Alu 24" iMac with External Blu-Ray/HD-DVD video playback possible?

[WhiteNoiseMaker]

Ok so like the title says, is it possible to add an external Firewire Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drive and use the iMac to watch HD movies? I've searched the forums and read posts saying its not possible in Tiger, because it can't read the file system, but how is it with Leopard?

I'm looking to buy an external Firewire DVD-RW drive and I could get a Blu-Ray read only drive that can also burn CD's & DVD's if it does work.

 

[gorby]

still impossible, far as i know

 

[Leon Kowalski]

OWC lists two BlueRay external drives -- but I have no idea what software
is available (if any) to play BlueRay HD video content on an iMac display.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/optical-drives/Blu-Ray/

Call OWC and pick their brains.

LK

 

[je1ani]

But how would you rip a Blu ray to a file you save on your pc? Handbrake?

 

[125037]

Ok so like the title says, is it possible to add an external Firewire Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drive and use the iMac to watch HD movies? I've searched the forums and read posts saying its not possible in Tiger, because it can't read the file system, but how is it with Leopard?

I'm looking to buy an external Firewire DVD-RW drive and I could get a Blu-Ray read only drive that can also burn CD's & DVD's if it does work.

http://www.macnn.com/articles/07/03/15/blu.ray.drives.for.macs/ about $650
for external and is "100% compatable with any mac or pc".

 

[WhiteNoiseMaker]

http://www.macnn.com/articles/07/03/15/blu.ray.drives.for.macs/ about $650
for external and is "100% compatable with any mac or pc".

That's fine but getting an external drive is not the problem! I'll buy an internal blu-ray read only drive and stick it in a Firewire enclosure. I can get the blu-ray drive for £99 and the enclosure for £10 the question is, will it even let me play/watch a HD film on my iMac? If it won't its pointless paying £99 for an over priced DVD burner.

 

[Tarkovsky]

As far as I'm aware there's no software for it, as of yet.

EDIT

-I'm not 100% sure whether the hdcp will be compatible with all interfaces firewire/sata/ide interfaces, my guess is yes, but it's worth a bit of research

 

[WhiteNoiseMaker]

As far as I'm aware there's no software for it, as of yet.

EDIT

-I'm not 100% sure whether the hdcp will be compatible with all interfaces firewire/sata/ide interfaces, my guess is yes, but it's worth a bit of research

I've read reviews on the site I plan to buy from (ebuyer) left by users, saying you can use the same set-up to watch Blu-Ray movies in Windows Vista. So I'm sure it would work through boot camp as the graphics card in the 24" iMac is HD compatible, but I'd prefer to use it in OSX

 

[psonice]

So far as I know, there's no software for OSX yet. Demand for hddvd/blu ray is still low, so I guess nobody is inclined to do it.

 

[Leon Kowalski]

Demand for hddvd/blu ray is still low, so I guess nobody is inclined to do it.

...and Apple seems to be intent on keeping it that way,

LK

 

[WhiteNoiseMaker]

...and Apple seems to be intent on keeping it that way,

LK

Yup found a post on hardmac.com that confirms Apple DVD Player & VLC fail to read Blu-Ray movies even in Leopard.

 

[je1ani]

Doesn't Toast 8 allow Blu-ray? I dont know specifically it does though...

 

[JayLenochiniMac]

Yup found a post on hardmac.com that confirms Apple DVD Player & VLC fail to read Blu-Ray movies even in Leopard.

Ordinary DVD player can't read Blu-Ray or HD-DVD anyway.

 

[psonice]

Toast 8 supports writing to blu ray, not playing back films from them.

 

[RevToTheRedline]

LG's new(ish) Blu-Ray / HD-DVD rom and DVD Burner, is only $299, pop it into an external enclosure, friend has that on his Macbook pro.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136133&Tpk=lg

 

[macjonny1]

...and Apple seems to be intent on keeping it that way,

LK

Why jump on a bandwagon when it may be the losing side? The war is far from over...

 

[Leon Kowalski]

Why jump on a bandwagon when it may be the losing side? The war is far from over...

