Hey Apple, where's the DVD drive gone?

I think the elimination of the DVD drive is trivial for all the reasons stated above.

But I think it will be interesting to see if Apple as a near to medium term plan for distribution, not just for client review purposes, but wide-scale distribution as well.

As long as success in films and TV are tied to broadcast and physical media, there's a barrier to entry for newcomers.

But an online distribution model potentially opens the market for anyone who makes great product to get it in front of their audience. I find it very exciting. Vimeo is already playing around with this in limited capacity.

Seanus wrote: For producers who do social events and corporate videos, absolutely you are going to need an external burner so your clients can watch your work in DVD players.

....

What I'd really like to see Apple do is introduce something iCloud Pro where you use it to distribute content to your clients instead of having to use those shiny coasters.

For corporate videos distributing to a smart phone or tablet that can then be hooked to an HDTV works well. I've done it. The first time I tried it I used myself as the guinea pig. I walked into a meeting with my iPad. I suspect they were expecting DVDs. They had that "you're not seriously going to show us the video on that little thing" look in their eyes. I walked over the the conference room HDTV and pulled out my dock to HDMI connector and their eyes lit up with that "cool!" glow. I talked about how they could distribute their internal communications to their employees on their smartphones.

Which brings me to your second very good point. Given that Apple is the company that pushes file distribution, they're failing on that. That had iDisk but shut that down. Perhaps they need iTunes Pro or iCloud Pro as you mention, whether it be for us content creators or corporate distribution.

They're dropping optical but haven't jumped on replacing it in their ecosystem. Maybe they feel there's no need to offer an alternative to DropBox or Vimeo (which allows password protection and file downloading).

For producers who do social events and corporate videos, absolutely you are going to need an external burner so your clients can watch your work in DVD players.

Here's my particular situation. Corporate. Mostly internal. If I make a movie for internal distribution, I can't put it on the corporate shared drives - IT gets testy about 1 GB files, they think everybody just uses Word and Excel. Even if I did, when people go to play it in one of our rooms, they usually log on with a local user generic password (which we recommend, because our PCs log out after 10 mins of inactivity and if the person who originally logged on isn't there, you're stuck without a password) which gives them no access to the shared drives anyway. Even if was OK to put them onto the network, people would drop files onto the server and then promptly forget where they put them. Or end up duplicating them all over the place. People are people. Don't get me started on WMVs embedded in PPTs and a 3 year old Dell graphics driver bug that our corporate IT have still not addressed. I think we need a decent distribution/sharing system à la SharePoint. I digress.

For external distribution, we have no Youtube, Vimeo or any other accounts. Head office stopped us getting them years ago and the whole idea has petrified ever since. Head office has also reneged on getting the streaming server they promised would be in operation 2 years ago. I think they actually bought it but it now sits gathering dust. We (locally) have no money to engage a CDN.

I told one ward about Flash drives, which they thought was a great idea. Every educator could carry just what they needed, with master files one main PC (backed up). From a local store, the price was quite reasonable, but when they went to get the purchase approved, they were explicitly instructed by a manager to use our usual office supply source (I believe that we don't have to use them, but they have convenient ordering) and the price was trebled. They got the DVDs from me instead...

/end rant :lol: The rant isn't about optical drives or their lack but my IT department. I wish they'd get their #$%& together rather than promoting friends into meaningless roles.

And I still think Steve wanted to get rid of optical drives for aesthetics, and was happy enough that he got support from other areas.

DVD ≠ Internal Video
I once worked for a post house that edited a video for a company with that attitude (use DVD rather than put it on the server) and apparently they told a little white lie about music clearance. An employee, shortly after getting his copy, was "let go." Employee brought the DVD to a lawyer friend and noted the pop music used. Lawyer notified the rights holder who of course saw big dollar signs from big company that paid big money to the post house for a well produced internal video.

That company learned the expensive lesson about internal video and DVDs which can exit through any door.

Even if just for the protection of proprietary internal information, DVD is absolutely the worst security situation. If IT is at all security concerned for the company they'd want to put the video some place protected and with controlled and logged access.

I'll copy this post and keep it to show clients. With your permission of course :lol:

Lawyer notified the rights holder

And lawyers wonder why people hate them.

I won't say DVD is dead, and you right Video Stores are closing, but if you put in the other DVD distribution in the picture. The Disc is still rolling out. This just shows people are getting lazy.

This is true, many production houses and facilities are using less and less Discs, still doesn't mean the End User is not getting it.

Me personally don't care if the optical disc dies, I would welcome a flash storage solution. You know the Cartridge (Flash Storage) Nintendo was try to keep around but everybody was crying about how it is out of date! :woohoo:
I just don't agree with digital distribution, it is awesome! But not how the internet or the industry is planning it.

