All things Blu-ray on Mac Pro.

During the HD format war I remember there were several tit-for-tat news releases as one side had added layers to make an even bigger disc, only to be trumped a couple of months later by the other side. Nevertheless, it was always in the R&D lab, it was always a few years away, and it was never compatible with existing hardware players and recorders.

I used to back up to optical media, starting many years ago with CD-R, then transitioning to DVD and DVD DL. I briefly flirted with BD, but the truth is that I've given up on optical. HDDs are so much cheaper and strangely enough, despite being much more complicated, are also much more reliable. Much of my old optical media has experienced some sort of bit rot or laser rot and is now unreadable, despite looking perfect to the eye (no scratches or physical damage). HDDs are also faster and larger. With anti-static cases and a dock like the Voyager Q, I find bare drives to be the best solution for me.

The end result of all this is that my BD burner has been demoted to a simple BD movie player now and hardly gets used at all.

I admit 1TB BDs at $3ea would be tempting, but I'm not sure it's enough to overcome my past experience of laser/bit rot, which is a powerful warning to me.

For me it would be video mostly, although creating iso's of a back up or clone, would be interesting too.
I have seen 80GB disks for about $4.00. Even at that level I'm in! Just not yet.
We do have shops that sell blu-ray movies, Netflix rents them for a premium too.
I can see how the record speed can be an issue, I would create batches, once large enough I would then burn them.
I think BR still fills a niche, thumb drives just don't have the life span, or speed IMHO.
HDD's can't sit on a shelf for as long and still play as well either (caps dry out in time)
I think the cost of them scared off the general public at first. Now they are reasonable.
It will be interesting to see the replies here.

All burnable disks are sensitive to sunlight over time, storing them in the dark is the best way.

Blu-Ray usage

Brand: LG 14X from OWL
Media: JVC White Printable from Discmakers (6x, 25GB single sided)
Use: Blu-Ray video on client request (about 25% request BR, the rest are OK with DVD)
Authoring: simple Compressor V4 with auto generated chapter menus and my own motion background (trick: export short video to motion jpeg or similar, change extension to JPG: Compressor will accept that and generate a motion background instead of one if its defaults for Blu-Ray. Does not work for DVD, but I use DVD STudio Pro for that anyway).
I don't use Blu-Ray for backup
Playback: Mac Blu-Ray Player 2.8.6
Rentals Netflix, but I don't do that; I purchase BRD movies when I want high definition, extras, and great audio.
Apple will not likely adopt Blu-Ray; I wish they would in Mac Pro's, but I stopped holding my breath when DVD Studio Pro was eliminated.
Blu-Ray is a teriffic technology IF you want or need nigher definition than Net movies can provide (yet), with better audio, and extra features. At $20-$30 (US), the prices for movies are reasonable. A typical movie on BRD at 24P is almost 50GB, and with extant bandwidth limitations and speeds in the US, they are a serious option for those who want or need what Blu-Ray provides.

But for viewing on my computer, Net stuff is OK until Comcast re-implements their bandwidth limitation (was 250GB/mo, now suspended: that like 5 BR quality movies!) I can exceed that limit easily if I use DirecTV,Apple iTunes or Netflix for HD movies, even in their overly compressed format. If I were to use NetFlix as my daily viewer for regular TV stuff, I'd blow through that limit in a couple of weeks, easy. Oh, well, <soapbox off.>

Also, I like owning the physical media, so it's there when I want it.

Downside, is that other than PS3, the set top players are SLOW to load up the Java stuff used for the menus and extra features. Sony should make a stripped PS3 for JUST video, but it would likely cost the same as a PS3 anyway. PS3's run too hot to put in a stereo cabinet.

Better solutions will be invented, probably sooner rather than later. 4K and 60fps progressive mean more data that BluRay can reasonably contain, and certainly more than the Net provides in the US soon. Maybe the net will get there first, I don't know. But multi layer (up to 8) Blu-Ray disc technology has been tried. We'll see where it goes. But Apple is out of the picture as far as I can tell.

edoates said:

[...] Better solutions will be invented, probably sooner rather than later. 4K and 60fps progressive mean more data that BluRay can reasonably contain, and certainly more than the Net provides in the US soon. Maybe the net will get there first, I don't know. But multi layer (up to 8) Blu-Ray disc technology has been tried. We'll see where it goes. But Apple is out of the picture as far as I can tell.

Click to expand...

BDXL are 100 - 128 GB and with H.265 it will probably fit on a BD. The only problem is reading fast enough the BD for the playback as 1x is 4.5 MB/s...

