]

What the hell. This sentence needs some serious explaining.

If you're using a digital interconnect, how exactly does 'reference quality equipment' perform better? Please explain in regards to both audio and video.

I think he meant higher quality equipment. Like Macintosh or B&W, not Yamaha from Bestbuy.

 

[JAG87]

I think he meant higher quality equipment. Like Macintosh or B&W, not Yamaha from Bestbuy.

He was talking about sources, not transducers.

 

[Eug]

Do you know what MPEG-2 means?

I think it's been made abundantly clear in this thread that he does not.

 

[JackBurton]

What the hell. This sentence needs some serious explaining.

If you're using a digital interconnect, how exactly does 'reference quality equipment' perform better? Please explain in regards to both audio and video.

Eh, I didn't mean to open up a new can of worms, but I'll explain.

1. A reference player should be dead silent as to not interfere with the intended audio output. A typical HTPC is just not quiet enough due to the noise coming from the fans, hard drive, and optical drive. It's just generally too noisy to be considered "reference" although you can take some steps to minimize that.

2. The goal of a reference player is to reproduce what's on the disc exactly how the director intended. And a big part of that is having your display and player calibrated to ISF standards. With a standalone, once the settings have been tweaked, you're golden. With an HTPC, a video driver update can screw up your settings and skew the output that was once calibrated perfectly.

3. Not related to BD, but for CD audio, reference players also have jitter reduction circuitry to minimize jitter for audio CD's resulting in a better overall sound.

4. Some reference players also have the ability to output music in "pure audio" mode which basically shuts down all circuity that is not required for CD playback resulting in a better sound stage and detail in music.

There are other things to consider too like build quality, scaler quality, analog quality, dedicated two channel output, and so on.


Now I'm not saying an HTPC doesn't provide a great BD experience, I just wouldn't consider it a reference source unit for the reasons I listed above.

And the point I was trying to make was, if you don't have a reference system, you have room for improvement and the money would be better served upgrading one of the components in your system instead of wasting it on a cable. And you definitely haven't reached the limits of what BD offers. The guy has a 720p (768p) display for God's sake. He's saying BD is junk? I say he doesn't have the gear to back up that statement.

 

[JAG87]

Eh, I didn't mean to open up a new can of worms, but I'll explain.

1. A reference player should be dead silent as to not interfere with the intended audio output. A typical HTPC is just not quiet enough due to the noise coming from the fans, hard drive, and optical drive. It's just generally too noisy to be considered "reference" although you can take some steps to minimize that.

2. The goal of a reference player is to reproduce what's on the disc exactly how the director intended. And a big part of that is having your display and player calibrated to ISF standards. With a standalone, once the settings have been tweaked, you're golden. With an HTPC, a video driver update can screw up your settings and skew the output that was once calibrated perfectly.

3. Not related to BD, but for CD audio, reference players also have jitter reduction circuitry to minimize jitter for audio CD's resulting in a better overall sound.

4. Some reference players also have the ability to output music in "pure audio" mode which basically shuts down all circuity that is not required for CD playback resulting in a better sound stage and detail in music.

There are other things to consider too like build quality, scaler quality, analog quality, dedicated two channel output, and so on.


Now I'm not saying an HTPC doesn't provide a great BD experience, I just wouldn't consider it a reference source unit for the reasons I listed above.

And the point I was trying to make was, if you don't have a reference system, you have room for improvement and the money would be better served upgrading one of the components in your system instead of wasting it on a cable. And you definitely haven't reached the limits of what BD offers. The guy has a 720p (768p) display for God's sake. He's saying BD is junk? I say he doesn't have the gear to back up that statement.

Well you've opened it up.

1. You can make a fan less HTPC. You can also put it in another room. There are plenty of options. And optical drive... are you missing the point of an HTPC?

2. What does calibrating your display have to do with the digital source? You shouldn't have any settings that modify the source, neither in the drivers nor in the player. The output should never be skewed because it should always be the exact same data bit for bit that is stored in the file. A driver update can screw up your settings? You've gotta be kidding me.

3. Jitter is only a problem with real-time playback. When you rip to a storage medium there is no jitter because software (like EAC for example) have CRC to ensure that the data was copied bit for bit.

4. Again, this only applies if you are doing D to A in the player. My Pioneer Elite critical listening integrated amplifier (certified by Air Studios) has a function like that called "direct" mode, which shuts off every circuit in the device (including the LCD) so that the analog stage is not affected by any interferences. Having this kind of feature in a device where the D to A hasn't occurred (a 'reference player' or HTPC outputting with toslink or HDMI) is not just silly, but borderline stupidity.

Build quality: I don't know what that means until you quantify. Aesthetic things like gold trimming do not qualify. This is the digital domain, putting gold on it doesn't make it better.

Scaler quality: On an HTPC, you can (if you have the horsepower) upscale using a lanczos or spline algorithm, good luck doing that on any 'reference quality' player with a slow-ass ARM chip in it. At best you'll get bilinear or bicubic scaling.

