Blu Ray drive for Mac Pro (1 Viewer)

[AcesHighStudios]

Nelson, for the record, when I bought my LG Blu-ray burner, it was the ONLY ONE on the market that worked with Mac at the time. Everything else only worked with Windows. So naturally, things have surely changed over time, and if I were in the market to buy a new one today, it would most likely be a Pioneer.

 

[jcroy]

You and Jr and others seem ok with the LG drive. I was leaning to a Pioneer. I can see that they can have a short life from all the use, so a fancy expensive one might not be advantageous.

The main going against Pioneer dvd/bluray drives, is that they're not widely available. In fact the last internal model that didn't play 4Kbluray discs was discontinued almost a year ago, with no new model replacing it on the market. They seem to be very irregular over the past decade or so.

In contrast, LG's internal dvd/bluray drives are widely available (include rebadges such as Asus).

 

[jcroy]

Josh, interesting how you set up your play back of the files after ripping. As I’ve said, I like the convenience of my iTunes library I created. I rip my CDs and none of the music is from iTunes. So for the movies, I can see a straight rip from MKV will be big. What is big? 20GB? The Star Trek TMP I bought from iTunes was 5.3GB. So I imagine that after a file is made, handbrake can convert the file into one that iTunes can read, which might reduce it a bit. Or I like what you’re doing, I could set up a large hard drive. I have an Oppo as well, and play the MKV files through the Oppo as you do. That is neat.

Some el cheapo standalone dvd/bluray players can play *.vob,*.m2ts, or mkv files on a flash drive or external hard drive plugged into the usb port on the front of the player. For example, my $50 standalone Sony bluray player from 2015 can do this.

YMMV.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I can see a straight rip from MKV will be big. What is big? 20GB?

Some are more, some are less, but that seems to be in the ballpark. You can save some space by eliminating audio tracks you’ll never use - I’ve been keeping commentaries but ditching foreign language dubs. But yeah, it’s gonna be space intensive. But I figure that a few large hard drives plugged in together is still a smaller footprint than everything on shelves in my living room, so I’m probably coming out ahead. And not having those shelves to display every single thing will give my wife and I more options whenever we decide to move to our next place. So it’s sort of a long term project that I hope will pay off in ways big and small over the years.

My immediate priority though is more on ripping DVD than BD. DVDs take up more shelf space than BD because of their larger cases, but because they hold less data, they take up much less hard drive space. So that’ll be a big win for me - freeing up the largest chunk of shelf space with a smaller hard drive.

And PS just about anything can play MKV, you don’t have to go expensive for that. My Roku has a slot for a USB drive and can play them, our TV can play them directly, the discount LG disc player from 2011 in the bedroom can play them. Other than iOS devices support is very widespread.

 

[jcroy]

Instead of using a device like roku, standalone dvd/bluray players, flash drives, etc .... I've been using a late-2015 era bottom of the line computer as an "htpc" to play my dvd (or bluray) rips, which I paid around $200 at the time.

This machine also serves as my primary dvd/bluray ripping machine.

Currently I have several seasons of Criminal Minds and NCIS on this "htpc" computer, which is connected to a flatscreen tv via hdmi.

I mostly use VLC for viewing these *.vob (dvd) or *.m2ts (bluray) rips. For movies, I prefer to use media player classic with the madVR renderer.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

At some point I will most likely be moving to a dedicated machine for a HTPC. But for now, the goal is simply to start ripping the collection to have the material ready for the next step. I do appreciate that the Oppo and other devices I already have allow me the chance to test out the MKVs.

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks so much everyone for the input. I agree Josh about just having several large hard drives to store all those large files.

I really thought a Pioneer drive would be a lot more robust over the LG. So interesting pluses and minuses for both drive makers. As a start, just to get me into this and experiment, I can just get a drive that will play blu ray and see how this goes.

Thanks again!

 

[jcroy]

In terms of computer bluray drives, I have several where I primarily use the internal Pioneer drive for checking newly purchased bluray discs for manufacturing defects. I just extract the iso from bluray discs without running any decrypting programs.

The times I want to extract the bluray movie into an *.m2ts or mkv file, I usually use an LG (or Asus) bluray drive.

