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Steve Jobs wears Hollywood hat, wary of hi-def DVD

updated 01:50 pm EDT, Mon June 14, 2004

Cautious on hi-def DVD

Steve Jobs recently argued that for use in the planned "high-definition DVD" format until Hollywood is assured by the tech industry that the discs can't be copied by new DVD burners that will come along. The Wall Street Journal reports that at a recent private meeting with Hollywood studio heads and industry CEO's such as Microsoft Steve Ballmer and HP's Carly Fiorina, Jobs said "even suggested that high-definition DVD burners not be bundled with computers at all -- a scenario he said in an interview was 'extreme' and one that 'I hope we don't have to get to, but it helps to put the issue in perspective.'"

by MacNN Staff

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absmiths
Mac Elite

Joined: Sep 2000

0

06/14, 02:02pm | report spam | close Reply |
Dumb.

That's dumb. People who want to duplicate DVDs will just buy the burner and attach it to the computer - real tough. Besides, unless they pass a law that they can't be bundled, Apple will be the only maker not doing it, and they will have to start bundling or look dumb, just like with CD-Rs.

Face it - if it can be played, it can be duped. They need to just accept it and move on.

DaedalusDX
Mac Enthusiast

Joined: Jan 2002

0

06/14, 02:43pm | report spam | close Reply |
still far off.

Thelast time I checked, the are no HD-DVD burners made in a desktop form factor... heck, there is even a lack of HD-DVD players across the board... set top boxes, computer ROM drives... Not to mention that we are way off of actually seeing a single title released on HD-DVD. We've got up to another decade before this upcoming format reaches critical mass. DVD-9 and DVD-5 will be around for a long time, and until HD sets become completely commonplace and cheap, and older DVD players start to get phased out for new HD enabled ones for less than $4000... we'll see.

paulc
Junior Member

Joined: Aug 2000

0

06/14, 03:47pm | report spam | close Reply |
So let's get specific...

What exactly is being defined as HD... 720p? Don't current DVDs do 480p? Do cable and broadcast HD do 720p? And I've seen stuff playing from DVD to big plasma's that I SWORE was MUCH higher res... er pixel density than anything lese I've seen... was that at best 480p?

C.A.S.
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2002

0

06/14, 04:04pm | report spam | close Reply |
720p and 1080i

Cable and network broadcast in both 720p and 1080i and both can be recorded to a Mac...

techguysteve
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jun 2000

0

06/14, 04:25pm | report spam | close Reply |
Pixar

Sounds like more of a Pixar stance for Jobs then an Apple stance. Since he had no problems selling burners in apple's and promoting the burning of music.

RealityCheck
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Feb 2001

0

06/14, 04:54pm | report spam | close Reply |
HDTV Recording & Mac

AFAIK, HDTV broadcasts can't be "recorded" to a Mac from a cable or OTA (over-the-air) QAM/ATSC stream with consumer level hardware. If you have information to contradict me, please tell. I've been hoping someone would release a Macintosh capture card capable of receiving an ATSC signal for a long time, but I have no plans to build a PC simply for that feature.

As for Jobs's stance on "HD-DVD", I agree 100% with him. Now, if that included Blu-Ray DVD, he's a hypocrite. He's making the same argument that the RIAA made over Rip/Mix/Burn and CD-R. I guess when it hits home, Steve is as greedy as the rest of the MPAA and RIAA. Jack Valenti would be proud.

kanchi
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Oct 2003

0

06/14, 04:59pm | report spam | close Reply |
HDTV Recording

If you have HD Cable and your box has a firewire port (which it is reqiured to have), you can connect your mac via firewire, download a free app and record hd quality content to your Mac. There was an article about it a few months ago. Google it.

C.A.S.
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2002

0

06/14, 04:59pm | report spam | close Reply |
re:recording HD on a Mac

Really??? That's funny...I have over 300 HD movies from my cable provider recorded directly to my Mac (an eMac)...I also have this year's entire season of CSI (Las Vegas & Miami), Law & Order (all three series) from an OTA tuner (Samsung t-165 and also from cable...

