What are the recommended Mac friendly BluRay Drives Out there now?

[biosci]

Got my 2011 MacMini and am now looking for some sort of external drive. I saw one with 6x read speeds from fastmac but it was in the ballpark of $350

Anyone else have or heard of successes for the mac?

 

[obsidian1200]

This one from asus works with the Mac, however it'll eat up two of your USB ports, if that's something you care about. It'll run you about $120.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004G603MO/ref=ox_sc_act_title_7?ie=UTF8&m=A2EUTVCJXLAJ4K

There's also this one from ... I can't find the maker name on the page. The reviews show that the drive works with OSX, and it's less than $100.

http://www.amazon.com/Blu-Ray-USB-External-Player-DVDRW/dp/B001QA2Y9S/ref=acc_glance__ai_ps_t3_t_1

 

[kurtster]

I picked up this Buffalo model last weekend for my 2011 Mini, and so far it's ripped 40 Blu-rays into MKV without a hitch. Around 20,000 yennies ($200) in my part of the world.
Even though it says nothing about Mac compatibility on the box (obviously), as soon as it's plugged in the Mini recognized it. Apparently it supports 3D Blu-rays too.

http://www.buffalotech.com/products...iastation-12x-external-usb-30-blu-ray-writer/

 

[KScottMyers]

SAMSUNG USB Combo Model SE-406AB/RSBD - $79
http://bit.ly/plqDwo

Apparently Mac compatibile according to the manual.
http://pdfs.icecat.biz/pdf/30876779-8329-manual.pdf

 

[snoylekim]

I've been testing the LG BP06 Blue rewriter w/ a 2011 2.53 ..so far, so good ..USB and USB powered, so it takes 2 USB ports ..reads and writes BR .. and it's on sale at BB right now ( 149.00) ...

 

[Peepo]

I also just bought the LG BP06. I bought a 10-pack of BD-R and one BD-RE for testing.

I tried burning to my RE and I got an error in Toast 11 could not setup track for writing. I suspected it was because I only had it plugged into one USB port. So I plugged in the 2nd USB for extra power and works fine!

The drive may seem to work with one USB port but definitely needs two for writing. I think I may have run into this before with a DVD USB burner. I don't have it plugged in directly to my i7 3.4Ghz 2001 iMac but it is going through one powered hub and then into a passive hub... maybe if I used powered hub it would work... I'll try and report back. (EDIT) - I plugged directly into my powered USB hub and it works fine with only connecting the main USB plug.

I am waiting now to see how the burn goes.

I need the ability to burn Blu-Ray for my video transfer service. Not for video, but I require a way to archive raw DV footage and possibly Final Cut Pro X projects for customers. A VHS dump that is 1hr 43 min is 22.27GB so perfect! I am not interested in making Blu-Ray Video since I think that the way to go is streaming media nowadays (although I will be able to create Blu-Ray Video if someone really wants).

 

[maximini]

Has any of you tried and been successful at burning blurays directly from the Finder in Lion (i.e. without using Toast)? That's exactly what I would like to do as I would rather not use Toast based on its poor reviews.

 

[Ruahrc]

I recently purchased the 2nd blu-ray drive listed by obsidian. The finish is actually quite nice, it's got a texture similar to that of the keys on the Apple keyboards, and is a nice white color. In System Information it shows up as "MATSHITA BD-CMB UJ141AF" Which if you search google it is supposed to be a 6x reader, but it only appears to be a 2x reader. I'm okay with that- I wanted a drive that looked decent, and didn't want to spend too much (fooling around with Blu-rays was kind of an experiment for me).

P.S. it seems to run fine without needing the 2nd USB port, apparently the mini can supply enough power to use it fine with just the 1 A>B USB cable. Seems like most modern macs can supply enough power.

Ruahrc

 

[obsidian1200]

Has any of you tried and been successful at burning blurays directly from the Finder in Lion (i.e. without using Toast)? That's exactly what I would like to do as I would rather not use Toast based on its poor reviews.

