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Vinyl is cool again. It’s fun because it’s analog, yet good. I don’t see any real resurgence of physical digital media, other than a fun thing to play with to get old movies for half a buck each.
Interesting. I sell dozens of CDs/DVDs/Blu-rays, and even VHS tapes every week on my store to just normal every-day customers. While the VHS movies may seem odd, they often are purchased for nostalgia or because the DVD version lacks something the VHS one has. The digital media, however, is usually bought by customers who do not want to keep paying the ever-rising prices of streaming services or be beholden to companies still being around if they buy digital copies. Streaming companies lose rights to stream certain movies/TV shows, and digital stores can and have go out of business, leaving customers who spent money on digital copies, empty-handed, since they can't access or play them any more.

On top of that, Blu-ray often gives a much better resolution and color balance then streaming services do, even with 4K. That's why shows released on streaming still have hard copies being sold - the best quality will always be the hard copy; plus you can play it even when you don't have the best Internet connection. :)
 
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Interesting. I sell dozens of CDs/DVDs/Blu-rays, and even VHS tapes every week on my store to just normal every-day customers. While the VHS movies may seem odd, they often are purchased for nostalgia or because the DVD version lacks something the VHS one has. The digital media, however, is usually bought by customers who do not want to keep paying the ever-rising prices of streaming services or be beholden to companies still being around if they buy digital copies. Streaming companies lose rights to stream certain movies/TV shows, and digital stores can and have go out of business, leaving customers who spent money on digital copies, empty-handed, since they can't access or play them any more.

On top of that, Blu-ray often gives a much better resolution and color balance then streaming services do, even with 4K. That's why shows released on streaming still have hard copies being sold - the best quality will always be the hard copy; plus you can play it even when you don't have the best Internet connection. :)
Sure, it exists, just like cassette tapes for music. But, compared to vinyl it’s still totally niche. Vinyl is big business, something DVD’s and CD’s will never again be.

Blu-Ray is too new to count, but they too will diminish. I’m not saying die, but whither into a niche. In the Grand scheme of things, they will be irrelevant. Vinyl, in comparison, is not irrelevant.
 
Interesting - I wonder what 3rd party ones will work, as I've tried 3 no-name ones and they all fail to be recognized on my M2 Max Studio, yet my Super Drive still works fine. Just can't play Blu-ray on it.
I’m guessing the keyword here is “no-name”. I don’t owned one, but borrowed some LG drive that just worked. I’ve seen others use third party drives too. I guess you need to verify that the drive works with Mac, but it’s definitely possible to get a replacement, so at this point it makes little sense for Apple to keep manufacturing it.
 
Not sure if this is still (or ever really true)?

Encountered an issue a long time ago, trying to install Windows on the Macbook Air. The Apple Superdrive was required for booting a Windows Install disk -- tried multiple generic USB CD/DVD drives and none would boot the Windows DVD and start the installer. Apple Store genius said needed the Superdrive, which then worked perfectly.

Yes but the apple version.
 
Sure, it exists, just like cassette tapes for music. But, compared to vinyl it’s still totally niche. Vinyl is big business, something DVD’s and CD’s will never again be.

Blu-Ray is too new to count, but they too will diminish. I’m not saying die, but whither into a niche. In the Grand scheme of things, they will be irrelevant. Vinyl, in comparison, is not irrelevant.
Honestly you would be shocked at the used CD and DVD business now. I also sell vinyl, but CDs and DVDs have surpassed it over the last 18 months. The feedback I hear is people unplugging from streaming services. Vinyl is for collectors, audiophiles, hipsters, etc. It is far more niche than optical discs are [not counting LaserDiscs - those sell quite good, but are also very niche]. Even AudioBooks on CD are selling now, when we have podcasts and Audible. It's been a trend the last 2 years and honestly I am unsure what is causing that to increase. While typing this message, in fact, I just sold another Book on CD!
 
