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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

External Blu-Ray Burner for Mac?

Shawn Nelson

Shawn Nelson

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There are several external blu ray burners being advertised as working on the Mac (if you use something like Roxio). Have any of you had success with one? I really want to make some Blu Rays of my Red short films for HD festival submission.

I'm using a 2008 Mac Pro that's been recently upgraded to Lion. I also have the CS 5.5 production suite. I thought i heard that supported blu ray authoring, but I have no idea.
 
thanks Casey!

Wait...how does Compressor generate menus? I always generate raw assets in Compressor then create menus and shit in DVDStudio Pro. Are you talking about the new FCPX compressor?

Also, does this enable you to then watch blurays on your mac? I've been wanting to take HD screen caps of certain movies for awhile!

Btw...are you going to the 70mm fest in Oct? I'm coming up for the showings on the 15/16!
 
Shawn,

In compressor when you click the blu-ray template, there is a section to create basic menus. It is definitely limited in comparison to DVD Studio Pro, however, you can import a background image as your menu and create multiple buttons. The things you cant do are place where those buttons are going to be, but, as a simple menu system that can look great ( when you add a .jpg background image ) it does the trick.

I used to be really into creating complex menus in DVD studio pro, with motion menus, animated buttons, etc,etc and it would take up huge amounts of time and then all for.... crappy SD quality playback on standard DVD's.... so I am definitely hoping for something to com up in the future that will allow better menu creation in HD, but for the time being the simple menus that can be created with Compressor to the trick.

Blu-ray watching, unfortunately no. I have to burn them and then run downstairs to my player and pop them in to check them out.

I do know that their are work arounds for playing blu-ray's off of the Buffalo reader/burner on Mac, but I havent had the time to really delve in and try any of them. They play great using a PC... but...well...then you have to use a PC ;)

70mm fest, that looks awesome! unfortunately I will be out of town prepping for filming the World Series w/ MLB.

Would love to meet up sometime though seeing we're both in the NW
 
i use an internal blu-ray burner from samsung works perfect only problem was they software it came with was for PC and its hard to find a link on samsungs website to download the proper software
 
+1 to what Jarek says. Any decent BD drive will work, it's all standard stuff. I'm putting LG and Pioneer drives in external enclosures. It saves a bit and they work just great. I'm using the BYTECC enclosures. They have a nice one with USB, FW800 and eSATA interfaces all on the same unit.

I author with Encore, but still test in regular Blu-Ray players. There's no decent player software or way to test on the Mac, which is really lame. I suppose more software would exist if BD drives were standard, rather than an aftermarket afterthought.

I've seen my Blu-Ray authoring jobs/services take a nose-dive lately. It's like the demand just fell to zero. Kinda weird. At first I thought it was a typical slump in the market, but it's been going 6+ months now. Kinda like people lost interest. Everyone wants streaming and HTML5 / iPad compatibility.

I've swapped out the SuperDrive in both my Mac Pro towers with LG internal Blu-Ray writers. works fine.
 
I have used an HP BD drive in an external enclosure by Lantec for one or two years now. Edit in Prem Pro and use dynamic link to Encore for disc authoring. Works like a charm, once you get used to Encore

Mike
 
Shawn Nelson said:
I really want to make some Blu Rays of my Red short films for HD festival submission.
...
Wait...how does Compressor generate menus?
Click to expand...

As an aside... Festivals don't want any menus, no countdown, no bars, no tone, just your program. They want to put in your disc and have your submission begin straight away. Menus cost them a lot of time and are viewed as a nuisance.

Edit:
Consider the 5000 Sundance submissions from last year. If each of them took 20 seconds to load the menu and 60 seconds to load the program, that would equal 111 hours of waiting for discs to load. That doesn't include navigation time or watching a 30 second menu loop. Add in 60 seconds of bars and tone and you are up to 236 hours of waiting or watching material that is not judgement criteria. If each submission were viewed by three judges/programmers at separate times it would cost them more than 17 40-man hour weeks of waiting before one minute of film was viewed.

My math often sucks, but it sounds like the seventh level of hell to me. ;-)
 
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Peter Lundström said:
Any good reason for lack of bluray support on the Mac...?
Click to expand...


