Which external BR drive for ripping

I received this today: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151239

I'm ripping Blurays right now, this drive is very quiet, compact, and works great on a Mac. I'm using it on a Mini Server with a single USB cable. My Bluray flow is rip to hdd with Make MKV, and play them with Plex or Boxee. I am going to try compressing the rips with HandBrake as the files are enormous and I will run out of space quick!

I went with this as I wanted a burner. Also, it was a plus that this setup is faster than the pre-cased slimline drives available.

LG Black 12X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 12X DVD-RAM 10X BD-ROM 4MB Cache SATA Super Multi WH12LS30 LightScribe Support - OEM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136226

Macally CM-S525U Plastic 5.25" White USB 2.0 Optical Drive Enclosure

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817347024

Total price for both when I bought them was $101.97, shipped from Newegg (included a free BD re-writable disc).

Wasn't real crazy about the white case but, every review for the more expensive aluminum cases made them all sound like garbage. I've read and heard good things about the Macally case (plus, it was one of the cheapest sata 5.25" cases available).

The case won't be delivered til thursday so I'll post back how it works once I get it set up.

this works great for me
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151222

i use makemkv and handbrake.

habe said:

The case won't be delivered til thursday so I'll post back how it works once I get it set up.

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Newegg doesn't say that the burner is Mac compatible. Is it?

Vasja said:

Hi,

I have a Mac mini server and I'm looking for an external BR (blu-ray) and DVD drive combo fro rip-ing my collection of DVDs, CDs and Blu-Ray discs.

I want to use them on my Apple Tv and iPad...

Any recommendation for best drive for money and best software (I'm avare of automation thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/805573/).

p.s. - preferably I'd use it on Mac OS X (only if needed on my Parallels Win XP), but I do not intend a dual boot setup!

Vasja

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I use the LG BE12LU30 Super Multi Blue - BD-RE drive and have used it to rip my entire, fairly large BluRay and DVD collection.

It works flawlessly in Windows and Mac OSX without the need for additional drivers.

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majordude said:

Newegg doesn't say that the burner is Mac compatible. Is it?

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There is no reason why any burner would not be compatible.

LaCie Silm Blu-ray
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10539

Works for me. USB bus powered so its portable. I rip to storage drive then disconnect and hide away.

shortcut3d said:

LaCie Silm Blu-ray
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10539

Works for me. USB bus powered so its portable. I rip to storage drive then disconnect and hide away.

Click to expand...

And double the price of the LG.

Similar question here: considering a Blu Ray burner for 2011 Mini, mainly to save photos and HD videos from our Nikon camera and be able to play them on our HDTV through PS3 or Samsung Blu Ray. I've tried saving a few videos to flash drive but the PS3 won't play them, despite supposedly being able to (per the specs of the Nikon and PS3 compatible files). Afraid to spend a lot of $ on Blu Ray burner (considering OTC or Lacie) if I won't be able to play the videos through our TV. Anyone thoughts or comments? Thanks.

majordude said:

Newegg doesn't say that the burner is Mac compatible. Is it?

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From what I've read, there should be no issues running in bootcamped Win 7, which is mainly what I'll be doing when ripping and converting blurays.

I've read mixed things about usage in OSX with this drive. I seem to remember that the drives started working fine after one of the Leopard updates or, it's fine under Lion. Can't remember which. Iirc, it was an issue with burners not always working while BD readers almost always worked....... IDK, anyway.....

I already had the drive so, as long as it works bootcamped, I don't care. If it absolutely doesn't work under OSX, I may buy another drive.

I'll try and report back Friday night once I get it up and running.

habe

Yeah, I am looking for a Mac only solution (using Toast).

http://www.amazon.com/Blu-Ray-USB-E...2Y9S/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1320338476&sr=8-2

I use this. I was a little hesitant to purchase at first since it's no-name brand and looks a little sketchy, but I decided to give it a try since I looked at the reviews which indicated it uses Matshita drives like Apple OEM. Only complaint is that it is only a 2x reader, but it was also cheaper than the other options and I don't do a lot of ripping so it's not a big issue for me.

So far no problems. Have copied BRs with no problems either in OSX or Windows (not bootcamp, but a windows PC). Also works great on both machines with just the single USB cable, although a 2nd USB power cable is provided if needed. Looks better than some of the other suggested options although I won't see it much anyways. I actually leave it hooked up to my mac mini though since I have no real reason not to, and the setup of my desk is such that I don't even see my mac mini or this external drive.

For software I use MakeMKV which has worked great so far. I don't recompress, just use direct playback. I also played with the streaming functions of MakeMKV which work but not quite seamlessly. I noticed that it waits too long to start refilling the buffer so every time the buffer runs out it will skip the video as the drive waits to spin up again. I'd rather it just start copying the whole disc to the HD while playing. But this is more of a software complaint rather than a problem with my BR drive.

If this isn't too off topic for the thread, how fast of a Mac do you need, to playback the rips?

habe said:

LG Black 12X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 12X DVD-RAM 10X BD-ROM 4MB Cache SATA Super Multi WH12LS30 LightScribe Support - OEM

plus

Macally CM-S525U Plastic 5.25" White USB 2.0 Optical Drive Enclosure

Click to expand...

majordude said:

Newegg doesn't say that the burner is Mac compatible. Is it?

