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Looking for a budget blu-ray drive

J

jrm27

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 3, 2008
579
31
Hi all,

I'm looking for a budget blu ray drive but have no idea what to look for. All I'm using it for is to convert my blu-ray discs so I can watch them on my WDTV live. So, I dont need anything fancy... just something that I can use with makeMKV (I guess?). Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks!

-jon
 
Thanks! That does help.

Correct, no burning of Blu-Ray discs.

Anyone else have any other info? Just want to make sure I'm getting what I need!
 
Be forewarned.. Blu-Ray disks take up massive amounts of hard drive space and time to rip and convert. This could be a huge undertaking and tie up your computer for hours upon hours.
 
Thanks for the heads up! I've got a spare 3TB ready, and am not worried about the time commitment!
 
phoenixsan said:
you have a Mac and want to connect the Blu-ray drive via USB, I can vouch a Pioneer, LiteOn, Sony and Philips one (for read only, no burning, right?)

Maybe this link is helpful:

http://www.newegg.com/Blu-Ray-Drives/SubCategory/ID-598

for read-only external drives


:):apple:
Click to expand...

It looks like those are internal blu ray drives. While they do have SATA to USB adapters, here are some USB blu ray drives that are guaranteed to work with Macs.

http://eshop.macsales.com/search/external+blu+ray
 
Dan DRC said:
http://www.amazon.com/Blu-Ray-USB-E...qid=1355504093&sr=8-13&keywords=blu+ray+drive

I have had great results with this one so far
Click to expand...

Part of me also wants to buy a BD burner so I can back up photos on many fewer discs. But then I wonder how easily I would keep up with them.

I've got more than 100GB in photos, so this is obviously something I need to tackle. Is BD a good solution since the discs aren't as susceptible to failure, or are there cheap cloud alternatives for such a massive collection?
 
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Thanks for the recommendations guys! In the case of the Amazon drive, will I need to instal AnyDVD or something like that to use it? I dont really want to watch movies on my mac, just want to use the drive to get MakeMKV to convert my BluRays.
 
JRoDDz said:
Be forewarned.. Blu-Ray disks take up massive amounts of hard drive space and time to rip and convert. This could be a huge undertaking and tie up your computer for hours upon hours.
Click to expand...

How much space are we talking about here?
 
jrm27 said:
Thanks for the recommendations guys! In the case of the Amazon drive, will I need to instal AnyDVD or something like that to use it? I dont really want to watch movies on my mac, just want to use the drive to get MakeMKV to convert my BluRays.
Click to expand...

You do not need anything but MakeMKV (and Handbrake if you are going to view your movies on an aTV).
 
Back in'09 I picked up a standard Samsung internal Blu Ray drive at Fry's and a 5.25" external enclosure that it would fit into. It used USB2 and it was much quicker than the built-in superdrive at reading/writing CD's and DVD's and I used this for the same thing as you, just ripping Blu Rays.

No special software other than MakeMKV or Handbrake or any other ripping software for ripping BR's.

I just tonight picked up an LG USB3 external BR burner from Best Buy because I will be using it to back up data not so much burning BR movies.
 
I purchased a Digistor External Blu Ray burner to backup some of my older Blu Rays that didn't come with a digital copy. The first thing I noticed was that I was getting really slow rip speeds. I gave up after one movie was going to take over four hours. I ended up just buying it on iTunes.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009PBUQCM/ref=oh_details_o01_s01_i00

Can anyone suggest a faster Blu Ray drive for ripping? I hate for this guy to have the same problem I did.
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
I ended up buying a Samsung drive a year or two ago and it seems to do pretty well for me at least. Takes around 40 mins or so? (have not exactly timed it) for ripping a blu ray.
 
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