I have a Firewire tower with 8 250Gig hard drives that hold the majority of them...the rest I have archived to DVD-r...

Check out this link to learn how to do it...

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=386740

absmiths
Mac Elite

Joined: Sep 2000

0

06/14, 05:54pm | report spam | close Reply |
Pixar

Pixar's movies gross over 2.5B and he is worried about not making money . . . what a greedy b******.

DVDs can easily be copied now, and obviously he is making a killing anyway.

bauhaus
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Sep 2003

0

06/14, 05:59pm | report spam | close Reply |
2 TB

You have 2 TBs dedicated to tv?? Just imagine what you could do if you actually used it to do some work...

j/k

Enjoy CSI and L&O (though CSI:Miami sucks and L&O:Criminal Intent sucks... and CSI:NY looks awful)

C.A.S.
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2002

0

06/14, 06:31pm | report spam | close Reply |
2 TB and more

I have 2 TB that are fully loaded...but I also have another 3TB on DVD-R that I can swap out...

This is the only bad thing about HDTV...it takes a lot of room (disk)...around 3-5 DVD-r's per title....but at 32 cents ($0.32) a DVD-R its not that bad...

JoshFofer
Junior Member

Joined: Nov 1999

0

06/14, 06:46pm | report spam | close Reply |
Time is money

Yes, but time is money, and swapping in 3-5 disks for every episode from every season is a bit ... ahem... MUCH, don't you think? And archiving these shows to a TB of storage? For what purpose? Do you watch (and rewatch) CSI: Miami? In the end, is it really worth all of that time, money, and energy? I can't imagine the amount of man-hours it requires to maintain such a "library."

(It seems to me that these restrictions just end up bring out the OCD tendencies of the early adopters amongst us. There's an temptation to want to horde all the digital bits we can while the going's still good.)

For shows that I really enjoy, my advice is to relax and just wait for the inevitable DVD release. Seriously, life is too short my friend.

LouZer
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Nov 2000

0

06/14, 11:11pm | report spam | close Reply |
Steve and Pixar

I guess when it hits home, Steve is as greedy as the rest of the MPAA and RIAA. Jack Valenti would be proud.

Umm, being that the MPAA is an association of movie producers, and Pixar is a movie producer, and probably is a member, it would kind of go hand in hand that they'd be equally 'greedy'.

Pixar's movies gross over 2.5B and he is worried about not making money . . . what a greedy b******.

Guess you need to learn a little about business. Pixar makes very little of that 2.5 billion (just look at their balance sheet). Disney, in their distribution deal, gets most of the cash at the box office, plus most of the DVD money. Then, if that's not bad enough, they get full rights to make as many crappy sequels (usually the standard "crappy straight to video" stuff that disney spits out) that Pixar doesn't have to even be involved in. [To put the stupidty of Disney in perspective, they thought Toy Story II was only worthy of direct-to-video sales, and it was only Jobs who pushed them hard enough to get it in theaters, and made a lot more money then a just-video would have[

Why else do you think Steve is pushing Eisner and Disney for a much better contract.

JeffHarris
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Oct 1999

0

06/15, 12:16am | report spam | close Reply |
Pragmatism, perhaps?

Whine and snivel all you like about those greedy b******* in Hollywood.

BUT...
Steve Jobs and the companies he represents, have MUCH to gain with HD-DVD. he knows that without some concessions to the FUD mongers, this new standard will NEVER see the light of day.

Some may remember DAT.. Digital Audio Tape?

The record industry was SO fearful of this technology that they managed to not only delay the release of the machines for several years, but they also managed cripple DAT recorders with extremely limiting copy protection schemes. I think there were also extra fees tacked onto each machine and every tape, meant to further limit their adoption. So, when the players finally did arrive on store shelves, few people wanted, or could afford them. In other words, a clearly superior technology arrived DOA, except for some professional users.

