Hope for official Blu-Ray option in new Mac Pro?

It's not going to happen, Apple doesn't particularly like blu-ray, and if you need to you can get an aftermarket drive which will take care of the few people that actually need one.

You will be lucky if the new Mac Pro has an optical drive at all, as Apple has been removing internal optical drives from its Macs for a while now. Only the cMBP and the Mac Pro have them built in. You have zero chance of getting a Blu Ray Drive, Apple has moved on from physical media, even if some of its users haven't yet.

No DVD or Blu-ray drive?
This is completely unacceptable.
I hope that Apple read this!

Even if it is a BTO why would you pay Apple for one? It would be like a $250 option when you can buy a good drive for $50.

I am thinking most likely Apple does not support Blu Ray otherwise they would have included this in previous models. Maybe from a business viewpoint Apple has always based it's direction on the bottom line- profits and sales. Fortunately, Toast Titanium supports single and double layer blu rays.

These are trivially easy to install. There shouldn't be anything stopping you from having one right now.

No current apple computers have an optical drive anymore. macbook air, retina macbook pro, mac mimi and the new iMac all do not have optical drives and that is the likely hood for the new Mac Pro.

Plus rumors are that apple wants to make the new Mac Pro rack mountable so it can truly double as a server, and that would make the new Pro to thin for an internal optical drive.

All signs point to no optical drive, so no Blu-Ray.

Highly doubt they would ever offer blu ray.

violst said:

No current apple computers have an optical drive anymore. macbook air, retina macbook pro, mac mimi and the new iMac all do not have optical drives and that is the likely hood for the new Mac Pro.

Plus rumors are that apple wants to make the new Mac Pro rack mountable so it can truly double as a server, and that would make the new Pro to thin for an internal optical drive.

All signs point to no optical drive, so no Blu-Ray.

Click to expand...

Rubbish, even a 1U server can fit an optical drive into it

StephenCampbell said:

I was thinking, considering the tiny demographic that purchases Mac Pros, if Apple has a Blu-Ray BTO option for the new Mac Pro, it wouldn't really cut into their iTunes movie sales/rentals at all. They wouldn't hype it at all, or even announce it as a major feature. It would just be there for those professional who use Blu-Ray in the process of video production. Apple might not even create a software to play movies on Blu-Ray.. just to have it there as an option in their pro machine since there are some pros who need it.

Even though I'd still have to use the Macgo software to play movies, it would be nice to have my new machine shipped from Apple with a Blu-Ray drive in it.

Click to expand...

Although the lack of a blu-ray player built into a Mac is disappointing to us videophiles-audiophiles, the biggest stumbling block to having the flexibility of playing blu-ray movies on our Macs is the fact that Blu-ray support is not built into OSX at all.

This is why you can't plug in an external Blu-ray drive into your Mac and have the Mac recognize the movie.

Irishman said:

the biggest stumbling block to having the flexibility of playing blu-ray movies on our Macs is the fact that Blu-ray support is not built into OSX at all.

This is why you can't plug in an external Blu-ray drive into your Mac and have the Mac recognize the movie.

Click to expand...

Third party applications can decrypt and play the movies just fine. This is no different than Windows really.

ActionableMango said:

Third party applications can decrypt and play the movies just fine. This is no different than Windows really.

Click to expand...

Yep. VLC can, I believe.

If you want a Blu-Ray drive, just buy one. Just about every model sold works fine with a Mac and you can get one for <$100.


I'm ripping Blu-Ray movies to MKV files on my Mac Mini right now.

Macsonic said:

I am thinking most likely Apple does not support Blu Ray otherwise they would have included this in previous models. Maybe from a business viewpoint Apple has always based it's direction on the bottom line- profits and sales. Fortunately, Toast Titanium supports single and double layer blu rays.

Click to expand...

Yeah - confused look, hands in the air, scratches head..... Apple computers cost twice as much as the competitors computers for the same, if not outdated hardware. On top of that, they don't want to pay licensing fees for optical drives? what are we paying the premium price for? The logo, an OS, and a shiny metal case?

yeh the bto will be way to much you can get a good one fore sub 100

Kimbie said:

Rubbish, even a 1U server can fit an optical drive into it

Click to expand...

If apple is going to take the time to reduce the size of the Mac Pro so it is 3U rack mountable they are not going to waster there time and space inside the box to try and fit in an optical drive that they perceive as outdated technology its just common sense Kimbie.

CausticPuppy said:

If you want a Blu-Ray drive, just buy one. Just about every model sold works fine with a Mac and you can get one for <$100.


I'm ripping Blu-Ray movies to MKV files on my Mac Mini right now.

Click to expand...

Aside from using MKV files myself, I also use Toast Titanium to create disc images of double layer blu ray movies and watching them from my HD.

Kissaragi said:

Highly doubt they would ever offer blu ray.

Click to expand...

Not with iTunes in the background, yes.

StephenCampbell said:

I was thinking, considering the tiny demographic that purchases Mac Pros, if Apple has a Blu-Ray BTO option for the new Mac Pro, .... . Apple might not even create a software to play movies on Blu-Ray.. just to have it there as an option in their pro machine since there are some pros who need it.