What do you use BR for primarily? Archive Data
Which media (brand) do you find the best and why? The Cheap ones, usually kodak or optical
What size media do you use most often and why? 25gig - price
Which drives are the best, (most popular, technically the best, best price/performance)? I like LG the best - 5.25 drives
What kind of throughput speeds do you get for writing and reading with your drive model? mostly 4x and 6x - better price for the slow ones
Would you personally recommend BR as a backup solution - either supplementary or exclusively? Yes and Yes.
What software do you use to write with? Toast
What software do you use for playback?
Are BR movies available for rent or sale in your neck of the woods?
Is BR Media available in your local shops? If so in what sizes and for how much? Frys or online
Do you think or hope that Apple should include a BR with MP as standard or as an option in the future? Yes

The only time I ever fire up my Blu-ray drive anymore is to watch the occasional movie or burn a disc for a client that insists on having a Blu-ray instead of an H.264 file. Outside of that, optical media is pretty much dead to me.

With Blu-ray, you can only get fast burns on the most expensive media (no thanks) and the authoring tools on the Mac side are terrible... You have Toast, which works fine if all you want is something simple with template-based menus. And then you have Encore, which I would like a WHOLE lot better if it weren't so darned buggy. All the good authoring tools are on the Windows side and the best ones cost a bazillion dollars.


But to answer your questions...

What do you use BR for primarily?
Watching movies (rare, as I rather do it on my TV) and burning the occasional BD movie for a client.

Which media (brand) do you find the best and why?
Verbatim. To me, their discs seem to perform the most consistently.

What size media do you use most often and why?
Single-layer (25GB). Larger capacity discs are prohibitively expensive to use in most situations.

Which drives are the best, (most popular, technically the best, best price/performance)?
I've used both Pioneer and LG. I don't really have an opinion on what's best between the two because they both seem to perform about the same.

What kind of throughput speeds do you get for writing and reading with your drive model?
With most media, about 6-8x is the maximum write speed I ever see on single-layer BD-Rs, and that only really happens on the outer edges of the discs. About 3-4x average seems typical. My only guess is that you need really, really good media to see anything close to the 10x+ speeds these newer drives are capable of doing.

Would you personally recommend BR as a backup solution - either supplementary or exclusively?
Doubt it. As mentioned earlier in this thread by ActionableMango, hard drives are simply cheaper, faster and more reliable than burned optical media is.

What software do you use to write with?
Toast and Encore.

What software do you use for playback?
I use this little program called Mac Blu-ray Player for movie playback. To my knowledge, it's still the only playback app available on the Mac that does AACS key decryption (which you need to play commercial discs). MakeMKV is great (and free) if you're ripping to disk.

Are BR movies available for rent or sale in your neck of the woods?
In the US, they're available in abundance for sale. For rent, Redbox (rental kiosks) does have them. Most (if not all) of the Blockbuster rental stores are out of business, so no more brick and mortar renting, at least not in my neck of the woods.

Is BR Media available in your local shops? If so in what sizes and for how much?
Again, readily available at most electronics stores here. The prices vary a lot, but generally speaking, single-layer BD-Rs are around $1.50-2.00 per disc (in bulk, on spindles) for decent brands. I haven't checked a lot recently what the rewritable and multi-layer types cost these days because I never really use them.

Do you think or hope that Apple should include a BR with MP as standard or as an option in the future?
Should they? Maybe. But they should have started doing this years ago (Steve Jobs was very vocal in his resistance to the "big bag of hurt"). By now, I think they're totally convinced that optical media is dead (and they're mostly right), as evidenced by most of the MacBook models and the new iMacs, which lack internal optical drives. I wouldn't be shocked if the next Mac Pro doesn't ship with one.

Do you think BR is a failed technology?
Yes and no. At least for movies, I think the main reason why Blu-ray hasn't caught on as quickly as intended is because it's not as dramatic of a difference to most consumers as the transition from VHS to DVD was. But on the flip side of this coin, it's really the only game in town if you care about having the best picture quality. Most commercial Blu-ray movies are encoded at 20 Mbps or greater, whereas most streaming HD content is compressed down to 5-8 Mbps. These differences are very noticeable on good displays. But this gap will slowly close (and it's already starting to), as higher-speed Internet bandwidth becomes more readily available to consumers. I'd be willing to bet that BD will be the last optical disc standard for movie distribution. License-based content streaming is eminent, and the major studios will push it.

I want 1TB disks for $3ea and I want a burner with 16x or 24x able to use them for under $300... Don't you?

Click to expand...

We all want what we can't have. But even 50GB DL discs are way more expensive than they should be (around $10 per disc). DVD DL has been around for years, and they still seem to cost about $2.00-3.00 per disc here for 8.5GB of storage. I can only assume that multi-layer chemistry is a lot harder to do, thus much more expensive.