Click to expand...

Just got it set up. Works perfect in OSX Lion from what I can tell. Recognizes and plays CD's, DVD's. Recognizes Bluray discs.

No drivers needed, plug-n-play....

I'm ripping one of my BD's right now with MakeMKV and have about 10 minutes left. It seems to be working fine.

If I have any issues, I'll post back. Considering the speed of the drive and it's a burner, not bad for around $100 bucks total shipped from Newegg.

UPDATE: This drive works perfectly under OSX Lion and Win 7 with CD, DVD and Bluray discs.

note: I will probably modify and flash new firmware for the drive with MCSE to increase rip speeds as I believe the drive is riplocked for speed. Although this drive number isn't officially list, the firmware that is on the drive is supported according to the MCSE site.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135251

That's the one I've been using for a month now. Plus the $20 mail in rebate is a great deal. Works great. Have ripped at least 30 bluray movies and quite a few DVDs. Rips a bluray with makemkv in about 30 minutes usually. Sometimes a little less. I then use handbrake which does take a long 3-4 hours on my base model but it works really good. Using handbrake converting to 720p movies come out to about 2-3gb md look great. Largest so far I think was avatar that finished at a little over 5gb. A 1080p conversion comes out around 5-8gb in general.

powerbook911 said:

If this isn't too off topic for the thread, how fast of a Mac do you need, to playback the rips?

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Depends entirely on the movie (res/codec/bitrate). My 2.26 Core2Duo can cope with most BDs (AVC and VC1) until about 25mbit/s, then things get a bit iffy. Don't have any MPEG2 BDs to test.

Any i3/i5/i7 mac should have no problem decoding BDs.

What software do you use to play back your rips? I have had a lot of trouble with playing back some of my BD rips, even with my more modern 2011 mini server. It also seems to come down to software and the codecs used on the disc. Unfortunately it seems from what I can gather, that there are very few choices for software playback on Macs and for some videos, playback isn't even really possible without transcoding.

I seem to have picked up the single most difficult collection of BDs to rip and play back- the BBC Natural History collections. It contains a mix of video formats and codecs including 1080i VC-1 (which is unplayable on any software which uses ffmpeg, which basically means all playback software out there, windows and mac) which I had to transcode using specialized software on Windows just to be able to watch them. Some videos won't even open in Plex, crashing the program when they do. Otherwise they load but don't play back smoothly, and cause my fan to spin out of control. Sometimes VLC will open the videos, but again unsmooth playback (VLC does not have multithreading nor hardware acceleration). It seems to be the 1080i files that give me the most trouble, in addition to the 1080i VC-1 problems, I also have some of these BDs that are H264/AVC 1080i which also won't play on Plex at at all, or have choppy playback on VLC.

I had a lot more success with a more traditional title, which was encoded in H264 1080P which ripped and played back just fine in both VLC and Plex. I actually was able to stream it direct from the BD with no problems, something I had trouble with on some of the BBC BDs. Seems like most mainstream movies are encoded using H264 so most people don't have any trouble with playback, but if you get some nonstandard stuff it can be a real pain.

Ruahrc

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Fwiw I have ripped Planet Earth BD from the BBC using Makemkv and playback on Plex works great. I'm not sure how those discs are encoded though.

AuroraProject said:

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Fwiw I have ripped Planet Earth BD from the BBC using Makemkv and playback on Plex works great. I'm not sure how those discs are encoded though.

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1080p VC1 according to Bluray.com

RByers89 said:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135251

That's the one I've been using for a month now. Plus the $20 mail in rebate is a great deal. Works great. Have ripped at least 30 bluray movies and quite a few DVDs. Rips a bluray with makemkv in about 30 minutes usually. Sometimes a little less. I then use handbrake which does take a long 3-4 hours on my base model but it works really good. Using handbrake converting to 720p movies come out to about 2-3gb md look great. Largest so far I think was avatar that finished at a little over 5gb. A 1080p conversion comes out around 5-8gb in general.

Click to expand...

a little off topic, but i received this slim blu-ray drive and plugged it in to my 2011 mac mini and 2011 mba, neither machine will recognize it. I went to asus's website which it states asus only supports windows software for this drive. Is there anything I am missing? I have checked the dvd,cd iPod slot to show up on finder? I've also opened makemkv and it does not see the drive or dvd in the drive.

Update: So I switched out the mini usb cable that came with an old cable lying around and the drive was recognized by my computers. I guess I have a bad cable.

Has anyone tried the ASUS SBW 06C1SU, which is combo drive with dual layer BR writing capabilities?

Since people above have stated using the combo drive was working for them, I'm assuming this should to. I run windows 7 (no OSX). More interested in digitizing some movies, and backup up pictures and what not. Not too concerned about direct blu ray disc playback, although I may flirt with it here and there; I have a blu ray player, but mainly play ripped media.

I'm wanting to stay under $100 mark. I"m seeing this drive in price ranges anywhere from $90 to $120. ASUS is doing a $20 mail in rebate too, which makes it more reasonable in price, and may be hard to beat with buying a drive and enclosure, and have BR DL writing capabilities.

Received this last week:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001QA2Y9S/ref=oh_o06_s00_i00_details

Now on sale for $66. Works great!!!