Are there any stickies/FAQs on replacing the optical drive in a cMP 5,1 with a BluRay drive? I have found the occasional posting on the subject of BluRay drives, but not so much for getting an overview (compatible drives, software etc.)
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
MP 1,1-5,1 Sticky or FAQ on BluRay drives in cMP?
- Thread starter macstatic
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
If you want to play movies, and have anything like the same experience a standalone bluray player offers (menus etc) the app you need is on the Mac App Store, and it’s about US$60. Blue ray for watching movies on the mac, as opposed to ripping / transcoding and watching from disk is a pretty neglected scene, from what I can tell (was researching this last week).
Yes, I want to rip BluRay discs in the same way as regular DVDs. I understand Handbrake can do this with BluRay discs as well (its website says so). Can anyone confirm that this actually works?
So additional software is needed to PLAY BluRay discs, but do I need this software if I replace my (standard) optical drive and play and burn regular DVDs as I do now? I'm hoping all functionaly will be the same, but that I can play (and rip) BluRay discs in addition. Is this how it works? I'm running MacOS 10.13 High Sierra.
What's the name of the software you're referring to by the way, and which BlueRay drives (I suppose burners as I want to continue burning DVDs) work flawlessly with the cMP 5,1?
So additional software is needed to PLAY BluRay discs, but do I need this software if I replace my (standard) optical drive and play and burn regular DVDs as I do now? I'm hoping all functionaly will be the same, but that I can play (and rip) BluRay discs in addition. Is this how it works? I'm running MacOS 10.13 High Sierra.
What's the name of the software you're referring to by the way, and which BlueRay drives (I suppose burners as I want to continue burning DVDs) work flawlessly with the cMP 5,1?
I have run at various times an LG WH16NS40, an ASUS BW-16D1HT, and a Pioneer BDR-209UBK and they all work about the same. You need additional software to play Blu-ray movies, but you can rip them using MakeMKV. I never got Handbrake to work for ripping, but it can convert the rip afterwards. The LG and Asus can also be reflashed using LibreDrive firmware to get around copy protection.
That basically covers all the full size Blu-ray writer models available minus a few obsolete models and variants of the above. The Pioneer drive seems to be locked to a max 3x write speed.
That basically covers all the full size Blu-ray writer models available minus a few obsolete models and variants of the above. The Pioneer drive seems to be locked to a max 3x write speed.
The Blu-ray drives mentioned above include a separate red laser for playing and writing CDs and DVDs so will work fine, no additional software required.
Excellent! Nothing lost, and only additonal features!
And in a cMP 5,1 -is it just a matter of getting one of the mentioned models (I assume they're all in the 5 1/4" form factor as the original optical drive), put it in the optical bay as before, and attach the same SATA and power cables as with the original optical drive?
And in a cMP 5,1 -is it just a matter of getting one of the mentioned models (I assume they're all in the 5 1/4" form factor as the original optical drive), put it in the optical bay as before, and attach the same SATA and power cables as with the original optical drive?
Yes you connect the same SATA cables as the original optical drive. There are two sets available. You must also remove the faceplate from the front of the drive before installing it. There are guides online on how to do this, the jist is you push up from the bottom of the faceplate until the clips release the plate.
Drives don't have a region assigned until you put a DVD in the drive, then it will ask you to set the region to the region of the disc and the operating system will remember your choice. Once this is done the drive will be locked to that region. When you rip a disc, it will strip the region so region-locking only applies to playing a DVD. Blu-ray works the same way. No you can't make the drive region free.
As far as drive model suggestion get either an LG WH16NS60 or the Asus BW-16D1HT leaning towards the Asus as it is a little bit more reliable (and a little bit more expensive). I can't really recommend the Pioneer BDR-212DBK as it has a couple of problems on macOS, but, it is the most reliable blu-ray writer of the three.
As far as drive model suggestion get either an LG WH16NS60 or the Asus BW-16D1HT leaning towards the Asus as it is a little bit more reliable (and a little bit more expensive). I can't really recommend the Pioneer BDR-212DBK as it has a couple of problems on macOS, but, it is the most reliable blu-ray writer of the three.
Just to chime in, I use Pioneer BDR-209D on lower bay alongside with stocks SuperDrive, loving it so far for almost three years.
I think cMP has the last best MacOS machine able load BD disc/optical media directly without dongle fuss or USB cable. Also, even with only SATA2 connection, are proven more stable for long ripping task rather than USB connection counterparts.
I think cMP has the last best MacOS machine able load BD disc/optical media directly without dongle fuss or USB cable. Also, even with only SATA2 connection, are proven more stable for long ripping task rather than USB connection counterparts.
I've been happy with the two WH16NS40 drives I had in my 5,1 for the past seven years but recently both stopped reading discs of each format in rather quick succession - some formats still worked initially but within a span of two months both drives were useless. I'd love to figure out how to repair them, but many around the internet seem to regard these drives as somewhat failure prone.
Without knowing about incompatibility in firmware sleep states between the 5,1's Intel ICH10 host controller and modern drives, I ordered a pair of Pioneer BDR-212DBK as replacements since sentiments suggest they're of higher quality than the LG drives.
The first issue I encountered is trivial- the drives' eject buttons are physically thick enough that they are pressed by the cMP's case frame. Installing the drives in the typical fashion for classic Mac Pros (drive tray face removed) is not quite enough; removing the entire faceplate was necessary in my case to avoid the eject button being pressed down when installed.
