What is the cheapest way to play Blu-ray on OS-X?

So far I have only come across this external player -

http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10867

and it's not cheap!!

BD readers aren't cheap. Have you tried EB? Do you want just a reader or a writer as well? How about this? Reads/writes BD and reads HD DVD disks but you'll need to buy an external enclosure.

A reader would be just fine. I just want to make as much use of the 24 inches of iMac goodness I have...Blu-ray seems the best way to do it. However, like you said, it ain't cheap unfortunately!

There are cheap ones..

http://www.google.com/products?q=bluray+dr...Search+Products

I dont think there are any players for Mac.. There are software players for Windows

Blue-ray players are not cheap at all nowadays. My tip to people asking is to buy a Playstation 3 and play blue-ray that way.

Main reason I got a PS3 was for Blu Ray so its deff. worth it!

I need a drive to play Blu-ray movies on my iMac...that's the whole point (as it's 24in)

With all due respect, I don't understand why you would want an external blue-ray player as you will not get the full HD benefits. Nonetheless, I still advice the Playstation 3 as it will always be able to get updated (firmware to work with latest blue-ray updates) and it's the "one of the cheapest" players out there.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but how would he not be getting the "full HD benefits"??

I saw a bluray burner today for 200 euro. an internal one, though. can't they be put inside an enclosure and serve the purpose?

To OP: Unfortunately even though the drive is marked as Mac OS, it says it only includes writing software, not playpack for Mac OS. Far as I know there really isn't anything at all to play Blu-Ray on Mac OS.

I love how Apple backs Blu-ray but not drives yet for their systems nor software for other solutions. Several PC manufactures offer Blu-ray additions to their systems.

I'm probably missing the point myself but how will he get full HD when he doesn't have a HD port on his mac?

The 24 inch iMac has a 1920x1200 resolution which is the 16:10 version of 1080p. So he'll be fine in that area.

Now, if there isn't BD playback software for OS X, there is for Windows, so at least he has that.

The only thing I'm not sure about is the HDCP. The iMac being basically a huge laptop surely has a digital connection with the monitor. According to this, there's HDCP support http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/al...he-new-imac.ars

However, if I'm not mistaken, the ICT flag is still not in use, it's the players (software or hardware) that are anal about the lack of HDCP, since the discs don't enforce the hdcp check.

I don’t know if you can change the internal DVD drives on Macs? some look like everything is built in to the screen. If you can why not have a look at this: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130747

You could always put this in a USB caddy if you have no way of putting it inside your Mac.

Quite cheap at £100 too

You might need something like Toast Titanium 8 to enable your Mac to read and write to BD discs.

Click to view attachment


I am assuming though that Leopard's DVD Player has read support since there is a preference for HD video.

Click to view attachment

That's what I was thinking... I'll take a look into the Toast app. Thanks...

Toast is only going to do what it says, read or write BD discs, it still will not let you playback BD movies. If Apple included that capability in DVD Player you'd see alot more options, than just those two from what I've see with PowerDVD for Windows. The fact is the way Steve Jobs supports BD movies is through the movie studios, not on the Mac's yet.

Won't VLC playback BD?

Nope

Simple! DVI to HDMI conversion cables. That is how I connect my MacBook to my Sony Bravia. (HDTVs also make kick-ass monitors
the XtremeHD cable is the cheapest I know of:
http://www.xtrememac.com/xtremehd/dvi/index.php

You will also need a seperate audio cable, optical or analog depending on your sound hardware (modern Macs support both with the same jack)

that much for a blu ray player. ouch. Just get an LG BD/HD-DVD reader for 150 and by a caddie for it, much cheaper.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/23/kevin-r...-digs-for-more/

Apple would have to implement some kind of encrypted video path first, in order to meet the Blu-ray spec, no?

I believe so. Blu-ray video is h.264 (created by apple) so I think blu-ray encryption is the only reason you can't play blu-ray movies on a mac yet.

Yes it would be a bit cheaper, and if apple doesn't add software support soon I'll probably do just that. I would still be nice to have the portability of playing blu-ray on my laptop though.

h.264 was not created by apple, blu-ray also uses VC-1 and mpeg-2, and it's the encryption of the signal to the display that they have to guarantee (using HDCP), not the encryption of the movies themselves, I think. I guess the whole ICT flag was a myth, since no player allows playback of HD signals without hdcp... unless it's illegal!

There is a way but its a bit long winded, youd have to install Windows XP in Bootcamp then use XP to rip the disc then demux the video and audio using TSMuxer, extract AC3 stream using EAC3TO then remux the video and audio in a .TS container using TSMuxer, the resulting file should play fine in VLC.

he's better off installing Vista and using it to playback those blu-ray movies, until the day OS X will support blu-ray. much simpler.

Probably, just thought it worth mentioning if he wanted to keep a copy on the drive for watching later/whenever he wanted.

how many GB would that kinda movie take? about 30GBs?

Depends, if you choose the video and 1 audio file it can range anywhere from 12Gb to 35Gb

How good can this external blu-ray work in an iMac?