Anyone have any idea when OSX is going to join the 21st century and offer us HDDVD/Bluray playback? I'm really tired of having to use Windows on my Mac for all the cool stuff.

Anyone have any idea when OSX is going to join the 21st century and offer us HDDVD/Bluray playback? I'm really tired of having to use Windows on my Mac for all the cool stuff.As soon as Apple builds a computer with the GM45 chip set (MacBook/Mini later this year, maybe) or equivalent for the iMac/Pro lines.

When/if Apple does that is another question. Hacking OS X to mimic Vista's behavior of passing HD through the OS to handle AACS just ain't going to happen at Apple.

As soon as Apple builds a computer with the GM45 chip set (MacBook/Mini later this year, maybe) or equivalent for the iMac/Pro lines.

When/if Apple does that is another question. Hacking OS X to mimic Vista's behavior of passing HD through the OS to handle AACS just ain't going to happen at Apple.

That really doesn't help all the MAC owners though, who are running HDDVD/Bluray on their computers right now using Windows, which is rendering OSX useless to us.

It's 100% guaranteed that you will never see HD-DVD on the Mac. Why would they spend time to support a dead format? Reportedly, Sony is in talks with Apple to bring Blu-ray to the Mac.

It's 100% guaranteed that you will never see HD-DVD on the Mac. Why would they spend time to support a dead format? Reportedly, Sony is in talks with Apple to bring Blu-ray to the Mac.

I'm shooting HD video, editing HD video, authoring HD-DVD discs, and playing them back on my Macs (G5 and MacBookPro). All supported by Final Cut Studio Pro. The HD-DVD disks playback fine on my Toshiba HD-DVD player as well.

No matter that HD-DVD is a "dead" format, for me, it's perfect for taking my HD productions to disc using existing technology and cheap DVD-R media. I'm not the only one doing it, either.

I'm talking about commercial HD-DVD movies with copy protection.

I'm talking about commercial HD-DVD movies with copy protection.

Agreed, but it's not really copy protection - it's a barrier that prevents legitmate owners from watching the HDDVD or Bluray they just purchased!

Blu-ray Blues: With the HD War Over, Why Aren't We Seeing Blu-ray Drives in Apple Computers?

I, Cringely article. (http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2008/pulpit_20080314_004511.html)

OK, granted - macs aren't shipping with BluRay drives yet. So my question is, can my 1.8ghz C2D mini handle BluRay content? For example, it'd be easy to hook up a Pioneer BluRay drive via firewire and play or rip a disc. But how would the playback look? I'm not even sure what resolution I'd set my mini to output for something like this. The projector I have is 720p native but accepts 1080/24 signals natively and from what ProjectorCentral said - it looks nearly as good as a 1080p projector. I'd like to test this out soon.

Has anyone even tried to play a BluRay disc on a similar Mini using an external drive?

Edit: OK now I'm really confused. I've read people saying that they're playing "HD content" back on their Minis, but I just now read a whole thread that says Leopard's DVD Player doesn't play back BluRay. Someone clarify!

When folks say they're playing HD content, the data rate is usually far less than that of a Blu Ray disc. This usually means HD rips from Blu Ray, re-encoded to a smaller sized file.

Has anyone even tried to play a BluRay disc on a similar Mini using an external drive?I'd venture to say, that outside of Apple's skunkworks, the answer would be no. That is if you are referring to commercial, theater-release BD's. There is no Mac software player for BD disks, and there is no OS X support visible for handling BD content if someone were to write a player.

There has to be some kind of support in Leopard, because over on the Apple Discussions people who did try putting in a BluRay disc reported that the system mounted it and recognized it as "BD-DVD". It just wouldn't play the movie.

The lack of support is for hdcp support, without which, OS X cannot play commercial BD disks. Non commercial disks can be used just fine, and with Toast, you can burn to them. But you won't be watching HD theatrical releases on OS X until Apple adds support, one way or another--whether it be in the OS, software, or in hardware.