There's no logical reason for them to have it from their point of view. Flash-based media (jump drives/SSDs) pummels the snot out of Blu-Ray, external HDDs make it look pathetic, and Apple wholeheartedly backs digital downloads using their own network services. Apple fanatics are heavily invested in iTunes downloads and streaming video services so it really isn't an issue unless the customers express serious demand for it, which they have not.
 
Last edited:
Peter Lundström said:
Any good reason for lack of bluray support on the Mac...?
Click to expand...

According to the last guy they had, the licensing of the technology was a load of 'hurt'. But everyone else manages it so yeah, I think it has at least something to do with their iTunes business model.
 
Paul S. said:
I think it has at least something to do with their iTunes business model.
Click to expand...

Yes, it might have been more difficult to negotiate with studios if BluRay authoring were iApp easy and BluRay came as a standard option.
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
I've seen my Blu-Ray authoring jobs/services take a nose-dive lately. It's like the demand just fell to zero. Kinda weird. At first I thought it was a typical slump in the market, but it's been going 6+ months now. Kinda like people lost interest. Everyone wants streaming and HTML5 / iPad compatibility.

I've swapped out the SuperDrive in both my Mac Pro towers with LG internal Blu-Ray writers. works fine.
Click to expand...

Yes, I have as well... its definitely moving in the direction of online streaming, iPad viewing, etc.

It makes sense... I was at the store a couple days ago and I thought to myself... hmm when was the last time I bought I DVD/blu-ray.... and I honestly couldnt remember. I used to buy discs all the time, but now its all about filling up hard-drives with content rather than the physical thing.. .

It's sad in a way, because I do really like the physical DVD/blu-ray, the case, booklet, etc --- I remember when I first cracked open the Lord of The Rings extended edition disc set, you just cant replace good product design & amazing DVD menus

As streaming video takes over, I pray that physical copies will still be sold... I am hoping that DVD/blu ray packaging and design moves from less standardized and more customized

CaseyW
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
+1 to what Jarek says. Any decent BD drive will work, it's all standard stuff. I'm putting LG and Pioneer drives in external enclosures. It saves a bit and they work just great. I'm using the BYTECC enclosures. They have a nice one with USB, FW800 and eSATA interfaces all on the same unit.

I author with Encore, but still test in regular Blu-Ray players. There's no decent player software or way to test on the Mac, which is really lame. I suppose more software would exist if BD drives were standard, rather than an aftermarket afterthought.

I've seen my Blu-Ray authoring jobs/services take a nose-dive lately. It's like the demand just fell to zero. Kinda weird. At first I thought it was a typical slump in the market, but it's been going 6+ months now. Kinda like people lost interest. Everyone wants streaming and HTML5 / iPad compatibility.

I've swapped out the SuperDrive in both my Mac Pro towers with LG internal Blu-Ray writers. works fine.
Click to expand...

Thanks Jeff! I should just do that. I just found out my Mac Pro tower's internal superdrive can no longer burn anything, so I have little to lose here. What LG did you put in? Did the Mac have the right drivers?
This is the only LG internal BluRay burner that NewEgg sells, but the LG site doesnt list Mac OS compatibility http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136226
Specifically, which LG internal did you succeed in replacing the superdrive with?
 
Shawn Nelson said:
Thanks Jeff! I should just do that. I just found out my Mac Pro tower's internal superdrive can no longer burn anything, so I have little to lose here. What LG did you put in? Did the Mac have the right drivers?
This is the only LG internal BluRay burner that NewEgg sells, but the LG site doesnt list Mac OS compatibility http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136226
Specifically, which LG internal did you succeed in replacing the superdrive with?
Click to expand...

You can pretty much plop anything in there and it will work but the latest OS release is very quirky when it comes to adding things so you may have to delete some system configurations to reset the OS in order to get the drive to be recognized. Upgrading the drive's firmware is also a good idea but you will need a Windows PC to do that for most drives. Also, be aware that Blu-Ray burners are very picky about the media they will burn on a model-by-model basis so do your research before you buy. If you look at the offerings from OWC, you can find the same models on Newegg for cheaper, so give that a try.
 
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