Which portable Blu-Ray Burner?

[drgrafix]

Getting my wife a new iMac 21 for Christmas, I'll be a little jealous LOL. But anyway, rather than buy the Apple slim DVD burner, I figure I'd buy a legit blu-ray burner, hopefully in a slim package. Saw one from Seatech online that looks nice, supposedly has a Panasonic drive inside, but I'm not married to that unit. Sammy, LG, whatever.

I've been slowly archiving our DVDs to my NAS and playing back via AppleTV1 running Crystalbuntu. Works great, would like to have the ability to rip a blu-ray since the ATV1 is now 1080i/p capable.

Anyone want to suggest a portable I can buy for $100 or less?

 

[phoenixsan]

Under $100.....

maybe you can find a Samsung or LG decent one. I am particularly fond of Pioneer drives and LaCie, but these can be over your budget. Sony used to make decent BR burners too....

Hope that helps. And keep in mind many drives bring bundled software for authoring/burning that does not works in Mac. Or at least not natively (being PC software)......

 

[Ainze]

Samsung SE-506BB is working great for me, and seems to for a lot of others too.

 

[jdblas69]

Samsung SE-506BB is working great for me, and seems to for a lot of others too.

This is a good unit, have used it to rip all my blu-rays.

Only thing with this unit is it requires 2 usb inputs to use so you need 2 available usb ports available close together. Not a big deal for me but may be for some.

 

[Fishrrman]

[[ Samsung SE-506BB is working great for me, and seems to for a lot of others too. ]]

I also have this, good unit at a decent price.

 

[drgrafix]

Thanks guys... going to look hard at that Samsung SE-506BB. So it needs two (2) USBs to power it up? I haven't even been to the Apple store to look at the 21's but I'm sure it has two USBs... just hope they are "normal" and not some kind of USB 3.0 minis?

Getting two USBs on my iMac or MBP is easy LOL. Same with my xPC Shuttle box.

 

[Ainze]

Only thing with this unit is it requires 2 usb inputs to use so you need 2 available usb ports available close together.

I haven't had this issue. It probably depends on exactly what computer you have and the bus power allocated to each port, so some computers may need two ports, but I've had no problem with just one USB port when using it with my iMac or MBP.

 

[costabunny]

Thanks guys... going to look hard at that Samsung SE-506BB. So it needs two (2) USBs to power it up? I haven't even been to the Apple store to look at the 21's but I'm sure it has two USBs... just hope they are "normal" and not some kind of USB 3.0 minis?

Getting two USBs on my iMac or MBP is easy LOL. Same with my xPC Shuttle box.

Don't worry - they're normal USB's, and has enough slots http://www.apple.com/imac/specs/

 

[gr8tfly]

Another vote for the Samsung 506. I've been using it with my rMBP (mostly through a Portable 7-port USB 3 hub), and I haven't run into any issues with it. It powers off a single USB port (I use the included cable). I've archived quite a few of my Blu-rays using MakeMKV and Handbrake, and they play great on Apple TV 3.

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-SE-506BB-TSBD-External-Blu-ray/dp/B00AO1XFM0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386839542&sr=8-1&keywords=samsung+portable+bluray+player

 

[sathi]

just pick Samsung SE-506BB..no second thoughts

 

[drgrafix]

I got the Sammy 506BB from Amazon yesterday, and it has a USB with only one (1) jack for power/data transfer. I connected it to my iMac and threw in my AVATAR Blu-Ray movie and nothing happened. So I guess I have to look for some software that will allow this device to be recognized as a Blu-Ray player/burner. Would that be on the DVD that came with it? A quick look and I thought it was just another Power DVD CDs.

I have no interest in burning Blu-Rays, I just want to archive mine so I can stream them via my AppleTV to my Family Room TV.

 

[gr8tfly]

I got the Sammy 506BB from Amazon yesterday, and it has a USB with only one (1) jack for power/data transfer. I connected it to my iMac and threw in my AVATAR Blu-Ray movie and nothing happened. So I guess I have to look for some software that will allow this device to be recognized as a Blu-Ray player/burner. Would that be on the DVD that came with it? A quick look and I thought it was just another Power DVD CDs.

I have no interest in burning Blu-Rays, I just want to archive mine so I can stream them via my AppleTV to my Family Room TV.

OS X does support Blu-Ray data (r/w), but not video. You will need third party software to play Blu-Ray video (VLC, and Mac Blu-Ray Player by MacGo are a couple). Roxio Toast also supports data r/w, but requires an in-app purchase for video burning (it does not support reading commercial BR video).

To archive BR movies, see the suggestions from my previous post and many threads here at MR and elsewhere.

 

[Ainze]

I got the Sammy 506BB from Amazon yesterday, and it has a USB with only one (1) jack for power/data transfer. I connected it to my iMac and threw in my AVATAR Blu-Ray movie and nothing happened. So I guess I have to look for some software that will allow this device to be recognized as a Blu-Ray player/burner.

What do you mean by "nothing happened"? OS X should recognise the blu ray drive straight out of the box, and mount the disk so it's viewable in the Finder. There's no software to install. If this isn't happening, and the blue light on the drive isn't flashing and the disc spinning, etc, then it might be a power issue and you'll need a USB cable with two heads.

If it's showing up in the Finder, then you just need to start using the disc with whatever program you plan to use next, such as the ones listed by gr8tfly. As mentioned, if you want to archive, there are lots of ways to do it depending on what suits you best. A quick search can yield lots of options, many of which use freely available software.

Just let us know what the problem is and we can help.

 

[Brescian]

3d

Will any external blu-ray drive read 3D discs assuming that your computer has the requisite hardware and software for processing and outputting 3D blu-ray to a TV or projector?
Some external blu-ray drives are advertised as playing 3D discs while some are not but it seems to me that the ones advertised as playing 3D discs just come with windows software for playing 3D discs.
Since MAC users aren't able to use the bundled windows software anyway shouldn't you be able to buy any external blu-ray player and play 3D discs after downloading blu-ray player software for MAC that can do 3D?
Is there any actual hardware difference between external blu-ray drives that are advertised as 3D capable and ones that aren't?

 

[Ainze]

Will any external blu-ray drive read 3D discs assuming that your computer has the requisite hardware and software for processing and outputting 3D blu-ray to a TV or projector?
Some external blu-ray drives are advertised as playing 3D discs while some are not but it seems to me that the ones advertised as playing 3D discs just come with windows software for playing 3D discs.
Since MAC users aren't able to use the bundled windows software anyway shouldn't you be able to buy any external blu-ray player and play 3D discs after downloading blu-ray player software for MAC that can do 3D?
Is there any actual hardware difference between external blu-ray drives that are advertised as 3D capable and ones that aren't?

Yes, any drive that can read a blu-ray will do. 3D is implemented only as an extra data stream within the movie track and so being able to interpret that stream is the only hurdle to playing a movie in 3D.