Jeremiah

Macworld: Apple rethinks its DVD stance

Summarized, Macworld believes Apple has ignored major iDVD and DVD Studio Pro in their respective suite upgrades because the company is embracing online distribution. Macworld missed the larger analysis.

Apple is caught in the Blu-ray and HD DVD format war. Until a victor is declared, Apple will not release a new disc-based authoring application. Customers want a way to share high-definition video offline and Apple is compelled to provide a solution. However, developing for the losing format would be tragic economically and frustrating for users whose memories are stuck on a cutting-edge, and yet irrelevant, format.

It’s that simple.

Apple is embracing online distribution, but the company also realizes that its two DVD authoring products are largely feature complete in that further development won’t likely yield a worthwhile profit. Both iDVD and DVD Studio Pro are sold in suites and not available for purchase separate from those suites. Users are going to upgrade the suites because of the new features and improvements in the other suite applications. Few users would have upgraded based solely on an improved iDVD or DVD Studio Pro.

Apple also must have a hardware complement for its software to be a complete solution. The price, availability, and size of current Blu-ray and HD DVD burners and players are prohibitive for inclusion in Apple systems. Asking customers to buy non-Apple hardware to run Apple software, especially for the iApp audience, is unrealistic.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 14:34 and is tagged Apple, technology.