So, Apple should wait to hop on the Dell & HP bandwagon? Is that how
Steve got to be the tech world's "Most Powerful Business Person?"

https://www.macrumors.com/2007/11/27/steve-jobs-rated-most-powerful-businessperson/

Anyway, Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD doesn't have to be an either-or proposition; as
RevToTheRedline pointed out, there are already drives that can read both --
and no insurmountable technical obstacles to a burner that could write both.

...if you're not the lead dog, the view never changes,

LK

 

[0007776]

LG's new(ish) Blu-Ray / HD-DVD rom and DVD Burner, is only $299, pop it into an external enclosure, friend has that on his Macbook pro.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136133&Tpk=lg

does he have any software to either rip or directly playback movies? if there is then I will probably buy this soon.

 

[justperry]

Yup found a post on hardmac.com that confirms Apple DVD Player & VLC fail to read Blu-Ray movies even in Leopard.

Ordinary DVD player can't read Blu-Ray or HD-DVD anyway.

He meant Apple DVD Player App!

 

[Remster]

I'd love to see a MacBook / iMac / MacBook Pro / Mac Pro with inbuilt Blu-Ray drive. According to other Mac Rumor websites, Apple has been in talks with:

1) Sony - for Blu-Ray drives
2) 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, Disney/Pixar, Lionsgate, MGM etc - for a chip in Blu-Ray Discs to convert them into iPod files.
3) Several companies, on developing a Total HD (Blu-Ray & HD-DVD) drive for MacBook Pro / Mac Pros.

I think this would end the format war because the ever-growing amount of Mac users will switch to Blu-Ray.

Please reply.

"Think Blu-Ray!"

 

[psonice]

I'd love to see a MacBook / iMac / MacBook Pro / Mac Pro with inbuilt Blu-Ray drive. According to other Mac Rumor websites, Apple has been in talks with:

1) Sony - for Blu-Ray drives
2) 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, Disney/Pixar, Lionsgate, MGM etc - for a chip in Blu-Ray Discs to convert them into iPod files.
3) Several companies, on developing a Total HD (Blu-Ray & HD-DVD) drive for MacBook Pro / Mac Pros.

I think this would end the format war because the ever-growing amount of Mac users will switch to Blu-Ray.

Please reply.

"Think Blu-Ray!"

Considering that blu-ray drives would be a (probably quite expensive) optional upgrade, the number of mac users getting one and buying lots of films for it would be tiny compared to the number of standalone players and PS3s. I'd say it'd make no difference to the format war.

The 'war' is definitely going blu-ray's way though anyway. The only thing that really matters is disk sales, and blu ray is selling more disks than hddvd by a long way.

 

[jf8]

There is no additional copy protection between the optical drive and the player (over USB/firewire/SATA/IDE/etc) or any fancy copy protection on the disc itself. Instead, the content is heavily encrypted.

mplayer supports the containers and video codecs used by HD-DVD and Blu-ray (m2ts, evo, mpeg2, vc1, h264). I believe HD-DVD uses eac3/Dolby Digital Plus as a mandatory audio codec on all discs. Blu-ray has regular AC3/Dolby Digital as a mandatory audio codec, and this is no trouble for mplayer.
There is a patch for mplayer to decode eac3, but I am unsure if there are any OS X builds including this patch at this time.
So, if your CPU is fast enough and you can get the bitstream unencrypted, you can play HD-DVD and Blu-ray content on OS X (or Linux, or Windows using open-source software.) A 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo should definitely be fast enough to decode all HD-DVD and Blu-ray content given a fast enough codec; however, I'm not sure if the open-source codecs are good enough to decode the highest bitrate H264/VC-1 content at realtime yet.

The HD2400 and HD2600 are capable of performing all VC-1 and H264 decoding tasks in Windows using the right drivers. I don't think these capabilities are used by OS X yet.

You should be able to play most HD-DVD and Blu-ray content in Windows Vista without dealing with copy-protection shenanigans; just add recent ATI Radeon drivers and PowerDVD Ultra Deluxe. Of course, ATI Catalyst and PowerDVD are both buggy, so there are problems and they are often related to copy protection.

If you are in the market for HD-DVD and/or Blu-ray right now and do not want to wait, I would buy a budget standalone HD-DVD player and/or a PS3.