Not sure about finder, but MakeMKV is highly recommended for ripping blu ray movies.

 

[maximini]

Not sure about finder, but MakeMKV is highly recommended for ripping blu ray movies.

Thank you obsidian1200 however I mentioned Toast thinking only about burning blu-rays.

 

[obsidian1200]

Thank you obsidian1200 however I mentioned Toast thinking only about burning blu-rays.

Whoops, my apologies. For some reason I thought you meant ripping -_- ugh, been at home with the non-techies for too long (they use "burn" and "rip" interchangeably).

What kind of disc are you trying to burn, data or movie? It might be worth a shot to give the built-in disc utility a try if you're trying to burn data or a disc image to a blu ray. Just because OSX doesn't natively recognize blu ray movies doesn't necessarily mean it won't recognize the format at all.

Unfortunately, Toast has the most face through a google search. If you're trying to burn blu ray movies, then RevolverHD might interest you (http://www.shedworx.com/revolverhdmac) it's got a free trial for you to take for a spin to see if it works. It might handle data, too, but at first glance it seems to be specifically for videos.

 

[slyseekr]

There's also this one from ... I can't find the maker name on the page. The reviews show that the drive works with OSX, and it's less than $100.

http://www.amazon.com/Blu-Ray-USB-External-Player-DVDRW/dp/B001QA2Y9S/ref=acc_glance__ai_ps_t3_t_1

I just received this specific drive in the mail last night. Plug and play, works perfectly (though you'll need the proper software to read Blu-ray discs)!

 

[maximini]

Whoops, my apologies. For some reason I thought you meant ripping -_- ugh, been at home with the non-techies for too long (they use "burn" and "rip" interchangeably).

What kind of disc are you trying to burn, data or movie? It might be worth a shot to give the built-in disc utility a try if you're trying to burn data or a disc image to a blu ray. Just because OSX doesn't natively recognize blu ray movies doesn't necessarily mean it won't recognize the format at all.

Unfortunately, Toast has the most face through a google search. If you're trying to burn blu ray movies, then RevolverHD might interest you (http://www.shedworx.com/revolverhdmac) it's got a free trial for you to take for a spin to see if it works. It might handle data, too, but at first glance it seems to be specifically for videos.

Thank you for the useful feedback, obsidian1200. I haven't purchased any writer yet as I would like to see if Lion can burn BDs directly from the Finder first. I may want to ask at my local Genius bar in case employees can actually help me with a BD-related question I would like to be able to simply burn data. I saw RevolverHD as well and with Toast they seem to be the only piece of software dedicated to burning BDs on Mac. I will take a closer look at the disc utility (am back to the Mac after years without one ). I haven't yet researched GPL options that might exist for Linux or BSD platforms and might work on Lion as well. I have found evidence that Snow Leopard can burn BDs in the Finder but have yet to find anyone doing this successfully in Lion. Would be great!

 

[Peepo]

I recommend Toast.

Here is a hint when using Toast... don't use Mac & PC when making a data Bluray. I could not get the disc to read correct in a Windows 7 PC with Bluray drive. I think the Mac & PC Hybrid format is mainly for DVDs.

Instead use UDF when making a data disc.

I burned a 22 GB video .DV file and it reads fine on Windows 7.

Also buy a BD-RE to experiment with until you get the hang of it. BD-R are expensive.

 

[jfm010]

Does anyone know if it's possible to boot from any of these drives?

 

[Nguyhen4wd]

SAMSUNG USB Combo Model SE-406AB/RSBD - $79
http://bit.ly/plqDwo

Apparently Mac compatibile according to the manual.
http://pdfs.icecat.biz/pdf/30876779-8329-manual.pdf

I bought this one recently for my mac, and when you play BR on it, the video is not fluid, every 10 seconds stops and reads the disc...someody knows how fix this ?