Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Does anyone use their optical drive anymore?

ActionableMango said:
AFAIK, any BD drive will work as long as the tray bezel can be removed. OS support has been there a long time. Application support is hit and miss.

The main problems right now seem to be:
(1) Playback of commercial BDs, which is possible but clunky.
(2) Drives "disappearing" after MP coming out of sleep.
(3) On some model BD drives, periodic spinup of the motor when there is no disc present.
Click to expand...

wonderspark said:
Mine is an LG 10x Blu-ray burner from OWC: HL-DT-ST BD-RE WH10LS30

Came with instructions for removing bezel, and works as advertised without any drivers to load. I just pulled stock superdrive out and put this one in.

I have a RAID so I don't sleep my Mac, but if you did want to sleep your Mac and it won't sleep, you can just put a blank disc in the tray and close it... it will sleep normally.

Incidentally, I suddenly started using my drive a lot more after stupidly getting iTunes Match. Had to re-rip a bunch of CDs that it screwed up by replacing correct tracks with either live versions or clean versions with cussing bleeps and junk. 😡
Click to expand...

Thanks. I had an earlier LG BluRay drive and couldn't get it to work for some reason so it's in a Windows system at the moment. I don't remember the model. I was trying to get HandBrake to see it, as I remember it, and gave up as other issues intruded. I'd like, at some time, to get BluRay working for it but I guess I don't have a pressing need for it so far. I'd imagine using it for backup would be nice but I've not seen a good selection of blank media available locally.

Thanks for the responses.

Oh, thanks for the comment on iTunes Match. I've been tempted but hesitant. I've had issues with iCloud lately because I changed my password and for some reason it was a major PITA getting it to sync across the systems I use. I was getting delayed and refused email access (send and receive) and calenders still don't appear to sync across the 'cloud' like I thought they were going to do. Not feeling the love from the 'cloud'. What did Steve say? 'Why the 'F' doesn't it do it!' Indeed...

And with the issues that I've had over the years with track names from CDDB, I can only imagine the confusion possibilities with 'Match'... Some people that submit/create track names write War and Peace for each flipping track! And I've had entire CD's named in an alternate language with no hint at all that the choice I am about to make is bringing me pain. Oh well, at least it's actually pretty accurate and we don't have to type all of the track names in by hand... I shouldn't complain.

And I was wondering... Years ago I was able to use Garage Band to edit clips from the iTunes library. I was making my own ring tones at the time. I had heard that it wasn't possible anymore. Mentioning cuss words, etc, I'd like to edit live tracks and pull the ad-lib talking and rambling on some tracks. Plus I have many tracks that are cut off the CD so that the rambling for the next track is at the end of that previous track. I hate that... I'd like to be able to kill that stuff so when I shuffle I don't get that...
 
As a video editor, I have clients, many of which are old-fashioned and want a final product as a playable DVD or Blu-ray. So to that extent, I still use my optical drives a lot.

But from a personal use standpoint, I don't even bother. Most of the software I use is available via digital download and I even have my FCS 3 discs ripped as DMGs because otherwise, a reinstall of FCP would take hours.

I also have DMGs made for both Snow Leopard and Lion. If I need to do a clean OS install, it's a simple matter of copying an install DMG to a bootable flash drive and I'm done - and MUCH faster.


But with that said, I can't do without an optical drive just yet - for the clients I mentioned above and the fact that there still is a fair amount of software out there that's only available on printed media. And occasionally, I do still rip CDs into iTunes.
 
PinkyMacGodess said:
Thanks. I had an earlier LG BluRay drive and couldn't get it to work for some reason so it's in a Windows system at the moment. I don't remember the model. I was trying to get HandBrake to see it, as I remember it, and gave up as other issues intruded. I'd like, at some time, to get BluRay working for it but I guess I don't have a pressing need for it so far. I'd imagine using it for backup would be nice but I've not seen a good selection of blank media available locally.

Thanks for the responses.

Oh, thanks for the comment on iTunes Match. I've been tempted but hesitant. I've had issues with iCloud lately because I changed my password and for some reason it was a major PITA getting it to sync across the systems I use. I was getting delayed and refused email access (send and receive) and calenders still don't appear to sync across the 'cloud' like I thought they were going to do. Not feeling the love from the 'cloud'. What did Steve say? 'Why the 'F' doesn't it do it!' Indeed...

And with the issues that I've had over the years with track names from CDDB, I can only imagine the confusion possibilities with 'Match'... Some people that submit/create track names write War and Peace for each flipping track! And I've had entire CD's named in an alternate language with no hint at all that the choice I am about to make is bringing me pain. Oh well, at least it's actually pretty accurate and we don't have to type all of the track names in by hand... I shouldn't complain.

And I was wondering... Years ago I was able to use Garage Band to edit clips from the iTunes library. I was making my own ring tones at the time. I had heard that it wasn't possible anymore. Mentioning cuss words, etc, I'd like to edit live tracks and pull the ad-lib talking and rambling on some tracks. Plus I have many tracks that are cut off the CD so that the rambling for the next track is at the end of that previous track. I hate that... I'd like to be able to kill that stuff so when I shuffle I don't get that...
Click to expand...
My GarageBand still makes ringtones. In fact, that's how I make all my custom ringtones. I'm still on Snow Leopard, though. Not sure what you're using.

iCloud let me down. I lost all my contacts from my iPhone, which were supposed to be backed up, and had to export them from my other phone (an Android HTC) and re-import them and merge them all. Pain in the B. I removed all iCloud features.
 
I used it today to install Windows 7, and use my MP for audio so do still need to make CDs, even in this day and age.
 
Almost once a day. I actually have a LG Bluray Drive in drive bay 1 and the stock DVD-R in drive bay 2.

I also burn clients Lightscribe disks using the LG Bluray drive.
 
Export 20-30 sec audio clip and rename with .m4r and upload into phone. Do whatever you want to the audio prior. Am I missing something or is Lion more iOS than previously thought?
 
I used mine to burn Windows 7 for my machine yesterday... Mostly I use it for stuff like that (rare) or ripping DVDs/CDs.
 
Dweez said:
I use mine multiple times per week.
Click to expand...

Same ... I have 2 in mine that I use to duplicate our MMA event DVDs. If I buy a duplicator I'll still need to use them to make the master DVD. Would be nice to no longer need them though.

Chris
 
I have the normal Superdrive plus a Blu-ray (and HD DVD for that matter) drive that I added.

I use both all the time, certainly every week.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back