I’m guessing the keyword here is “no-name”. I don’t owned one, but borrowed some LG drive that just worked. I’ve seen others use third party drives too. I guess you need to verify that the drive works with Mac, but it’s definitely possible to get a replacement, so at this point it makes little sense for Apple to keep manufacturing it.
Thanks! I'll give LG a try. The ones I bought were $30 units that said they worked under Windows, Linux, Mac, but they struggle with my Linux box, and just plain don't work on my Macs. I've not loaded up VMware on an Intel Mac to see if it would work there with an old Windows install - the SuperDrive does, and loads old games/software up just fine. But knowing this unit has a finite lifespan, and I have tons of CDs and DVDs [and software on them] that isn't always useful to rip to an ISO image, though in the end, that's what has to happen, but for testing old software on discs, a drive of some sort is needed.
 
Apart from the design, is there any reason to buy this Superdrive over one of the third party ones that are much cheaper?
 
Interesting - I wonder what 3rd party ones will work, as I've tried 3 no-name ones and they all fail to be recognized on my M2 Max Studio, yet my Super Drive still works fine. Just can't play Blu-ray on it.

I use this Pioneer Blu-ray drive:

It is USB-C and works on Macs with USB-C ports. Just use any USB-C 3.1 data cable to connect. Draws the power from USB-C, no external power adapter included or necessary.
Being a Blu-ray drive it is of course more expensive. But it reads most DVDs and CDs as well. I had the odd CDs and DVDs that did not work on it, but did work on the Apple SuperDrive. I guess the Blu-ray laser is not as compatible with older CDs and DVDs as the industry makes us believe it is.

I have not tested this drive on the very latest M4 Macs, but they should work according to documentation.

Despite being more expensive, its chassis is actually just plastic. It scratches easily and is very flimsy. Which is the norm for Windows external drives, I guess.
This is unlike the Apple SuperDrive which was built like a tank... Except for the fixed attached cable which was a bit of a weak spot.

Since the Mac does not support Blu-ray discs natively, you need to purchase a thirdparty Mac Blu-ray player software to watch movies on Blu-rays.
The drive does not come with a Mac Blu-ray player software.

This drive also does not support 4K Blu-rays.
I wonder if there even is a 4K Blu-ray drive that supports Macs at all. Let alone a 4K blu-ray player software for Macs...
Last time I looked there was neither.
 
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I use this Pioneer Blu-ray drive:

It is USB-C and works on Macs with USB-C ports. Just use any USB-C 3.1 data cable to connect. Draws the power from USB-C, no external power adapter included or necessary.
Being a Blu-ray drive it is of course more expensive. But it reads most DVDs and CDs as well. I had the odd CDs and DVDs that did not work on it, but did work on the Apple SuperDrive. I guess the Blu-ray laser is not as compatible with older CDs and DVDs as the industry makes us believe it is.

I have not tested this drive on the very latest M4 Macs, but they should work according to documentation.

Despite being more expensive, its chassis is actually just plastic. It scratches easily and is very flimsy. Which is the norm for Windows external drives, I guess.
This is unlike the Apple SuperDrive which was built like a tank... Except for the fixed attached cable which was a bit of a weak spot.

Since the Mac does not support Blu-ray discs natively, you need to purchase a thirdparty Mac Blu-ray player software to watch movies on Blu-rays.
The drive does not come with a Mac Blu-ray player software.

This drive also does not support 4K Blu-rays.
I wonder if there even is a 4K Blu-ray drive that supports Macs at all. Let alone a 4K blu-ray player software for Macs...
Last time I looked there was neither.
Right now there is not even a 4K blu ray player software or drives for windows. The last CPUs (Intel only) with the DRM security features needed to directly watch 4K BD on windows PCs are now several generations old and deprecated. A deep, deep flaw of the 4K standard.

Of course there are still other uses for such a drive besides watching movies on your PC. Some 4K drives are still capable of being used to rip the 4K discs to hard drive.


The blu ray laser does not affect the compatibility with other types of discs as they use a different laser entirely. Sometimes discs just don’t behave well with one drive and work perfectly fine with another. There are always edge-cases or oddities or things that don’t adhere strictly to spec. This has always been the case, even with CD-ROM only drives.


