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Mac Pro 3,1 and bluray

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bobreborn

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 30, 2014
61
0
Hey guys, I bought a used 3,1 8 core on craigslist but the superdrive is broken. I did a search on here and found that some people had no problems but others had lots when trying to use bluray so I thought I'd ask;

if there is no superdrive (and I'm too lazy to open her up and look) what should I get, ide or sata bluray? If you have a 3,1 and bluray working which model did you get? OS?

Thanks!
 
I had a 3,1 and used an LG Bluray drive in it without problems, I used Toast and the Bluray add on to burn discs. If I recall correctly, the 3,1 super drive is IDE so to replace it with a SATA drive you'll have to run a SATA cable to the two SATA connectors behind the fan assembly, not impossible but a little tricky.
 
ashman70 said:
I had a 3,1 and used an LG Bluray drive in it without problems, I used Toast and the Bluray add on to burn discs. If I recall correctly, the 3,1 super drive is IDE so to replace it with a SATA drive you'll have to run a SATA cable to the two SATA connectors behind the fan assembly, not impossible but a little tricky.
Click to expand...

are those SATA connectors on the board itself? Wouldn't happen to remember the specific LG drive eh? I imagine it had crazy numbers...why do they all have crazy numbers?
 
I recently installed a Pioneer BDR-209D drive purchased from macsales.com. It was $80USD from them, but included all of the SATA and power cable connector for the drive.

They include a good installation manual with pictures to guide the installation. Assuming you do not have a fully loaded motherboard with occupied slots it connects fairly easily to one of the two SATA connectors.

The blu-ray was installed in place of one of the two super drives originally installed that were IDE.
 
thanks guys! How does that adaptor work? Give any problems with movie playback or burning?
 
Yes the adapters are on the motherboard itself, can't remember what the LG model number was, it shouldn't matter.
 
bobreborn said:
if there is no superdrive (and I'm too lazy to open her up and look) what should I get, ide or sata bluray? If you have a 3,1 and bluray working which model did you get? OS?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Define "working"..

I haven't played any movies with mine, so you should investigate what software you'll need for that. My older LG will make occasional grinding and spinning up noises with no disk installed, so I keep a blank DVD in there at all times. They can also be odd as it pertains to sleep.

If you plan to rip Blu-rays then you need to make sure the drive doesn't have Riplock or anything similar.
 
thanks for the tips! I'll make sure there aren't those kinds of problems, but for me I'm primarily interested in watching of the films :D
 
bobreborn said:
thanks for the tips! I'll make sure there aren't those kinds of problems, but for me I'm primarily interested in watching of the films :D
Click to expand...

You have to also buy software in order to play your blu rays on your Mac (you don't need to buy software if you only want to rip blu rays). Most of the OS X blu ray software cost around $40 and requires you to have an internet connection to start playing each blu ray disk. The software is also tied to one computer so you need multiple copies if you want to play blu ray disk on multiple computers (i.e. portable drive). You are also unable to play 1080i blu ray disk under OS X without very visible video artifacts (occurs also with ripping). The 1080P blu ray disk play under OS X without any problems.
 
bobreborn said:
Hey guys, I bought a used 3,1 8 core on craigslist but the superdrive is broken. I did a search on here and found that some people had no problems but others had lots when trying to use bluray so I thought I'd ask;

if there is no superdrive (and I'm too lazy to open her up and look) what should I get, ide or sata bluray? If you have a 3,1 and bluray working which model did you get? OS?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I just use an external Bluray drive from OWC and worked fine on a 2008 Mac Pro. You can use Make MKV software http://www.makemkv.com/ to convert your Blu Ray or DVD discs and save them to your HD. Use Video Lan or VLC to playback your movies. The film quality of the MKV files is just about the same as the native Bluray as I compared them. I also sometimes use GoMac Bluray player http://www.macblurayplayer.com/ to play Bluray movies. However with the GoMac player, you need internet connection to run the player. I use Toast Titanium to make a disc image of the Bluray disc and save it to the HD.

With a good computer speaker with subwoofer like the Edifier S730 you can have a PC home theater.

s730.h11.gif
 
Ya know what all of this extra information has taught me? Just use my Playstation @__@

Thanks for all the insight guys!! Do we have any rationale behind why blu-ray is so thoroughly unadopted by Apple?
 
Tht HDCP bit is fascinating and infuriating. Good to know. Didn't realize display port was gaining any traction in the PC world though...as videocards are all HDMI/DVI still from what I see.

Crazy, but being a Mac Pro user it's kind of a slap in the face because Apple not building the graphics cards and could EASILY have an HDMI option already available.
 
I love my 3,1 MacPro

Here are my mods:


Bluray Drive: http://store.mcetech.com/Merchant2/...16XMPINT&Category_Code=STORBD&Product_Count=3

Mine is actually a 12X Blu-Ray + 16X DVD+/-R/RW Dual/Double Layer that I bought from MCEtech in 2011. It has served me well so far without any problems through all my OSX updates. I am currently using Mavericks 10,9,5. Just so you know when I look at my System information this is the model that appears HL-DT-ST BD-RE WH12LS30

6 Internal drives

1- Samsung EVO PRO attached to the Apricorn Velocity SoloX2 http://www.apricorn.com/products/desktop-ssd-hdd-upgrade-kits/vel-solox2.html
2- Samsung EVO PRO Also attached to my Apricorn SoloX2
3- Drivebay 1 Another Samsung EVO Pro to run Bootcamp (No boot camp will not work on the Samsung EVO PRO attached to the Apricorn Velocity Solo X2 card
4- Drivebay 2 SATA Drive
5- Drivebay 3 Sata Drive
6- Drivebay 4 Sata Drive

I also have 2 G-tech external esata drives thanks to http://www.newertech.com/products/esata_cable.php connected to the 2 extra sata ports

Also take a look at this to add more internal drives http://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_ID=299&ParentCat=315

Finally I do have to upgrade my graphics card. Probably going to buy something from macvidcards.com

Cheers!
 
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