Comments on: Why iTunes makes Blu-ray useless

Don Reisinger thinks iTunes will kill Blu-ray sooner than some are willing to bet. But will the availability of HD shows be enough?

[Alphaman63]

Above and beyond the fine points made in many of the above comments, I've got two more points, Don, et. al.

1. If you're going to say that Apple sold 7 million videos (both SD and HD) in that period, then to make an equal comparison, we must consider how many DVDs (SD) and Blu-Rays (HD) were sold in the same period. I don't really think you wanted to go there.

2. I just rented a movie on my PS3. Interestingly, the tech specs of the HD video I downloaded from the PS3 Store (720p 8Mbps video + 256Kbps AAC audio) EXCEEDS the max spec for AppleTV (5Mbps V + 160Kbps A). And both fall far short of the hardware limit of the PS3, as exemplified by the Blu-Ray spec (40Mbps video + 8Mbps audio). In sum, both removable optical media and video downloads on the PS3 are significantly better than the only format, video downloads, on AppleTV.

Look, I love Apple, I love my MacBook, and I lust over the Bricks. But this article is patently biased and unrealistic. Don, I seriously think you need to take a step back and think about stuff before you write it, much less publish it on the Internet. You are doing yourself a disservice, diminishing what respectability you've got. Seriously, dude, lay off the propaganda and write some serious journalism -- you'll be doing us all a favor.

[JaylisJayP]

Don Reisinger, hmm, never heard of you. Looks like I'm not missing much. Do you pseudo journalists practice the least bit of "getting both sides of the story" anymore? Or are you just content pushing your own agenda without covering many of the actual facts.

Fact: Downloaded HD content looks poorer than blu-ray. Would I rent it? Yes. Would I buy it? Maybe if I was a sucker or Don Reisinger.

Fact: Lossless audio makes blu-ray. I'd expect someone talking about this topic to at least mention HD audio? Do you know what that is Don? Do you need to go back to tech school? Are we getting that on downloaded Itunes garbage? It's so "mainstream" to only talk about the picture quality when discussing HD, that proves to me more than anything else you have zero credibility as any type of authority on the topic.

Fact: There's probably a reason blu-ray only has 8% market share, and if it weren't for the need to bring in more money, I'd say that isn't a bad thing. Most of Americans are, well, ignorant and proud of it - to say it nicely. I'd say Don falls nicely into this category.

Fact: Americans are consumers, they will buy no matter what some idiot with a blog tries to say. Movies are different than music. Movies are, for the most part, meant to be enjoyed with the best quality possible in a nice theater or home theater setting. For that reason, people will want to own the disc, to display, to have the highest quality possible. You know how poor the quality of an .mp3 really is? Probably not.

And, fact: By your same logic, iTunes will replace DVDs, as well, right? Yeah, good luck with that. Like I said, people want to own movies. Why the hell would anyone buy a digital movie? You'd just rent it, which is great - and it's called Netflix, which is easliy bringing movies into your home through computers and videogame systems now. iTunes also has that to compete with right? Right? Yeah, right.

Go back in your hole, chump. Come on out when you're a little better educated, thanks.

[jamie_smith]

BLURAY has higher color depth, image accuracy, video bit rate, audio fidelity (uncompressed audio!) than any current Standard Definition or High Definition ITUNES download source. You can see and hear the difference, and I hope CNET's Don can as well.

Even the 20 year old DVD format is superior in color depth, color accuracy, Mpeg bit rate, audio quality than ITUNES downloads. Lines of resolution (480p, 1080p) are only one critical aspect of image quality; the others like color depth and artifact free imagery come from playing higher bit rates which BLURAY can certainly do and ITUNES cannot because it relies on quality crushing compression codecs to maintain a small file size.

Furthermore, a BLURAY or DVD disc is simple, tangible, a true sense of ownership and it works. With these file downloads you end up with a series of compressed audio and video files which sit on a drive which can crash anytime. ITUNES can offer the convenience of watching a movie on an IPOD, but this is clearly a second rate eye straining experience. It may be best to see ITUNES and BLURAY as not in competition but as "different" products. With ITUNES you get a file based lower quality compressed movie but you can watch on an IPOD. With BLURAY you get near master quality image and sound, Extras, very often a free digital copy, disc art, cover art and an opportunity to watch the movie as the filmmaker intended you to watch the film.