Still no Blu-Ray support from Apple

Chris Tompkins — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:16:21 -0700

It’s been several months since Blu-Ray won the physical HD format war, yet Mac users are still out in the cold when it comes to authoring Blu-Ray discs. Between no support in Final Cut Pro, and no standard hardware supported Blu-Ray drives, it seems odd that one of the editing suites that has lead the industry is stalling to incorporate the Blu-Ray media.

Apple threw in its hat with Blu-Ray back in 2005, joining the Sony committee which oversaw its standardization, yet has not produced a single Blu-Ray burner for its top end Mac Pro, a machine aimed at video editors. Jobs stated 3 years ago that Apple users “are anxiously awaiting a way to burn their own high def DVDs.”

But, as of today, users who want to burn a Blu-Ray disc can use Final Cut Pro to edit their content in HD, but need to come up with convoluted work-arounds to get their HD content on a disc. Most Blu-Ray authoring tools exist on a PC at the moment, save Adobe Encore which recently added support for Blu-Ray burning.

With all the hoopla over the iPhone 3G and .mac updates for this WWDC, it would be a shame to let Blu-Ray drives slip by yet again without support in the Pro line. The longer Apple waits to support it, the more users might be tempted to try out another powerful, HD compatible editing suite, Adobe Premiere. Then again, maybe Apple has decided the format war isn’t over, and has its eyes on their own medium.