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Using an external blu-ray ODD with a Mini

ormie

ormie

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 25, 2009
146
-7
Can anyone advise me how to set up an external optical drive with a 2011 base mac mini. It's a blu-ray Samsung player and DVD/CD burner so it should allow me to play blu-ray disc via my mini onto my LCD tv. I'm using the mini as a media server and have a eyetv dtt tuner for recording tv movies and shows but I wanted to replace my blu-ray player (full size tv model) with a smaller optical drive to reduce the footprint of my set up. It's USB powered so I'll need to plug it into the mini's USB's.
 
Currently there is no proper software for letting you pop a Blu-ray in the drive, and then just watch it. You have to rip it first.
 
jlin615 said:
Would this work? http://www.macblurayplayer.com/
Click to expand...

I don't know, I'd need to give a trial run with it first before parting with money for it and I haven't seen any reviews about it either. Makemkv Is a beta and it seems to be a ripper rather than a player although I could be mistaken. I've got Plex installed to play back movies on my LCD tv but I've not yet tried to see if it would see the blu-ray disc when it's in the samsung external player. I was hoping to hear from anyone that has managed to get the above working on their mac mini.
 
jlin615 said:
Would this work? http://www.macblurayplayer.com/
Click to expand...

Well, the honest answer is: not impressed! I tried it today and, as impressive as it may look, it's all looks and no substance. The problem was it stuttered it's way through the blu-ray movie. Even switching off any apps that was running in the background didn't make any difference and, I know it's not a one off as the review I found online said they had the same problem. If it had played cleanly, I'd have been happy to pay for the software, but it ain't worth it as it stands. So, for now, until Apple fixes this problem or someone comes up with a working software we will need to forget blu-ray for now and I'll just keep my large blue-ray player - not a problem, but not an ideal set up.
 
Well, I've made an executive decision. I'm going to get rid of this 'bag of hurt' and buy a DVD/CD external optical drive, sell off my blu-ray movies replacing them with downloaded or DVD copies, sell my blu-ray player and finish with blu-ray altogether.
It'll simplify my media centre and allow me to copy DVD movies onto the hard-drive. It's too much bother faffing about trying to make it work
 
ormie said:
Well, I've made an executive decision. I'm going to get rid of this 'bag of hurt' and buy a DVD/CD external optical drive, sell off my blu-ray movies replacing them with downloaded or DVD copies, sell my blu-ray player and finish with blu-ray altogether.
It'll simplify my media centre and allow me to copy DVD movies onto the hard-drive. It's too much bother faffing about trying to make it work
Click to expand...

It's so simple; rip with the free MakeMKV. Then you have a MKV version that will play with the free VLC on any Mac or Windows computer. You can also convert the MKV into an MP4 or MPEG.
 
scottsjack said:
It's so simple; rip with the free MakeMKV. Then you have a MKV version that will play with the free VLC on any Mac or Windows computer. You can also convert the MKV into an MP4 or MPEG.
Click to expand...

Not to threadjack, but will the mini output Dolby TruHD and other HD audio surround tracks?
 
ormie said:
Can anyone advise me how to set up an external optical drive with a 2011 base mac mini. It's a blu-ray Samsung player and DVD/CD burner so it should allow me to play blu-ray disc via my mini onto my LCD tv.
Click to expand...

Yes, it can be done, but it has a bit of a learning curve. Once you master it, it's pretty fast. Here are the details:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/841318/
 
Please note though that if you intend to do multichannel digital output to your home theater setup, it doesn't work in Lion (at least if you use VLC as the player). The developers of VLC claim it's a bug in the OS (introduced in 10.6.8) that needs to be fixed by Apple. Stereo mode works, but not encoded audio output.
 
Ruahrc said:
Please note though that if you intend to do multichannel digital output to your home theater setup, it doesn't work in Lion (at least if you use VLC as the player). The developers of VLC claim it's a bug in the OS (introduced in 10.6.8) that needs to be fixed by Apple. Stereo mode works, but not encoded audio output.
Click to expand...

It certainly works with movies downloaded from and played in iTunes. I have 10.7.1.

----------
AuroraProject said:
Not to threadjack, but will the mini output Dolby TruHD and other HD audio surround tracks?
Click to expand...

Apple does not support or rather has not enabled it in their OS/hardware. This is despite the fact that the AMD discrete GPU's used in the Minis do technically support it.
 
Ok. I tried to set up a Samsung blu-ray player with my mac mini 2011 model and got it working up to a point. No problems when working with normal DVDs but, after downloading the software ( http://www.macblurayplayer.com/ )that is supposed to play blu-rays on the mac I gave in and returned the player, sold my blu-ray discs and I now have an Apple Air SuperDrive instead. The software has to be connected to the web to work for some jiggery pockery to authorise its use but playback was awful. Kept stuttering and stalling making watching movies impossible. If I were you, I'd forget trying and settle for plain old DVDs or download movies from iTunes. You could also
 
Yes, it was USB 2. If it had a HDMI output it'd have solved the problem with my tv but it would still not have worked through the mini though.
 
ormie said:
Yes, it was USB 2. If it had a HDMI output it'd have solved the problem with my tv but it would still not have worked through the mini though.
Click to expand...

OK, just to be clear, it is a Blu-ray ROM drive or burner like this, not a set top Blu-ray Disc player such as this one

If so, then the problem is likely with the software you're using, which in my experience has never worked.
 
I'm using a LG WH12LS30 external Bluray drive in a Macally case.

As far as I can tell, everything works great with the exception of one issue, which really itself isn't a major issue...

When I have a disk in the drive, I can not eject the disk either by using the open/close button on the drive or by using the eject key on my mac keyboard. I can eject the disk by clicking on the eject symbol that is displayed next to the drive under Finder.

Any ideas or, is that how OSX behaves with external drives?

Actually, there is one other thing which, may also be normal for external drives but, I don't know. The BD drive does not show up in Finder unless there is a disk physically in the drive. Normal?

Otherwise, works perfect.

habe
 
It'll show up as a DVD if a DVD is in the external drive but if it's a B-R disc, it isn't recognised. I normally eject from the DVD player menu.
 
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