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Bluray buying advice for Mac Pro 8core

N

nohinamherst

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 5, 2010
2
0
I have a Mac Pro 2.8ghz 8core that has an extra drive slot open. I'd like to put a bluray player (not burner) in there. What are my options and price ranges to put one of these into my desktop?

The plan is to run DVI and optical out to HDMI in my TV -- then watch bluray dvds.

Thanks in advance!
Matt
 
Mac OS X won't play bluray movies. You will have to install Windows via bootcamp to view them then figure out how to output to your tv. As for the player, I'm pretty sure any bluray sata drive will work under windows. There are some in the $100 range.
 
Not sure about VMware, but I can play Bluray movies in Windows 7 via Parallels desktop. I did have to allocate 4 cores and 4GB of RAM to make it work smoothly full screen.
 
alphaod said:
Not sure about VMware, but I can play Bluray movies in Windows 7 via Parallels desktop. I did have to allocate 4 cores and 4GB of RAM to make it work smoothly full screen.
Click to expand...

Hey, I've not even tried that yet! cool that it works ;)
 
outside of using windows to get playback, you could also rip the content to your hd and playback through os x.
 
nohinamherst said:
hmm...bummer. I guess VMWare won't do it? I have that rather than bootcamp.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that VMWare won't see it as a Blu-Ray drive unless it was connected directly to the virtual machine via USB. In other words, an internal Blu-Ray drive can't be used for Blu-Ray under VMWare.
 
I my opinion, you would be much smarter to install a burner in your extra slot, and then buy a standard home Blu-Ray player to play the discs.

Another option is to skip the whole idea and buy Roxio Toast 10 and the Blu-Ray plug-in. Using your standard DVD burner and a standard DVD-R disc, you can create Blu-Ray discs that will play in "most" home blu-ray players. The only catch being that your video content is limited to about 20-30 minutes due to the small capacity of the DVD-R discs.
 
alphaod said:
Not sure about VMware, but I can play Bluray movies in Windows 7 via Parallels desktop. I did have to allocate 4 cores and 4GB of RAM to make it work smoothly full screen.
Click to expand...

Hey, I tried to play a Bluray movie in win 7 while running in Parallels and I get an error saying the video card driver does not support playback of bluray?

Works fine while booted to Win 7 via bootcamp. Not sure if the Parallels video drivers are compatible.
 
gglockner said:
I'm pretty sure that VMWare won't see it as a Blu-Ray drive unless it was connected directly to the virtual machine via USB. In other words, an internal Blu-Ray drive can't be used for Blu-Ray under VMWare.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure it will, considering I just updated the firmware in my Pioneer BDC-202 through VMWare.
;)
 

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Hello,

I read that if you want to rip a blu-ray disk, I think you actually need a burner. Not sure about this, but I wanted to throw it out here before someone buys a reader thinking they'll be able to rip BR discs.

Can someone confirm?

Loa
 
I don't understand why it would...where'd you read that?

Also, wouldn't it depend on the ripping software?
 
Hello,

Here's a more specific info, straight from an admin in the MakeMKV forums. Maybe it only applies to their software?

The admin said that you need a blu-ray reader with at least some form of write, even if it's only DVD and CD. Didn't say why though.

I find that real strange!

Loa
 
The burner issue was with MakeMKV and the developers have now resolved that to some degree. This is an issue inherent in OS X, not Windows.

At any rate, you can play Blu-ray Discs now by using MakeMKV's built in streaming server and using VLC to play the disc. It's a bit cumbersome at this point, but it does work.
 
gglockner said:
So your Blu-Ray drive is installed directly inside your Mac Pro and connected via SATA? If so, I'm pleasantly surprised.
Click to expand...

Close - this is a Hackintosh (still waiting for the new Mac Pros) but the interaction between VMWare and OSX would be the same. It's the same model drive that OWC was selling as an internal SATA Mac Pro upgrade although it looks like they're now selling the BDC-205 (I believe the BDC-202 has been superseded).

It's connected via SATA although it has to be software connected to the VM prior to starting the VM for it to be recognized at the hardware level. XP and OSX Server work the same in that regard (I checked in both). If it's connected to the VM after it's running, then it shows up virtualized as: "NECVMWar VMWare IDE CDR 10" (sic) in XP, and nothing shows in System Profiler in OSX Server.

This is under VMWare Fusion 3.0.2 (232708) on Mac OS X 10.6.2 (10C540).

We're a VMWare ESX shop at work and I'm a pretty heavy Fusion user since working in Solaris pays the bills.
:D
 
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