Viewing blu rays on my imacs?

[WorldTravelBro]

Is it possible to view blurays on my imac? Which external blu ray is recommended?

Also would the imac look good playing the blu rays or will there be some black showing on top and bottom?

are the hertz good enough?

 

[tanker5]

any standard usb blu ray drive will work. os x contains drivers which allow it to recognize most blu ray drives. however, you also need software that will play the blu ray disc. the most popular mac blu ray player software is macgo's mac blu ray player. You can find it here, although I feel it is extremely overpriced.

http://www.macblurayplayer.com/?gclid=CJvJtt7-9LgCFUui4Aod9ioAGA

vlc is a free app that plays some blu ray discs extremely well, but not all blu ray discs.

that being said, there is little or no difference between the quality of blu ray disc and the quality of an hd iTunes movie.

the lines you speak of at the top and bottom are due to the difference of resolution a particular movie is shot in. the iMac is a 16:9 display. Most movies are shot in 16:10 display. So, in order to fit the entire movie onto the screen without distorting (or "stretching") the image, the bars on top and bottom are necessary, or you will not see the entire picture. Most software programs (mac blu ray player and vlc included) offer zooming options which will in effect cut off a small part of the left and right sides of the movie and soon the movie so it covers the entire screen without having the black bars on top and bottom.

If you have 2011 or earlier iMac, it is very simple to replace the stock dvd drive with a slot loading bd drive. I have the drive in my 2011 iMac replaced with a panasonic bd drive and it works great.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

So basically, if you could play a blu ray disc on a mac, then you wouldn't want to buy the movie from iTunes.

Get a PS3, or a PC. Seriously, blu-ray on OS X is a bag of hurt, because that's how Apple wants it to be.

EDIT: Or install Windows and get an external blu-ray drive, that's probably easier.