If I need a second/third opinon about a particular bluray disc, I'll fire up one of the Samsung bluray drives.

 

[jcroy]

When I started buying a lot of bluray movie discs in 2011, I was mostly using Samsung bluray drives. Back then LiteOn, Sony, and Panasonic were still making their own bluray computer drives too. (I reget not buying any of these older bluray drive models).

(Before 2011, I had very little to no interest in dvd and bluray).

As far as I can tell from experience and reading technical tests on manyvarious bluray drives, I get the impression many of these older bluray drives were "riplocked". By "riplock", the drive is not reading the discs at its maximum speed, usually done deliberately to make it less compelling for ripping bluray or dvd discs.

For example on my Samsung bluray drives, it usually took around 45-50 minutes to rip a 45-50 gigabytes sized bluray disc to an iso (such as the original + prequel Star War trilogies blurays). On my Pioneer or LG internal drives, these same 50 gigabytes sized bluray discs only took 30 minutes to rip the isos.

 

[jcroy]

As far as I can tell from experience and reading technical tests on manyvarious bluray drives, I get the impression many of these older bluray drives were "riplocked". By "riplock", the drive is not reading the discs at its maximum speed, usually done deliberately to make it less compelling for ripping bluray or dvd discs.

As a very strange example, one of my Asus LG rebadged bluray drives will play bluray discs at the maximum speed. Though when it came to playing dvd discs, this same drive did not play dvd discs at the maximum speed. It only played dvd discs at 8x speed. (The maximum speed for dvd discs is usually 12x for dual layer dvd discs).

 

[jcroy]

My immediate priority though is more on ripping DVD than BD. DVDs take up more shelf space than BD because of their larger cases, but because they hold less data, they take up much less hard drive space. So that’ll be a big win for me - freeing up the largest chunk of shelf space with a smaller hard drive.

Many years ago when I was buying a lot of blurays, I always used a separate dvd drive for ripping my dvds.

My rationale for this back then, was to minimize the wear and tear on my bluray drives. Basically using the bluray drive for bluray discs only, while using a separate independent dvd drive for ripping / burning dvds and audio cd discs. I had no issues about the dvd drive burning out or malfunctioning, where I could just replace it with a new dvd drive for $20.

With many drive manufacturers exiting the bluray drive market, I'm somewhat reluctant about using my bluray drives for ripping / burning dvd and cd discs.

 

[jcroy]

This may sound really dumb, but I'll mention it anyways.

Whenever I end up buying some tv season dvd sets at a nearby wallyworld, I'll also drop by the computer store on the same strip. For whatever silly reasons, I sometimes also buy a new $20 dvd drive if there is a more recent manufacturing date and/or firmware update (or "service code") .

(LG manufactured drives will frequently list the firmware version and service code explicitly on the sticker on top of the drive. For just about everybody else, at minimum the manufacturing date will be printed on the sticker on the drive).

In addition to ripping my newly purchased dvds, one of my other hobbies is figuring out changes in current dvd drive models on the market.

 

[jcroy]

In my experience over the past 4-5 years or so, LG and Samsung manufactured dvd drives were relatively consistent. (That is before Samsung/Toshiba's operation filed for banrkuptcy for the latter).

In contrast, LiteOn manufactured dvd drives varied considerably. Even models with the exact same catalog + revision numbers, but different manufacturing dates and even different manufacturing facilities. (LiteOn dvd drives appear to be manufactured in at least three different factory facilities, which are printed on the drive's sticker in a very cryptic nondescript manner).

 

[DaveF]

Hey guys, you’ve given me a lot to consider. I even looked up the internal drives to install in a case as was suggested above or in the Mac Pro itself.

JR, to answer your question is entering an area where the home theater forum rules discourage. Let’s say I want to be able to back up my blu ray films into digital files. This is my main interest. I’m not going to try to watch a blu ray movie on my Mac or use it as an HTPC via a blu ray drive. With physical media going the way of the dinosaur, I wanted to look into preserving my investment.

By the way, your post about the LG drives gave me some good insight as I was leaning towards a Pioneer drive.

