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Which external BR drive for ripping

thanks for the reply, I was looking for something has the ability to burn DL BR, even if it may be a bit slow. The drive you gave, which I saw posted early, doesn't burn any BR.

The one drive I posted, with the rebate, I can get it for about $68.
 
powerbook911 said:
If this isn't too off topic for the thread, how fast of a Mac do you need, to playback the rips?
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Your 2009 mini and beyond should play them with Plex, VLC, MPlayer Extended or XBMC, provided you extract the AC3 or DTS cores from the HD audio during ripping. The audio is the biggest problem with lagging. 1080i is a pain, too, but fortunately that's usually only with some BBC productions. My 1.8 gHz C2D MacBook Air can play Blu-ray rips with Plex so long as the audio has been extracted to Dolby Digital or DTS.
 
Ruahrc said:
http://www.amazon.com/Blu-Ray-USB-E...2Y9S/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1320338476&sr=8-2

I use this. I was a little hesitant to purchase at first since it's no-name brand and looks a little sketchy, but I decided to give it a try since I looked at the reviews which indicated it uses Matshita drives like Apple OEM. Only complaint is that it is only a 2x reader, but it was also cheaper than the other options and I don't do a lot of ripping so it's not a big issue for me.

So far no problems.
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I was finally able to get home and use this guy. I'm having a few issues already just recognizing some of my Blu-Ray discs and some that it will not read correctly for MakeMKV to rip the content off. For the discs that do work, the drive is a little noisy and clunky, but will get the job done. I think I'll be switching out soon though for a better one because I plan to be buying more blu-ray's with to rip for the new apple TV. For now I can't say I recommend this drive to anyone else.
 
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Blast from the past!

Strange that you're having problems. Could be a faulty unit.

Since my last post I have ripped numerous BRs with no issues. Always was able to read all my discs no problem. The combo of ripping and MakeMKV has worked out pretty well I gotta say. The biggest issues I have had were due to some of my BRs using unconventional encoding (VC-1 1080i), for which there was no really good playback software on the Mac (or windows really). For everything with 1080p (VC-1 or h264) it works like a charm.

A couple of suggestions for you:
1) Is the drive getting enough power? Did you use supplementary USB-to-power cable it came with? I didn't need it but it's a possibility you may need it.
2) Did you swap the included USB cable for a different one? For some reason, when I tried to connect the drive using a different USB cable, it didn't read any discs. But using the provided cable, it works fine. I don't know why this is- the included cable doesn't look like anything special, but the alternate cables I tried were a lot longer (6ft) so that may have had something to do with it.
3) Regarding noise/clunks- it's likely this is more due to vibration and disc balance than the drive itself. Some BRs I noticed were a lot louder than others (likely due to the disc itself being a little unbalanced, due to the label art) while others are dead silent. Also vibration isolation plays a big role in the perceived noise of the drive (any optical drive really). I put mine sideways on a couple of rubber feet, and it's really quiet.

But I guess for a cheap BR drive like this, a few problems are to be expected.
 
See answers below in bold.

Ruahrc said:
A couple of suggestions for you:
1) Is the drive getting enough power? Did you use supplementary USB-to-power cable it came with? I didn't need it but it's a possibility you may need it.
Do you mean using both at the same time or alternating which I use? I tried just the USB/USB one first. Had the issues, just plugged in both and my Harry Potter Disc still would not read.

2) Did you swap the included USB cable for a different one? For some reason, when I tried to connect the drive using a different USB cable, it didn't read any discs. But using the provided cable, it works fine. I don't know why this is- the included cable doesn't look like anything special, but the alternate cables I tried were a lot longer (6ft) so that may have had something to do with it.
I've only used the two stock cables included with it

3) Regarding noise/clunks- it's likely this is more due to vibration and disc balance than the drive itself. Some BRs I noticed were a lot louder than others (likely due to the disc itself being a little unbalanced, due to the label art) while others are dead silent. Also vibration isolation plays a big role in the perceived noise of the drive (any optical drive really). I put mine sideways on a couple of rubber feet, and it's really quiet.

Not sure if balance is the issue. It sounds like an old cd player about to go bad. whiiiiiiiir clunk....whiiiiiiiir clunk....... It made this noise on one disc that it finally read and I was trying to rip it with MakeMKV. After an hour and half of this I saw no progress on the status bars so I stopped it.
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I think I'm going to Best Buy soon to pick up an LG one and spend the extra $30 bucks I should have spent originally because I do plan on using this for a long time.
 
I use an LG drive and it works perfectly for ripping BRs and DVDs in OSX via USB.

I've not seen evidence of any drive not working in OSX for ripping.
 