What do you use BR for primarily?
Watching movies. I still prefer to buy BD over iTunes, etc movies. After all, as I check mostly pre-2000 movies, I can get them for 10$ (and less) which is a fair price. The BD price is often less than the DVD or the iTunes version and I get a full way better quality. A 1080p video compressed to like 1.5 GB ? It's way to compressed for me. If iTunes was selling lossless audio and BD-Rip, I would reconsider this, but for the moment...

Also, I can't use Netflix, or similar streaming system. We are four at home, and in Quebec, residential internets are cheap for data transfer limits. I can barely download few things during the month if I don't want to bust my limit.

Which media (brand) do you find the best and why?
None. I don't burn BD. A USB key will have a longer lifetime and will be reusable... I still burn CDs and DVDs, but I don't use a brand in particular. (And used them a lot before USB keys became common)

Would you personally recommend BR as a backup solution - either supplementary or exclusively?
No. Hard drives are cheaper, faster, more reliable and have a better lifetime.
BD-R will be unreadable without doing anything. It's not reliable due to the way they're produced and burned.

What software do you use for playback?
I use my PS3 for direct playback on my TV. Else, I rip them with MakeMKV and re-encode them with Handbrake for my AppleTV and for playback using VLC. VLC does support a kind of AACS key decryption, but so basic that I never got a BD which would play directly in VLC.

I might use Mac Blu-ray Player at some point.

Are BR movies available for rent or sale in your neck of the woods?
In Canada, they're easily available for sale in most stores.

For renting, well, most businesses are now closed and one of the last one just closed recently. I don't see where to rent movies now. It's not a problem with DVD or BD, it's just that there are too many solutions at home to rent movies and the prices were no longer competitive. As I said, I buy my BD at ~10$. You can rent them on Illico (cable TV renting of Videotron) for ~7.99$ in HD ? I just prefer to buy it and have it for "life".

Is BR Media available in your local shops? If so in what sizes and for how much?
Not available as CDs and DVDs. I can barely see pack of 5/10 BDs of 25 GB.
10 BD-R (25 GB) from Verbatim is 29.95$ -> ~3$/BD.

Do you think or hope that Apple should include a BR with MP as standard or as an option in the future?
They already include an optical drive (and I hope that they won't remove it as I still need it). A BD drive versus a DVD drive isn't really more costly and OS X already support the format. I think they should replace the DVD drive with a BD one if they keep the optical drive.

I know Apple already consider that optical drive are over, but in some country, Internet isn't available in a way that permit buying everything online. I don't see companies selling movie/music on USB keys...

Plus, Mac Pro are for professionals, no ? So, they should keep the optical drive. I'm sure plenty of professionals still need it and don't want to buy a 2k+ workstation and start to plug bunch of external tools because Apple wanted to slim the case...

Do you think BR is a failed technology?
BR for data ? Yes. It's not the same environment than before which helped to push the CD / DVD formats. 25 GB is way too much for any OS / Applications. Optical discs aren't reliable enough for backups. BD can be wrote "one" time, while USB key can always be used and are now cheap...

BR for movie ? No. There are too many places were people can't buy/rent movie online and download them due to speed / data transfer limits. BD offers a way better quality and more features. BD offers the possibility to resell the movie when you want while with iTunes, you're stuck with the movie. I've sold most DVD I had. Could I do the same with online system ? Not really...

The only difference between BD and previous optical medias is that they're only useful for one and only one use. And the sector isn't like it was before due to streaming services.

What do you use BR for primarily?
Creating Blu-Ray disks for clients for our video projects; some archiving/backup; and watching hi-def movies.

Which media (brand) do you find the best and why?
"Optical Quantum" sold by OWC for slightly over a buck a disk if buying a spindle of 25 or 50. Chose this mainly for price and they seem to work fine, no experience with other BD-R media

What size media do you use most often and why?
25GB, good performance/price

Which drives are the best, (most popular, technically the best, best price/performance)?
Have an external Pioneer BD-RW BDR-206. No idea if it's the "best" but has worked well so far

What kind of throughput speeds do you get for writing and reading with your drive model?
5x-8x

Would you personally recommend BR as a backup solution - either supplementary or exclusively?
For small video projects where there is <25GB (or maybe <50GB with 2 disks), seems like a stable way to archive, but as others have said, need to store in a dark place. But lots of my projects are a lot bigger so HD seems more practical. But no idea whether optical or HD will actually last 10 or more years into the future. Nice thing about an optical disk is you can write on it! And it's read only once burned.

What software do you use to write with?
Toast 10 Titanium or Adobe Encore

What software do you use for playback?
For watching movies, use Sony Blu-Ray player hooked up to my TV. I don't watch on my Mac Pro.

Are BR movies available for rent or sale in your neck of the woods?
Yup, at Best Buy ... and even my local library.

Is BR Media available in your local shops? If so in what sizes and for how much?
Don't know. Only order them from OWC

Do you think or hope that Apple should include a BR with MP as standard or as an option in the future?
If including any sort of optical drive, then BR should be the default.