The second issue is more fundamental [and I haven't researched this extensively so I may misunderstand]: the Pioneer drives' firmware allows them to enter a more modern sleep state wherein they become somewhat inaccessible to the ICH10 host's older set of commands. If left unused for too long (maybe half an hour or an hour?) the drives 'disappear' from the list of 'Disc Burning' options in System Profiler [System Info] and appear as 'Unknown' devices in the SATA section, refusing to open their trays even when the hardware eject button is pressed on the drive itself. The only way I've found to reestablish connection is to restart the Mac Pro.
I've attempted a couple of software bodges which can help mitigate this state:
Running the commands
regularly (ten minute interval in cron [>/dev/null]) will regularly poll the drives' information, which basically prevents them from becoming 'Unknown' SATA devices. This is unfortunately not enough on its own...
Without a disc inserted the drive still enters a low power state, and despite still appearing as 'PIONEER BD-RW BDR-212D' on the ICH10 SATA controller it will no longer respond to requests to open the tray, etc.
Additionally keeping a disc inserted seems to largely mitigate this sleep state, but this is not foolproof. In an initial test the drive with disc inserted remained active for over 12 hours but then eventually reverted to an 'Unknown' state.
I've had considerably more success with a rougher approach; adding the following line to the crontab blindly instructs all drives to close their trays every five minutes:
This can be refined with drive names somewhat easily to only apply to 'Upper' and 'Lower' bay drives, rather than all (which may include external) but will still awkwardly close a drive the user just opened depending on the system clock.
Overall, however, this seems to work. Over 36 hours after adding this in cron, both of my drives (one with a disc inserted and one without) have remained accessible and responding to requests to open/close trays, read discs, etc.
Time will tell if this is ultimately stable...
Bonus points:
If this approach does prove to be sound, ideally a script which pauses the closing commands when a recent open event has happened can mitigate this solution's main caveat. Unfortunately it doesn't seem the drive's tray state is determinable by any command...
@joevt, do you have insight on this?
Running:
cleanly produces a live output of events describing the explicit opening and closing of drive trays in the console.
I'd expect to be able to pipe that into
So that I could implement logic to skip closing when an open command has just taken place for a given drive, however when I run this (as a prelimary test) nothing is written to console at all. Not sure why that is.
In the meantime, being able to use these drives is nice, even if I need to be aware they can quickly close if I open them several seconds before a five minute interval.
Without knowing about incompatibility in firmware sleep states between the 5,1's Intel ICH10 host controller and modern drives, I ordered a pair of Pioneer BDR-212DBK as replacements since sentiments suggest they're of higher quality than the LG drives.
I found this thread because of this specific post when I started to encounter issues.
The first issue I encountered is trivial- the drives' eject buttons are physically thick enough that they are pressed by the cMP's case frame. Installing the drives in the typical fashion for classic Mac Pros (drive tray face removed) is not quite enough; removing the entire faceplate was necessary in my case to avoid the eject button being pressed down when installed.
The second issue is more fundamental [and I haven't researched this extensively so I may misunderstand]: the Pioneer drives' firmware allows them to enter a more modern sleep state wherein they become somewhat inaccessible to the ICH10 host's older set of commands. If left unused for too long (maybe half an hour or an hour?) the drives 'disappear' from the list of 'Disc Burning' options in System Profiler [System Info] and appear as 'Unknown' devices in the SATA section, refusing to open their trays even when the hardware eject button is pressed on the drive itself. The only way I've found to reestablish connection is to restart the Mac Pro.
I've attempted a couple of software bodges which can help mitigate this state:
Running the commands
Code:
drutil status
drutil infoWithout a disc inserted the drive still enters a low power state, and despite still appearing as 'PIONEER BD-RW BDR-212D' on the ICH10 SATA controller it will no longer respond to requests to open the tray, etc.
Additionally keeping a disc inserted seems to largely mitigate this sleep state, but this is not foolproof. In an initial test the drive with disc inserted remained active for over 12 hours but then eventually reverted to an 'Unknown' state.
I've had considerably more success with a rougher approach; adding the following line to the crontab blindly instructs all drives to close their trays every five minutes:
Code:
0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * * drutil tray closeOverall, however, this seems to work. Over 36 hours after adding this in cron, both of my drives (one with a disc inserted and one without) have remained accessible and responding to requests to open/close trays, read discs, etc.
Time will tell if this is ultimately stable...
Bonus points:
If this approach does prove to be sound, ideally a script which pauses the closing commands when a recent open event has happened can mitigate this solution's main caveat. Unfortunately it doesn't seem the drive's tray state is determinable by any command...
@joevt, do you have insight on this?
Running:
Code:
stdbuf -oL drutil poll | sed -n '/DRDeviceStatusChangedNotification/ {
N
/DRDeviceIsTrayOpenKey/ {
s/\n/ /
p
}
}'I'd expect to be able to pipe that into
Code:
while IFS= read -r line
do
echo $line
doneIn the meantime, being able to use these drives is nice, even if I need to be aware they can quickly close if I open them several seconds before a five minute interval.
I've never used the
drutil command before.There's a
trayState element in the results from drutil status -xmlIf it's open then use
open or do nothing? If it's closed then use close.You can iterate the
drutil list -xml result. Then for each device, grab the index and get the status using -drive $index.Use the same
-drive $index for the tray command.I don't think iterating the status result for all devices (i.e. without
-drive) can work because the result doesn't include an index for each device?You might want to use a script language that includes xml parsing. Maybe perl or python?