I use the Sony. Works great, I haven't tried to rip a blue ray as I mainly use it to archive my raw photos to BD-R. I use it with my 2007 MB and Snow Leopard.
 
vastoholic said:
I was finally able to get home and use this guy. I'm having a few issues already just recognizing some of my Blu-Ray discs and some that it will not read correctly for MakeMKV to rip the content off. For the discs that do work, the drive is a little noisy and clunky, but will get the job done. I think I'll be switching out soon though for a better one because I plan to be buying more blu-ray's with to rip for the new apple TV. For now I can't say I recommend this drive to anyone else.
Click to expand...

I'm using the same drive, and it's starting to die. It's getting hardware errors while reading certain blurays, but the blurays are brand new, etc. It's on its way back to Amazon tomorrow, and I have the Samsung USB Blu-ray player on the way.
 
radiogoober said:
I'm using the same drive, and it's starting to die. It's getting hardware errors while reading certain blurays, but the blurays are brand new, etc. It's on its way back to Amazon tomorrow, and I have the Samsung USB Blu-ray player on the way.
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I ended up picking up a Pioneer BDR-XD04 and it's much better, faster and quieter. Box only specifies support for windows but it was a plug and play on my mini using Lion. Instantly recognized it an external drive.
 
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RestlessCaviar said:
What read speed do you get when ripping?

Is this the one you're talking about?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pioneer-BDR...19?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1340365091&sr=1-19
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Yes, that is the one I have. I never paid attention to the actual speed, but it took me about an hour to rip each of the harry potter Blu Rays (that was the last thing I've done) I don't know what's normal for 2 + hour movies, but I honestly didn't care about speed at this point. I just wanted one that worked. It opens up the disc and decrypts it in about 1 to 2 minutes, sometimes less it seems like, and then it's ready to rip.

Oh and I'm using MakeMKV.
 
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vastoholic said:
Yes, that is the one I have. I never paid attention to the actual speed, but it took me about 7 to 8 hours to rip each of the harry potter Blu Rays (that was the last thing I've done) I don't know what's normal for 2 + hour movies, but I honestly didn't care about speed at this point. I just wanted one that worked. It opens up the disc and decrypts it in about 1 to 2 minutes, sometimes less it seems like, and then it's ready to rip.
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I'd be interested in getting some additional ripping times posted. 7-8 hours EACH seems insanely long. It takes maybe 20 minutes to rip a DVD. Say you're copying 4-5GB of data. Even if you're ripping 25-30GB of data for a Blu-Ray, it shouldn't take more than a few hours, not 7-8 IMO.
 
imahawki said:
I'd be interested in getting some additional ripping times posted. 7-8 hours EACH seems insanely long. It takes maybe 20 minutes to rip a DVD. Say you're copying 4-5GB of data. Even if you're ripping 25-30GB of data for a Blu-Ray, it shouldn't take more than a few hours, not 7-8 IMO.
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***EDIT***, My apologies. I had brain fart and was thinking of my encode times from Handbrake. It takes about an hour I think to rip the movie.
 
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Ok so about 2x read speed. Still seems rather slow - wondering what the bottleneck is? If its USB2, are there any USB3 ones out there that are confirmed to work faster?
 
Yeah I'm guessing it's the USB slowing it down because I'm ripping directly to my mini first and only move it to my external after I finish handbrake.
 
It's not USB2. USB2 is capable of much faster BD rip speeds than 2X. My old LG desktop drive rips at 3.4X. I suspect that the Samsung slim players, like many players, are "rip locked" which limits the rip speed on commercial BD and DVD media.
 
theSeb said:
I use an LG drive and it works perfectly for ripping BRs and DVDs in OSX via USB.

I've not seen evidence of any drive not working in OSX for ripping.
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Just had a general question. I want to start ripping some blu ray dvd's that I have to mkv format, so I can play them from a USB memory stick on my samsung tv.

The things I would need would be

1.) MakeMKV program?
2.) External Blu Ray Reader?

is there anything else I'm missing?
 
RestlessCaviar said:
Ok so about 2x read speed. Still seems rather slow - wondering what the bottleneck is? If its USB2, are there any USB3 ones out there that are confirmed to work faster?
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Now that I've ripped a few discs, it seems the read speed is somehow dependent on the movie itself.

My Star Wars movies seem to rip at 1X, since it takes 2 hours to rip a movie.

The Avengers took 20 minutes! And I did verify that I got the whole thing.
 
AuroraProject said:
I received this today: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151239

I'm ripping Blurays right now, this drive is very quiet, compact, and works great on a Mac. I'm using it on a Mini Server with a single USB cable. My Bluray flow is rip to hdd with Make MKV, and play them with Plex or Boxee. I am going to try compressing the rips with HandBrake as the files are enormous and I will run out of space quick!
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It's a Samsung. Will it work with an Apple :apple: ? I would think the Mac would either spit it out or send signals to set it afire.
 
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