Friday, March 14,2008 @ 6:45pm
Opinion: Why is Apple waiting on Blu-Ray?
When Blu-Ray and HD DVD were first discussed, Apple said it would commit to Blu-Ray, but was allegedly waiting for a winner to be proclaimed in the next-generation format war. Robert Cringely, a writer for PBS wonders what Apple is waiting for, since Toshiba recently announced that HD DVD was to be no more. Cringely theorizes that Apple could be waiting to add official Blu-Ray support into its professional apps, like Final Cut Studio 2.
Cringely also believes that Apple's CEO Steve Jobs could consider Blu-Ray a threat to iTunes high-definition content, but that Apple would need to step up the format to 1080p for it to truly compete. File size is a large limitation for this, however, as Cringely estimates that 1080p formatted videos would weigh in at around 8GB for an average length feature.
Even though this limitation is a large one, Cringely points out that using Google's hosting infrastructure, Apple could cut its costs of distribution. He notes, " This will be where the Apple-Google alliance finally shows itself."