Blu Ray on MacBook for outdoor viewing

[Molly Anderson]

Hello all!

So, I worked in a video store for years, and have tons of BluRays in my collection. Often, I cannot get these to play on our players and the firmware updates aren't successful either. I am hoping to show some of my favorites outside this summer, and thought using my MacBook would be ideal. I know there's a lot of discussion out there about this, and I'm ready to learn more. I also get that Steve Jobs wasn't thrilled with Blu Rays, so it's not as simple as a DVD. But, I wondered what others found helpful. These don't need to have amazing picture quality..I just want access to my unplayable Blu Rays. I'd need a player and software. What do you experts recommend? Thank you!!

 

[Juicy Box]

There are a bunch of external Blu-Ray drives out there, I use a Samsung one, I am unsure about the model.

You could just play them from the drive, although you need software for the Blu-Ray player. I have tried a few. There is at least one free one on the App Store called 'Leawo'. It isn't great as menus don't work for most Blu-Rays for some reason, but they will still play, just without menus and you have a list of tracks to play.

A much better one on the App Store which is free to try called Blu-Ray Player Pro. It runs like a normal Blu-Ray play, menus and such. It is free to try, although, maybe through the website and not from the App Store. The free version is fully functional, but there is a watermark in the middle of the screen.

If you would rather go another route, you can use MakeMKV, which will make rips of the Blu-Rays. Is also free to try for 30 days and when that is over, it is free while it is still in beta, you can do a search on the internet for the code.

The files could be pretty big, so you can use Handbrake, which is totally free, and encode them into a smaller file. If you have never used it before, it could be intimidating at first, but there are pre-set profiles to choose from to make things super easy. For Blu-Rays, I use the ATV4K 1080p preset, but change the FPS to "same as source".

With the preset, makes a .m4v file that is about 40% of the original size.

 

[Molly Anderson]

There are a bunch of external Blu-Ray drives out there, I use a Samsung one, I am unsure about the model.

You could just play them from the drive, although you need software for the Blu-Ray player. I have tried a few. There is at least one free one on the App Store called 'Leawo'. It isn't great as menus don't work for most Blu-Rays for some reason, but they will still play, just without menus and you have a list of tracks to play.

A much better one on the App Store which is free to try called Blu-Ray Player Pro. It runs like a normal Blu-Ray play, menus and such. It is free to try, although, maybe through the website and not from the App Store. The free version is fully functional, but there is a watermark in the middle of the screen.

If you would rather go another route, you can use MakeMKV, which will make rips of the Blu-Rays. Is also free to try for 30 days and when that is over, it is free while it is still in beta, you can do a search on the internet for the code.

The files could be pretty big, so you can use Handbrake, which is totally free, and encode them into a smaller file. If you have never used it before, it could be intimidating at first, but there are pre-set profiles to choose from to make things super easy. For Blu-Rays, I use the ATV4K 1080p preset, but change the FPS to "same as source".

With the preset, makes a .m4v file that is about 40% of the original size.

Thank you for this thorough answer! That is very helpful. It's so frustrating to think you were doing the "right thing" by upgrading DVDs to Blu Ray, only to have most of them unplayable and just wasting space on my crowded shelves. Thanks again!

 

[icanhazmac]

+1, also interested in what drives people are using.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

The Blu-ray Consortium requires a license for the playback of Blu-ray discs. That's why Mac and PC Blu-ray player software always costs about $20-30 -- to cover the royalty.

Jobs did not want to add this cost to Macs which is why Blu-ray disc playback is not built into the macOS operating system. He was already prescient that optical media was on its way out and he did not want to foist the Blu-ray royalty fees to Mac users, most of whom would not benefit.

I do what vertical smile suggests. I make a decrypted backup using MakeMKV and then use Handbrake to transcode to a more portable format for playback on multiple devices (iPhone, iPad, media player connected to my TV, etc.).

I am using a Pioneer BDC TD-02 Slimline drive that I bought over ten years ago. It has long been discontinued. I tried Blu-ray player software with it on a Mac at one time, but the playback experience is pretty miserable since the drive is cheap. It groans and shudders too loudly during playback so I have gone back to my trusty old Sony standalone Blu-ray play for actual disc playback. Also, Blu-ray disc menu navigation is a complete pain using a computer keyboard. A standalone player with a matching remote control is far more user friendly.

I only use the Pioneer as a Blu-ray reader for ripping the discs.

Summary: Steve Jobs was right. Watching Blu-ray discs on a Mac is indeed a "bag of hurt." Either rip your Blu-ray discs or use a standalone player.

 

[ian87w]

With standalone blu-ray players available for just $100 or so, I wonder whether it would be more convenient to just buy one of those.

On my PC, I have used Asus and Samsung blu-ray drives. Do note that some of these drives require two USB-A connections, one for data and one for power. Depending on your MacBook model, that might be an issue.

 

[Molly Anderson]

Thanks for all of your help, everyone! I have a Blu Ray player, but it doesn't seem to play the newer discs and I can't seem to get the firmware update to work. I just wanted to hook up a drive to my computer for outdoor movies and didn't feel like lugging a big player outside all of the time. I did finally get a drive online today, and it works, but, as warned, it's so noisy. I immediately got commentary (annoying) so maybe I'll stop buying these Blu Rays and go back to DVDs, which aren't perfect but seem to work more often than not. Thanks again!

 

[HDFan]

but it doesn't seem to play the newer discs and I can't seem to get the firmware update to work. I just wanted to hook up a drive to my computer for outdoor movies and didn't feel like lugging a big player outside all of the time. I did finally get a drive online today, and it works, but, as warned, it's so noisy.

Don't understand why you are having problems. I have Buffalo, Asus, and LG external drives and have no problems. No noise. Not the cheapest drives though.