Click to expand...

If Apple weaved Blu-Ray playback abilities into OS X they'd likely have to pay per OS X unit shipped or support it. There is no way they are going to fork some special support all the way up through the graphics layers just for the Mac Pro. That's silly.

As data disks Blu-Ray burners/players have been supported by OS X for several updates. ( 10.6? ). What is missing is "movie playback". Not sure why a "pro" needs that inside their workstation. The *only* blu-player they own is inside a computer. Not buying that as being a major sized demographic inside the professional community.

There is Apple software for making and burning Blu-ray disks. External drives are available for the very limited subset of Mac Pro users that need them.

As another poster pointed out, all the 5.25" bays may disappear from the Mac Pro. At least one being reused for something else is extremely likely ( a large fraction of the users here on these forums use the second bay for everything but an ODD. turning it into 2.5" or 3.5" bays would just be catching up to what users have been doing for years now. ) If they leave just one bay there likely be blu-ray replacement drives that will fit with whatever adjustments for the facade are needed.

I think this is all just a bunch of unnecessary worry-worting.

From 2011:

cnet July 6 said:

Despite the controversies and frustrations with Apple's support of Blu-ray, native playback is finally here. Recently, developer Macgo released a new media player aptly named Mac Blu Ray Player, which is the first to bring full Blu-ray playback support to OS X. All you need to get Blu-ray up and running is the following:

• A Blu-ray drive, which can either be internal (likely easier and cheaper for Mac Pro systems), or external. These can be purchased at places like Other World Computing or NewEgg
• Mac Blu Ray Player software, which can be downloaded from the Macgo Web site.

Click to expand...

macgo July 26 said:

Never mind. Macgo Inc. has provide a best solution, which is called Mac Blu-ray Player software.
Macgo Mac Blu-ray Player is the first Blu-ray player support both Mac and Windows based operating systems. As the leading app in this field, it features multi-functions and advanced technology, including multi-language, all media formats supported, especially Blu-ray Disc, SNS sharing, super high audiovisual quality. It can also play Blu-ray movies on iPhone, iPad and iTouch.

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Linux Journal Jan 27 said:

Blu-ray Player Mac OS X Mountain Lion can support all media formats of movie, video, audio, music and photo. It is multilanguage supported and easy handled with user-friendly interface. After adding DTS5.1 into it, Mac Blu-ray Player can bring your Mac to the most popular Blu-ray HD video enjoyment. The strong compatibility of Mac Mountain Lion Blu-ray Player supports Mountain Lion 10.8, 10.7, 10.6, 10.5.

Click to expand...

So the whole thread seems rather silly to me. <shrug>

Blu-ray works great in the mac pros - try it you'll like it.

My advice is don't buy movies on disks. Rent.

You'll eventually end up with garage sale junk.

Downloaded media can be possibly upgraded to newer standards but it's not a given.

fastlanephil said:

My advice is don't buy movies on disks. Rent.

You'll eventually end up with garage sale junk.

Downloaded media can be possibly upgraded to newer standards but it's not a given.

Click to expand...

Absolutely true - I have about 100 VHS tapes of Movies sitting in the garage waiting to go to the rubbish tip. In a few years time DVD will be the same. I don't have any Blu Ray disks for that reason. I stopped buying Audio CD's around 4 years ago and most of my CD's are now gathering dust in the loft. Physical media is on its way out.

James Craner said:

Absolutely true - I have about 100 VHS tapes of Movies sitting in the garage waiting to go to the rubbish tip. In a few years time DVD will be the same. I don't have any Blu Ray disks for that reason. I stopped buying Audio CD's around 4 years ago and most of my CD's are now gathering dust in the loft. Physical media is on its way out.

Click to expand...

For you it's out..

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deconstruct60 said:

If Apple weaved Blu-Ray playback abilities into OS X they'd likely have to pay per OS X unit shipped or support it. There is no way they are going to fork some special support all the way up through the graphics layers just for the Mac Pro. That's silly.

As data disks Blu-Ray burners/players have been supported by OS X for several updates. ( 10.6? ). What is missing is "movie playback". Not sure why a "pro" needs that inside their workstation. The *only* blu-player they own is inside a computer. Not buying that as being a major sized demographic inside the professional community.

There is Apple software for making and burning Blu-ray disks. External drives are available for the very limited subset of Mac Pro users that need them.

As another poster pointed out, all the 5.25" bays may disappear from the Mac Pro. At least one being reused for something else is extremely likely ( a large fraction of the users here on these forums use the second bay for everything but an ODD. turning it into 2.5" or 3.5" bays would just be catching up to what users have been doing for years now. ) If they leave just one bay there likely be blu-ray replacement drives that will fit with whatever adjustments for the facade are needed.

Click to expand...

10.5

I had BluRay in my Quad

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On a side note why the war against optical media? a BluRay is 50GB of data I know 32GB and 64GB thumb drives are common place now but there is no real reason to eliminate it from a tower.