my rips are 20 - 40 GB each, depends on the movie.
So far I haven't figured out any way to predict which ones will be 20 and which ones will be 40.
Length seems to only play a minor part.
I picked up the Sony BC-5640H internal drive for my 2009 mini. Plug n play. Should/could work in the iMac. Now I can rip bluray with MakeMKV then flip an HD version using Handbrake; AppleTV 2 preset for 720p or Apple 3 preset for 1080p. It's also a burner so...
I picked up the Sony BC-5640H internal drive for my 2009 mini. Plug n play. Should/could work in the iMac. Now I can rip bluray with MakeMKV then flip an HD version using Handbrake; AppleTV 2 preset for 720p or Apple 3 preset for 1080p. It's also a burner so...
ASUS sells a DVD writer/Blu-Ray reader combo drive for $75 at Fry's. I have also seen it on Amazon for the same price. This drive is a full DVD writer and only reads BD disks. It is USB powered only. Way better than the built-in DVD combo drive Apple puts into their iMacs.
I also have not found a disk that couldn't be ripped with MakeMKV. The most creative attempt I have found was a disk that had something like 20 different versions of the main movie file. Apparently only one was valid with the others each having "blacked out" scenes at random places. I simply found a post in the MakeMKV forum where someone had figured out which file it was and I still got a good rip. But that only happened once. Otherwise, everything I've thrown at it has worked like a charm.
I'm just using a Lite-on BD reader (it's in a Hackintosh) but is pretty old, so I would guess almost any BD drive is going to work just fine. No need to spend a lot.