Here some interesting news for you guys the US Gov. are looking at dropping Apple computers, not having the optical drive is only reason but has been mentioned.

P.S. I have noticing allot of my friends that are getting children are using the internet less and less. I guess the internet is also dying? :lol:

Scrubelicious wrote: P.S. I have noticing allot of my friends that are getting children are using the internet less and less. I guess the internet is also dying? :lol:

I guess you're not of Facebook that much. Families share their baby pictures and "firsts" like crazy and that growing. Sure those same families may be spending less time reading news sites. They're just focusing their internet use given the decreased free time.

There's very little use case for DVDs. It's a means of distribution to people with slow internet connections.

YouTube, Vimeo and scores of other online services are replacing DVD for user created video. iTunes, Amazon, Hulu are sources for commercial distribution. Even Netflix metrics show streaming dominates and is growing.

I seriously doubt Optical Disk is playing a major role in most gov't computer decisions given that it's an extreme security risk as it can drop into anybody's hands without tracking.

cseeman wrote:
I guess you're not of Facebook that much. Families share their baby pictures and "firsts" like crazy and that growing. Sure those same families may be spending less time reading news sites. They're just focusing their internet use given the decreased free time.

There's very little use case for DVDs. It's a means of distribution to people with slow internet connections.

YouTube, Vimeo and scores of other online services are replacing DVD for user created video. iTunes, Amazon, Hulu are sources for commercial distribution. Even Netflix metrics show streaming dominates and is growing.

I seriously doubt Optical Disk is playing a major role in most gov't computer decisions given that it's an extreme security risk as it can drop into anybody's hands without tracking.

Wow you took that serious... and yes I do use Facebook as a tool for network but not for socializing since I like be with friends and family in the real world. :lol:
I try to avoid people that use Facebook like there one minute diary. :woohoo:

Your right it is not the major but one of the reason, but I ready mentioned that.
It is less a extreme security reason then a USB stick (hint why USB sticks don't function on a DOD baseline computer) and the Internet. But that is another story.

I deliver 50% of my commercial projects by DVD. The world is very big and most of it still has slow internet. DVD is still king in Africa (have not even got around to Blu-Ray yet). Most everyone I know delvers on DVD.

Ever sent a movie to a film festival? If you're lucky they wont ask for tape, and will actually allow you to deliver by DVD (or even luckier by BR). Yeah, I know online delivery is beginning to take place now, withoutbox have a system in place, but most everyone I know who delivers to a festival posts their entries with a stamp.

Some festivals still want your work on film.

DVDs are still around but I'd rather convince my clients to have their 1hour DVD on a stick, they'll be much happier.

Yes, slow internet is one of the remaining use case scenarios for DVD. Film festivals have volume issues. Even with extremely fast connections, downloading a large number of submissions would tie up even a fast connection for days.

These are the exceptions though.

Speeds around the world based on real use via location and ISP. One can know the slow spots. See Netindex.
www.netindex.com

Scrubelicious wrote: Wow you took that serious... and yes I do use Facebook as a tool for network but not for socializing since I like be with friends and family in the real world. :lol:

Maybe my family and friends families are abnormal but most have relatives hundreds if not thousands of miles away and Facebook allows them to stay close. Personally I don't know any of them that will frequently burn baby photos and videos to a dozen DVDs to friends and relatives all over the place (and hoping the disc plays in all their players). The same people are posting family pics and sharing frequently (sometimes daily, ugh). The DVD gets made usually for the old relative who may have never moved beyond dial up or has no internet connection at all. That's an extreme exception though.

If anything, with the growth of smartphones and tablets, online distribution is escalating like crazy. I know people who have no interest in computers (don't even own one) but have a phone and/or a tablet. It's become the modern "DayRunner" and personal organizer. Even Facebook might be too much for these folks. Then it's things like Flickr or YouTube.

In fact one client recently asked me for a DVD of a final project and I asked them if the agents they were distributing to still take DVDs. They checked and got back to me hours later and said skip the DVD. Every company they spoke to (they asked a few) said they want to either view online or download the file directly.

The only other client who recently asked for DVD was someone presenting at a trade show and were told they needed to have collateral to hand out. After the fact they told me they looked "primitive" against their competitors. The other companies were handing out cards with links or, in some cases (but still uncommon) flash drives, which, because they can be reused, have some "swag" value. In most cases the attendee badge was scanned and they were sent links to the video with the marketing pitch. With the online link, companies where able to track the number of views and even where they were coming from. That metric was more valuable than handing a DVD and never knowing what happened to it.

It's all rationalisation. I think I'd be on safe ground if I said while some of us may not ever use a DVD recorder in our iMacs, there's no one buying them because they have no DVD recorder. Rather some of us would buy a new iMac in spite of it not having a DVD recorder.