Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Help installing Blu Ray drive in Mac Pro

M

MikeFightNight

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 10, 2009
16
0
I just bought a brand new quad core Mac pro and will be putting a blu ray player in it. I did install 3 extra hardrives on my Mac Pro but that was pretty damn easy. I have read that I will be having to do some dissasembley in order to connect the Blu ray drive to the SATA connectors, which has me a little worried. I have never done this before and am wondering if any of you could direct me to a good tutorial on the subject.
 
you realize that blu-ray isn't supported in OSX? you'll have to run windows for it to be recognized as anything more than a DVD drive.

send a personal message to gugocom. he is the man you need to talk to.
 
MikeFightNight said:
I just bought a brand new quad core Mac pro and will be putting a blu ray player in it. I did install 3 extra hardrives on my Mac Pro but that was pretty damn easy. I have read that I will be having to do some dissasembley in order to connect the Blu ray drive to the SATA connectors, which has me a little worried. I have never done this before and am wondering if any of you could direct me to a good tutorial on the subject.
Click to expand...

It's actually quite simple..go to OWC and find the video instruction there.
Depending on the drive (I used a Pioneer BDR-203) you simply remove the door cover, remove the interior sled holding the drive(s) by pulling it out,secure the drive into the sled with 4 screws,plug the sata and power connector into the back and re-insert the sled..re-boot..done
 
Its pretty easy on the mechanical side with the 2009 Mac Pro. All you have to do is install an additional SATA BD-ROM or burner or replace the DVD burner with it.

I have done the replacement. I do not see a benefit in having a Superdrive in addition to the BDD. My LG GCC-H20L is basically a Superdrive with OS X plus Blu-Ray with Windows. The combined SATA and power connector in the 2009 Mac Pro fits the Blu-Ray drive equally as the Superdrive.

My Vista 64 runs on a separate Intel x-25 SSD off the second ODD-SATA port and located in the second ODD bay. This setup is not mandatory for Blu-Ray but optional. You can run Windows on an additional partition from your OS X drive, or you can run it on a dedicated HDD as well. The Windows drive can be in the second optical bay or in any of the four HDD bays. A problem exists with installed SW RAID arrays. You have to take them out temporarily if you want to install Windows.

For my installation I also install the AHCI high performance driver. Some people think you don't need them but I found I need them for my software.
 
Thank you guys for the quick replies, but i'm a little confused. Are you telling me I can't burn blu ray's discs using OS X? I just want to be able to burn them not watch them. I mean compressor has the option to burn Blu ray discs (I have the newer version of Final Cut Studio).

Also one thing i'm a little fuzzy on also is the difference between the HD DVD option and the blu ray option. I just put my video file in Compressor to be made into a blu ray file so that I could burn it using DVD studio pro. However near the end of the process it asked me to insert a blu ray disc so it could be burned? What if I wanted to add menus to it and stuff with DVD Studio? does it not support Blu ray burning?

Also how would an external drive work, the same way right?
 
When I insert a blank BR disk, OS X detects it and asks whether I want to use it. I haven't actually tried to burn a disk, but I assume that it'll work. It does of course read existing disks.
 
Nermal said:
When I insert a blank BR disk, OS X detects it and asks whether I want to use it. I haven't actually tried to burn a disk, but I assume that it'll work. It does of course read existing disks.
Click to expand...

Well I would hope so since compressor says it can burn blu rays.
 
OS X burns Blu-rays just fine, as does Toast. I've used both. DVD studio pro will not recognize or burn Blu-rays; its HD-DVD functionality is burning an HD-DVD file structure to an ordinary DVD disc that can be played back in HD-DVD players. Not so helpful.

As I understand it - I don't have FCS3 - Compressor will allow you to burn straight video discs or use generic menus, much like Toast will. You do not have access to the kind of functionality DVD Studio Pro offers.

Putting a video Blu-ray in OS X will just cause it to sit there on the desktop. If it is not copy-protected (that is, not commercial), you can use playback software such as Plex to play it.
 
I don't burn BDs because I do not have a burner. But there have been plenty of threads confirming that burning is no problem under OS X with the right SW.
 
Hey stupid me. all you have to do is go to Share under File in Final Cut Pro and boom, blu ray burning is an option. You can even make basic menus from there. Problem solved. I love macs. You guys are awesome also.
 
bozz2006 said:
you realize that blu-ray isn't supported in OSX? you'll have to run windows for it to be recognized as anything more than a DVD drive.

send a personal message to gugocom. he is the man you need to talk to.
Click to expand...

you're wrong because I have an LG WH10LS30 installed on my mac pro quad 2011. It reads and writes BD perfectly fine, I've also watch BD with it through VLC 1.1.9, but I have to rip it first with Mac blurayripper pro 1.0.4 then the m2ts file could be play by vlc :DDDDDDDD. I never ever have to boot into windows ever to watch BD :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back