In that case I would look into "UHD friendly" drives. Because if you want to backup blu-rays, you probably also have 4K discs you want to backup. With my older LG drive, with its older firmware, I can also add UHD discs to my media library. I'm not up on the current state of things: previously you had to have a drive with an older (pre 1.03) firmware, which I serendipitously had. But I don't think it's so restrictive now, and AnyDVD and MakeMKV and others I think have worked through some UHD reading challenges.

So: If you were just doing writeable discs for data stuff, any drive is fine. But if you're dipping your toes into the world of media PC stuff, even just making backups, I recommend looking into UHD-capable drives before buying.

Of course, if you don't own any 4K discs, will never buy any 4K discs, then nevermind

 

[DaveF]

Most of my interest in this, is in figuring how various extra basketcase drm schemes function on dvd or bluray discs. So figuring out which sectors are unreadable, tells me a lot about how the drm scheme functions.

Nevertheless if you take good care of your dvd/bluray discs and are not accumulating any heavy damage, then it wouldn't really matter which dvd/bluray drive one uses (whether LG or Pioneer).

jr, you've written extensively about this in other threads. I ask you not further take this thread down this rabbit hole. Thanks.

 

[jcroy]

Of course, if you don't own any 4K discs, will never buy any 4K discs, then nevermind

Hypothetically If I were to ever jump onto the 4Kbluray treadmill, most likely the only discs I would buy would be Star Wars movies.

In more recent times, I've found that I would rather watch recent/current Star Wars movies at weekday matinee screenings at a local theater. (Usally whenever I get a day off).

When I watch the same recent Star Wars movies on a large 4K screen (usually at a friend's place), it doesn't seem as exciting nor interesting anymore to me. I haven't quite figured out what exactly is "missing", compared to the matinee theater screenings with a very small audience.

 

[jcroy]

In a more general sense, I've been finding that for the movies I watched in theatrical screenings, the dvd/bluray/4K viewings don't seem as exciting / interesting to me anymore. This is completely independent of the genre for me, whether it is fantasy/scifi (such as Star Wars) or a romcom (such as Crazy Rich Asians).

Besides burnout, I suspect this ^ is also a big primary reason as to why I haven't been buying as many blurays and haven't jumped onto the 4Kbluray treadmill.

Going to the theater is more recent thing for me. Previously I didn't go to the theater at all for over 15 years.

 

[Thomas Newton]

I'm confused.

So if I put in a bad disc into an LG drive, I will get content, but some of it is incorrect.

But if I put in a bad disc into a Pioneer drive, it returns an error. So the disc is essentially a coaster because the drive won't read it. How is this better?

It's better to know that your data is toast, than to think that your data is OK when it isn't. If you know that the copy of your data on a particular DVD-R disc is toast, then you might go looking for a good copy on one of your backups, instead of just using the bad one.

 

[jcroy]

It's better to know that your data is toast, than to think that your data is OK when it isn't. If you know that the copy of your data on a particular DVD-R disc is toast, then you might go looking for a good copy on one of your backups, instead of just using the bad one.

Definitely.

So far I have only encountered this "bulldozing" behavior on LG dvd/bluray drives, when it comes to dvd/bluray discs with video content.

For dvd or bluray data discs with no video content, I have been unable to trigger this "bulldozing" behavior deliberately.

My speculation is that LG dvd/bluray drives look for a particular signature which would indicate that a particular sequence of sectors consists of video content. (There's several different ways of doing this). In the absence of any video content indicators, the LG dvd/bluray drive may very well be turning off the "bulldozing" algorithm completely.

 

[Nelson Au]

Dave, I do own a small number of UHD discs. Though for now, my display isn’t 4K, I expect to upgrade at some point soon. If two of my favorite franchises do release 4K discs, then it induce me to make the upgrade. So it makes sense to find a blu ray drive that can read UHD discs.

On a related subject, in an article on MacWorld the author said he uses Plex as his software to organize and play the MKV files he created from his blu ray and DVD’s. Or you can convert the file with handbrake for iTunes friendly files. This sort of messes with my head as I like to use iTunes. But if I read it right, Plex can be installed in an Apple TV and then pull the files from a Mac to play. So that adds a second app that can play the MKV files which is nice and convenient.