Need advice on best option for Blu-Ray authoring

[treehorn]

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

[phoenixsan]

not firsthand, but by reference, that the following Blu-ray drives will work/burn in a Mac and Encore environment:

Lite-On LS-2B1S
LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive
Pioneer BDR-101A

About media, I have heard/used for burn/backup:

Verbatim and TDK (BD-R media)
Sony (BD-R DL media)

[kohlson]

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.

[treehorn]

Originally Posted by kohlson

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.

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

[kohlson]

I'll need to check when I get back to my office. But I bought it two years ago. Note that you can always take it out and put it an external case, or swap it out if you trade in your existing MacPro. It's not difficult to do at all, and these things are pretty inexpensive now.

[treehorn]

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...

[pprior]

I bought an external LG blu-ray drive that is eSATA a couple years ago. It burns fast. Can't give you a model number, as I'm sure they've changed but it's been flawless for me, no driver issues or any problems at all.