External DVD drives

[ehrens]

Can't say enough good about MakeMKV when it comes to fast ripping of BDs. I usually only take the first title of a movie since I transcode it into mpeg4 for Apple TV streaming, but my 2012 Mac mini can rip a disc in 15 minutes. The hard part is the encoding to 1080p at a native framerate, that can take a couple hours or so.

 

[4RunnerHeaven]

Thank you, why do you need the dock, what advantages does that bring? I was going to rip 50 or so of my favorite movies using Make MKV, save them to a 4tb WD my passport drive, play them using Kodi on a Nvidia Shield. I want to keep the drive plugged into the Shield so I have my own mini Netflix style system for my favorite movies. I wanted to avoid having to plug in a server but I realize your NAS setup is more convenient.

Many actually. I can use one TB3 cable to hook up all my devices (monitors, USB devices, Ethernet 1GB port, etc). Allows me to have Display Port at full resolution of 4k-5k 60hz. Two 4k monitors or one 5k I believe is what is supported. Plus charging at 85w. I also can use my headphones from Sennheiser into the ports on the front.

 

[MacBH928]

any one have experience with M-Disc and M-Disc drives? do they work well or are they incompatible?
I really like their idea and it really seems like the perfect solution for long term storage but I am afraid it won't be compatible. Whats the use of storing media that you have no way or reading or viewing them?

 

[Fishrrman]

M-Disc requires that the burner be equipped for "M-Disc burning" (only some are).

An M-Disc can be -read- by any drive (M-Disc capabilities NOT necessary).

That is to say, an M-Disc DVD can be read by any DVD drive.
An M-Disc Bluray can be read by any Bluray drive (so long as it supports the particular BR format the disc was originally burned in, such as single-layer, dual-layer, etc.).

 

[Aikidi]

You can pretty much go with any high rated external DVD drive on Amazon tbh. I have the Dell DW316 which has served me well for a couple of years now and haven't had any issues. I use it with my 2015 MacBook Pro.

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-DW316-External-Optical-429-AAUX/dp/B00VWVZ0V0/

 

[4RunnerHeaven]

You can pretty much go with any high rated external DVD drive on Amazon tbh. I have the Dell DW316 which has served me well for a couple of years now and haven't had any issues. I use it with my 2015 MacBook Pro.

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-DW316-External-Optical-429-AAUX/dp/B00VWVZ0V0/

He is looking for a blu-ray.

 

[MacGekko]

He is looking for a blu-ray.

Anyone know of a current external blu-ray burner that will work with High Sierra?

 

[mpainesyd]

Yeah Apple's is a little overpriced to say the least.

I'm curious, does anyone have or used MCE external blu ray player on iMac? If so, are they any good?
I'm some what tempted to get one.

Thanks.

I’ve been using an MCE bluray player with my iMac for several years (now running High Sierra). It works well. Once in a while I use it to backup critical files on a blank 25GB bluray disk. These are much more reliable than DVDs, as well as storing more data. Finder sees the blank disk and I just drag files onto the image then choose “Burn disk” (or similar) - no need for other software like Toast.