SO, Steve jobs does NOT want this to happen again. (OR have Apple relegated to the status of bit players like Sun or SGI.) Over the past 5 years or so, Apple has positioned itself as the premier content provider... think Final Cut Pro, Motion, Shake, DVD Studio Pro, et al... and I believe is BANKING on this new technology to drive sales and increase market share. And what has Pixar been up to during the same time frame?

So, make a few concessions to the luddites and bean counters of the calcified US film industry NOW, so that later on Apple and Pixar can RULE.

It makes sense.

technohedz
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jul 2000

0

06/15, 07:19am | report spam | close Reply |
An Acual Spine could work

For once i'd like to see the idiots who think all the crippling technology is required take it from the consumers. I buy a laptop, go abroad, play a couple of LEGALLY OWNED movies, come back do the same thing..oops, my 5 region changes are up on my new laptop. Even a region 1 laptop (and prettymuch everything released by the DMCA peeps is R1 first). People will be able to copy hd disks soon enough. It had to be a concessional statement, but it looks really bad to me. If you had a bunch of stock in apple and saw the superdrives, etc as an authoring phenomenon, then heard the CEO say 'maybe we shouldn't bundle them because then people might break the law and my other company might lose out' or something that SOUNDED like that, then you'd be worried too.

Just the kind of concession that seems to have to be made because somebody let their senators get out of hand and pass stuff that should never have been written...or accept "you have 6 months to work out your own DRM or we will tell you how to do it" statements

Hope the country wakes up soon.

welborn
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2001

0

06/16, 12:13am | report spam | close Reply |
Bit hoarding

I am in full danger of being like the 5 TB guy. Luckily, I don't have that much extra money. :) I used to do it with MP3s, but now I have 100 GB, so I'm trying to pare down my collection.

I spend way too much on DVDs, which are also just bit-hoarding, since I hardly ever actually watch them. (It's like buying a book and never reading it, which I also do.)

With the DVDs, In a few years, we'll probably be able to get every episode of Star Trek: the Next Generation on-demand with all sorts of extras and commentaries. Instead, I buy them in static-bit version on DVD for $100 a season.

With books, I could just go to the library when I want to read something. :)

Life would be easier if we didn't bit-hoard, but the whole consumer experience is geared toward making us want to. h*** -- the mentality that causes people to want to have an illegal copy of "Finding Nemo" is the same mentality that makes them want to own a copy of many things. The difference being, they will likely pay for the ones they deem worth it.

Long-term, it's in the RIAA and the MPAA's best interests to foster that attitude, and just let the content fall as it may. As long as no one is making money off distributing someone else's work, who cares?

atlasC1
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jun 2004

0

06/16, 11:49am | report spam | close Reply |
Greed

No one , not even Steve, can stop the advancement of technology. Wake up from your greed Steve and return more to the people who support you.

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Steve Jobs wears Hollywood hat, wary of hi-def DVD

updated 01:50 pm EDT, Mon June 14, 2004

Cautious on hi-def DVD

Dumb.

still far off.

So let's get specific...

720p and 1080i

Pixar

HDTV Recording & Mac

HDTV Recording

re:recording HD on a Mac

Pixar

2 TB

2 TB and more

Time is money

Steve and Pixar

Pragmatism, perhaps?

An Acual Spine could work

Bit hoarding

Greed

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Steve Jobs wears Hollywood hat, wary of hi-def DVD

updated 01:50 pm EDT, Mon June 14, 2004

Cautious on hi-def DVD

Related Articles

Recent Articles

Dumb.

still far off.

So let's get specific...

720p and 1080i

Pixar

HDTV Recording & Mac

HDTV Recording

re:recording HD on a Mac

Pixar

2 TB

2 TB and more

Time is money

Steve and Pixar

Pragmatism, perhaps?

An Acual Spine could work

Bit hoarding

Greed

Login Here

Register for our weekly email newsletter:

Connect tools:

Subscribe

to our RSS

Follow us

on Twitter

10 Most Read

10 Most Discussed

MacNN Marketplace