Do you think BR is a failed technology?
It's great for watching hi-def movies and for delivering hi-def videos to a client. But sending a hi-def h264 over the 'nets works too. And it's OK for archiving if 25GB is big enough. There's value in write-once media if it can be shown to be stable over time, but I guess the jury is still out on that. Archiving only on HDs makes me nervous. And DLT still seems too dang expensive and clunky (and hard to share).

I use Blu Ray for archiving large files for my clients and for watching Blu Ray movies on my Mac. Sometimes I use BD to backup my own files. Verbatim 25g Is the brand I use though I think other brands are good too.

It's great to watch Blu Ray movies on the Mac Pro using Mac Blu Ray player Sometimes I use VLC for MKV files The sound card of the Mac Pro is actually of very good quality as long as you use good speakers and receivers. My Mac Pro is connected to a Marantz home theater receiver and to Monitor Audio Floorspeakers, Polk Audio Floorstanding speakers and a subwoofer. Its a computer home theater. The sound from the Mac Pro is generally of warm character and with the help of Marantz brings out the details well and thunderous explosions.

I have been hoping Apple would include a BR drive to the Mac Pro though there seem to be no indication. Their direction is Macs without optical drives.

I think the technology of Blu Ray is successful, that is on the technical side. But from a business-marketing perspective, BD did not take off to a higher level. It did not sustain that niche to be the main source of media material. Maybe due to the numerous hard drives in storage media With Blu Ray discs the user undergoes many steps from buying the discs, burning and storage size is not as great as HDs The convenience HDs offer could not be matched by Blu Rays

I don't use Blu-ray for archiving/storage, so I guess the LG 14x reader/writer in my 2nd optical bay is not achieving its full potential.

I haven't backed up to optical media in a few years, preferring to backup to a HD.

I purchase both DVD and Blu-ray media. However, I purchase Blu-ray for movies I feel most benefit from the added resolution. On retail release day here in the U.S. DVD and Blue Ray version are both available online and in retail stores. For rental, local RedBox kiosks have both versions available. Brick and mortar stores are largely a thing of the past. Local libraries lag behind, but our library system only has DVD for checkout.

I have thought about downloading Mac Blu-ray Player, but I am satisfied with ripping with MakeMKV player. I can then transcode with Handbrake into format for AppleTV or my iDevices.

TheEasterBunny said:

HDD's can't sit on a shelf for as long and still play as well either (caps dry out in time)

Click to expand...

Hard drives have dry ceramic or tantalum capacitors.
Conservative lifespans of hard drives in storage are around eight years. Given that hard drives double the capacity every two years, if you have a couple of 4TB drives now, you can backup four of them onto one 16TB drive in four years and are golden. Your 2013 4TB drives are still under warranty by then.

Good ol' backup tapes are even less expensive than that, technically the proper thing to use at $30 for a 3TB LTO5 tape and have the longest shelf life, but the drives are > $1500.

Tapes beat the cost of 100GB BD-R XL at $50/each even for a single 3TB tape, so let's skip that. They become less expensive than hard drives at 51TB (39TB if you factor in your backup in four years; based on the 3TB Toshiba external hard drive for $116, which rules them all in terms of GB per $ and the assumption that GB per $ drops by 50% every 24 month).
For 50GB BD-R DL at around $3.5 per disks, you're looking at about 22.5TB until tapes get less expensive.

The really interesting question here is when hard drives get less expensive than BD-Rs for backups, and the answer is – drumroll please – 250GB, or 1.5TB if you have the writer already. You need $210 in BD-Rs to match one $116 3TB hard drive, plus your initial investment of $100 for the writer.

As far as I am concerned, unless you have backups on the scale of 50+TB (in which case you should use tapes), BluRay is a technology that you want to skip completely in favor of hard drives.

What do you use BR for primarily?
Ripping BD Movies.

Which media (brand) do you find the best and why?
Kodak so far. Came with the drive.

What size media do you use most often and why?
BD25

Which drives are the best, (most popular, technically the best, best price/performance)?
I have an MCE Technologies (LG) 12x drive (internal) $99

What kind of throughput speeds do you get for writing and reading with your drive model?
10x Reading - Writing not tested yet.

Would you personally recommend BR as a backup solution - either supplementary or exclusively?
No

What software do you use to write with?
Toast, Mac The Ripper, MakeMKV, DVDFab, many others.

What software do you use for playback?
Mac Blu-ray Player

Are BR movies available for rent or sale in your neck of the woods?
Yes, everywhere.

Is BR Media available in your local shops? If so in what sizes and for how much?
No.

Do you think or hope that Apple should include a BR with MP as standard or as an option in the future?
Yes, Option.

Do you think BR is a failed technology?
No.