Analog quality: this only applies to audio, and again you would never be doing this in the HTPC or the 'reference quality' player for that matter. You would be doing it outside using a 'reference quality' DAC or integrated amp.

I'm not going to comment on your last paragraph, because it is regarding a subject (cheez) that doesn't interest me. The guy doesn't even understand that an MPEG2 transport stream contains MPEG2 encoded video.

 

[cheez]

Do you know what MPEG-2 means?

It's a video compression format.

High bitrate MPEG-2 is about as good as it gets in terms of high def video, but it's still compressed.

So is the H.264/MPEG4. So is the VC-1. They all can be compressed. You must be new to video formats and compressions.

There is no such thing as uncompressed MPEG-2.

Do you read?? I said I left out "COMMA" between the word "compressed" and "MPEG2-TS". I said this clearly in the previous posts but you didn't bother to read everything and only pick out what you "want" to read.

Uncompressed 1080i@60 fields per second would end up at over a terabyte for a 120 minute 'drama.'

I find that B.S.... that shouldn't take over a terabyte. I suggest how you came up with that numbers. Include all your calculations.

You also misunderstood when I said "uncompressed". I was implying on no compression after the file is processed from the original recording. This stage is before any encoders to rip the file to reduce file size. That's what I was getting at. You really need to read carefully before jumping to conclusion.

And keep trolling about a video format which has higher resolution than your display.

720P native display is often better than the 1080p native display. I am telling you, you are new in the field of video technology.

 

[cheez]

It is a 7 core computer with built in wireless

Central Pollution Unit (oops I mean Central Processing Unit) isn't the matter here. I was talking about Graphic Processing Unit and scaler. Who cares about the wireless....

and a dedicated GPU.

How good is the GPU though? in Sony Playstation console. The bottleneck is the GPU and scaling from this box. This is no high-end. It's very basic. And I was pointing out that it's designed for gaming not BD playback. Yes it plays BD titles but how good does it do in this regard? not to mention poor scaler.

It just so happens that it is also video game console. And I am not sure why you put "video games" in quotes or why you seemingly hold them in such disdain.

Read above.

The PS3 for years was regarded as the best BluRay player that you could buy

There you go. You answered our question. The best you COULD BUY. Get the cheap quality one, as long as it plays BD title. Nice.

because it offered everything you could want in a BR player, for less money than the alternatives, and as it turns out, could also play games.

You got that backwards. You should have said the following:

Because it offered everything you could want in a video gaming, for affordable price, and it turns out, could also play BD titles.

So hey, you consider yourself an audiophile even though you really just got snookered by snake oil, but can you name another device made for "video games" that just so happened to have other redeeming qualities? That's right, the original Playstation. Sought after by audiophiles for it's CD playback capabilities.

I have become audiophile, but I have been a videophile 10 years ago. Also, I am one of the few that started the quest on Bluray when they first ever came out.

One of the reasons why I don't play console video games anymore is due to the lack of PQ I require. I have high standard. Console games can't meet, even now.

 

[cheez]

I wouldn't consider someone an audiophile or videophile that's using an HTPC as a source unit. Sorry.

When equipped with nice audio cards the use of PC as a source unit is just adequate. Sure you can go deeper in to the audio by getting yourself high-end $10k external DAC, $20,000 speakers, $150,000 for cables D), $30,000 on power cords. D:



I also use MBP for audio.

I wouldn't either, but I am not the one that spent $1200 on a freaking aux cable.

So you read my famous thread??? You disabled ignore button on me then?? Cool!!!! YAY! It's called "audio interconnects", more precisely, analog interconnects, which is very important ingredient to superb music listening experience. I also bought a $200 Sydney cable recently. So now I have two cables that cost nearly $1500 now.

 

[cheez]

I think it's been made abundantly clear in this thread that he does not.

What's clear? I just replied to correct other members mistakes here. It's clear that guy has no clue as he thinks only the MPEG2 can be compressed. It's so hilarious I laughed.
You have a lot of post counts, but don't seem to know much about videos. At least Jack Burton makes better post.

 

[cheez]

That's my point. I'm not going to criticize someone for buying expensive cables, but I WILL criticize them if they are connecting them to anything but reference quality equipment. And an HTPC is FAR from reference.

Uh that's wrong. HTPC with high-end video card can trump the "external" standalone DVD or Bluray player. That is the reason why I am sticking with HTPC... It's superior. I thought you were talking about audio but I see you are talking about the video for BD playback. HTPC is beyond good.

In the end though, it's the other person's money. If they want to buy a $2K HDMI cable and connect it to a Vizio TV, hey, it's their money. But don't pretend to be a videophile just because you bought an expensive cable. It just means you don't know enough about balancing a system to get the best possible results.

There is a sign of miscommunication. theStu got you confused when he said "aux" cable. I have the $1200 full solid silver PSS w/ FEP air tube audio analog 3.5mm-to3.5mm cable. I am not talking about the video cable here... you are going the wrong path. I am here to fix your path.