Need advice on best option for Blu-Ray authoring

I have a client who is wanting his show authored and burned onto Blu-ray and up until now all the HD workflow I've done has been computer driven h264 files (by that I mean files that will either be played or manipulated strictly on a computer)

I believe have most of the tools (Adobe Encore CS6, Toast Titanium 11), and am amazed that the prices have gone down quite a bit on drives and media, but would love advice on what to get in terms of the latter.

I am currently on an 2008 MacPro (just counting the days and keeping the fingers crossed for an upgrade). 2X2.8 Quad Core Xenon, 14GB of RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 card.

what external drive would work best with my system? And is there any preference on media (is Verbatim a good choice?)

Thanks for real world advice

kohlson said:

You may want to consider carefully an external drive. You are squirting lots of data (25GB?) out a very slow port. I swapped an LG BD into my 2009 Mac Pro, and it works well. The first BR disc I burned was to the same drive, but in an external USB enclosure (I know, FW would have been better). 16 hours. Admittedly, this was encoding and burning, but the USB2 connection was easily the slowest part of the workflow.

Click to expand...

What LG BD drive did you get? Only reason I'm wary of getting an internal at this point is that if/when the new MacPro comes out....want at least a possibility of being able to use it

I noticed...OWC has them even on Holiday sale.

Only odd thing is that OWC doesn't have a Blu-ray internal as an option for Early 2008 (and Googling for advice on Blu-Ray and MacPro is an exercise in frustration...most info is from 2010 or earlier or is merely bitching about the lack of Blu-ray support in Mac...)

But the page for this drive:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/LG/WH14NS40MP/

Says "no matter what MacPro you have..."

Any reason why this wouldn't work in my model? I can not believe how low the prices on drives and media have dropped since I last looked...