I have 4K drives from both Pioneer and LG. The LG is much better at reading CDs than the Pioneer. The Pioneer is much better at writing CDs than the LG. Sometimes I have a disc that even the LG won’t read and the Pioneer will handle it just fine. Sometimes neither of them do the trick, then it’s time to pull out the old Plexor. There’s always a tool for the job.
 
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Apart from the design, is there any reason to buy this Superdrive over one of the third party ones that are much cheaper?
I have an LG ROM drive that's USB powered and I use it to rip CDs and some other media. Sometimes it's quirky when I rip multiple CDs in a row and I have to unplug/replug the drive to get it to recognize the media as a new item.

The Superdrive never had this problem. I use the same USB A->C adapter and Apple's just works better. I'm using an M1 Air with no problems.

I think I paid $10 for the LG on a tech sale site years ago, and the used Superdrive cost $30 on eBay FWIW.
 
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I still find myself digging the one at work out once or twice a year to get something off a disc (usually, somewhat ironically, to put an installer for some crusty piece of scientific software on a server so a Windows user can get to it).

But it's not really surprising, CD/DVD drives have not been of any practical use for the average computer user for quite a while, and it's not like it's hard to buy a Mac-compatible one if you do need it.
I still have an iMac vintage floppy drive that works via USB that I keep around. Just because. :)
 
I still have an iMac vintage floppy drive that works via USB that I keep around. Just because. :)
I have had to pull data off a floppy once in a while, so I keep one for potential actual use when someone digs a disk out of the back of a drawer or something.

The annoying part is those USB floppy drives won’t read Mac-formatted 800K floppies, which have actually turned up at work, which has encouraged me to keep a Performa 6500 around for more than nostalgia—it’s got a working Apple drive that’ll read even older disks.

Now, the USB SuperDrive—as in the 120MB Zip disk competitor that could also read 1.44MB disks and nobody ever used—that I keep around just because.
 
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Now, the USB SuperDrive—as in the 120MB Zip disk competitor that could also read 1.44MB disks and nobody ever used—that I keep around just because.
It was the USB SuperDisk drive; I had one that I originally bought to use with my grape G3 iMac, but I trashed it recently to help declutter my apartment (I didn't think it was compatible with modern Macs).
 
Being older, I used to buy Vinyl, as I had to back then if you wanted to purchase an album.. 😁
I used cassette to “copy” stuff… (ya know… didn’t have the cash….. so you exchanged the Vinyl records with friends…)

When the CD came along, it stood to reason that you wanted that, as if was far more convenient than Vinyl (easier to load, nor more scratches) and as you had no “background noises” (coming from the records or the cassettes) it actually sounded better on a “normal hi-fi”. (Yes, audiophiles, I know about the digital vs. analogue music discussion).

The same applied to VHS vs. DVD. Yep, I have an old purchased VHS collection of James Bond for instance.
The DVD kinda did the same to video what CD did to music: more convenient and included better audio options (Dolby 5.1)
I later bought a Blu Ray player (4K) and that was much better quality (both video and audio).

Then streaming came along.
Yes I subscribe to Apple Music and Netflix. Very, very convenient of course. No loading of media Etc.
Apple Music lossless is same quality is CD. Hi res is obviously better quality than CD (if your setup can play it).

But, Blu Ray still boasts better quality of video and audio than 4K streaming, which is understandable as the media file size is huge….

I do enjoy purchasing a Blu Ray once in while even though I can watch the same content online.
And, I also still purchase CDs!

The thing I feel about purchasing physical media, is the fact you “own it”. The physical disc, but also the artwork etc. It’s part of your collection.

To each their own of course, but I will continue to purchase CDs and Blu Rays for content I really love, and stream content when it’s convenient.
 
way too late to reply to this thread, but imagine if Apple release a new USB-C blu-ray err ... 'ULTRA' drive to replace it.
 
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