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Will the LG BE14NU40 Blu-ray burner work with a Mac?

B

barnyard

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 19, 2010
101
92
http://www.lg.com/us/data-storage/lg-BE14NU40

lg-data-storage-be14nu40-large01.jpg

lg-data-storage-be14nu40-large02.jpg


I am looking for a USB 3.0 powered blu ray burner for my 2012 27 iMac. I really like the look of this one (white with brushed aluminum front) since it will match up well with my iMac and Airport Extreme. Also, it is AC powered so I don't have to take up multiple USB plugs to power it. Plus, it's fast.

However it doesn't list Mac compatibility. Can you think of any reason it shouldn't work? I know it won't natively play blurays, but I really only want it for a burner since there is no internal drive in the iMac anymore. I suppose I could always buy bluray player software if I decided to watch the movies on the iMac.

Has anyone tried this model, or any other similar LG external burner with success?
 
barnyard said:
http://www.lg.com/us/data-storage/lg-BE14NU40

Image
Image

I am looking for a USB 3.0 powered blu ray burner for my 2012 27 iMac. I really like the look of this one (white with brushed aluminum front) since it will match up well with my iMac and Airport Extreme. Also, it is AC powered so I don't have to take up multiple USB plugs to power it. Plus, it's fast.

However it doesn't list Mac compatibility. Can you think of any reason it shouldn't work? I know it won't natively play blurays, but I really only want it for a burner since there is no internal drive in the iMac anymore. I suppose I could always buy bluray player software if I decided to watch the movies on the iMac.

Has anyone tried this model, or any other similar LG external burner with success?
Click to expand...

I have an older model Samsung and LG bluray drives that I placed in cheap external enclosures and they both work perfectly, IMHO much better than a SuperDrive. They aren't as pretty but they more than get the job done but that drive actually looks very nice.
I would not see any reason that it wouldn't work.
 
Same Page

Well clearly we're on the same page because I just discovered this drive last night. I have a plan to assemble one and was just about ready to pull the trigger when I discovered this on LG's website. The ONLY place I've seen it for sale is Best Buy. It was $25 cheaper last night but is no longer on sale as of today. :mad:

That said, I have seen other enclosures that specifically say they have particular chipsets making them Mac compatible. Many of the Blu Ray players will say if they're hardware is Mac compatible with several * and ** pointing to the typical notations. On the flip side, I've seen many things "made for windows" that work just as well on a Mac. I say.... run up to Best Buy, try it and report back! :D

----------

Here is what I plan on doing if I don't buy the LG discussed...

LG Drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136250
LGbluray.jpeg


Firewire Enclosure:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MRSFW8U2OB/
OWCenclosure.jpg


Total hardware price of $120. Not as pretty as the 3.0 LG on this page though.

I already have Toast 11 with Blu Ray plug-in for the software.
 
I ordered it and will test it when my new 27" arrives. I'm thinking it should work, but I am protected by the return policy if it doesn't.
 
I think that drive should work with the Mac just fine.

In case you didn't notice it, the drive also supports burning "M-discs". These are a new type of DVD that uses some new technology (instead of the older "dyes") to write discs with extra-longevity. If you have any data you'd like to archive for the long-term future, the M-disc format would be the way to go...
 
Yes, I can definitively say this work with a Mac. I bought it at Best Buy today, have it hooked up to a new 2012 i7 Mac Mini via USB 3.0 and it's ripped two DVD discs perfectly. I will try burning something in a bit but so far, it's quiet and just what I wanted. Not thrilled with the hundred and twenty something price at Best Buy but hey, it fit my needs perfectly.

Know that the USB 3.0 cable they provide is hella short (less than 18 inches) so be prepared to use a different cable if you have any distance to cover. Monoprice is a great site for cables IMHO.
 
pinthea said:
Yes, I can definitively say this work with a Mac. I bought it at Best Buy today, have it hooked up to a new 2012 i7 Mac Mini via USB 3.0 and it's ripped two DVD discs perfectly. I will try burning something in a bit but so far, it's quiet and just what I wanted. Not thrilled with the hundred and twenty something price at Best Buy but hey, it fit my needs perfectly.

Know that the USB 3.0 cable they provide is hella short (less than 18 inches) so be prepared to use a different cable if you have any distance to cover. Monoprice is a great site for cables IMHO.
Click to expand...

I bought this drive too but can't hook it up until Xmas. Did you install the software that came with the drive? Did you update any firmware? Please let me know what you did so that I can get it up and running right away.

Thanks!
 
zoe1271 said:
I bought this drive too but can't hook it up until Xmas. Did you install the software that came with the drive? Did you update any firmware? Please let me know what you did so that I can get it up and running right away.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

This is the plugin he said he installed to use it on a mac I just bought the really nice LG at Best Buy it was the last one here i Guess thier popular im excited to use it too Im gonna download Toast 11 Tomorrow Merry Christmas :):):cool:
http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/toast/plugin/overview.html
 
It's back on sale at Best Buy for $124.99. I can't recommend it enough - it burns natively on the iMac and it's quiet and fast.
 
I picked this up and have been using the drive over the weekend on a 2012 13" MacBook Pro. I picked this drive because it is USB 3.0 and faster than 8x. I dont really care about a fast burn, I am more interested in a fast READ speed and had high hopes for this drive.

First task was to use on a Blu-Ray Disc extracting the main title using MakeMKV.
First attempt did not work as planned, drive disappeared for some unknown reason.
Second attempt I did a full backup and that worked fine, but copied 13GB more than the first attempt would have done, so while it did work, it did not work the way I wanted it to.

Second task (different Blu-Ray Disc).
First attempt drive disappeared. Second and Third attempts trying a full backup same thing. Drive disappears. All three attempts are failures.

I have never had anywhere close to 14x READ speeds at all, and with the dropping out, I am not happy at all. Not sure if it is just this drive, or how it works, but I think I may have to wait until after CES to get a portable USB3 drive with good READ speeds.
 
zoe1271 said:
Thanks for the link. I'll be buying Toast too. Does iTunes recognize the drive? I want to be able to add new CDs to my iTunes library.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Click to expand...

GREAT NEWS! iTunes recognized the drive!!! It was literally plug-'n'-play. I opened iTunes, popped in a cd and ripped away.
 
Curious if anyone else has experienced the same issues segura is having with reading blu-rays? Has anyone else tried blu-rays yet?

I may pick one up at BB soon as well, but if it has issues reading blu-rays, then this won't work for me.
 
So I thought I would try another Blu-Ray rip from this drive to a 2012 MBP.
Running a rip of the Title Track and seems to be working in this case. Speed is running about 4-6.2x. Note that it will go faster as it moves from the beginning (center of disc) to the end (outside of disc).

In the status message, I get the following a few times:
"Program reads data faster than it can write to disk, consider upgrading your hard drive if you see many of these messages". Strange since I have an SSD, I would not expect this message from MakeMKV.

Error popped up "Copy complete. 0 titles saved, 1 failed" OK. This is 7 minutes into the rip.

In the status window:
Error 'OS error - (ipc/send) invalid destination port' occurred while reading '/BDMV/STREAM/00001.m2ts' at offset '10226761728'
Additional DEBUG Code 2281701379 is also shown, but probably because my MBP cannot see the drive anymore.

Looking on my desktop, the Blu-Ray drive with the disc has disappeared. Disconnected the USB 3.0 cable and plugged back in works. The drive and disc are now back on my desktop, but since the Rip failed, this doesn't matter. At this point, I need to exit MakeMKV and launch it again.
 
segura said:
So I thought I would try another Blu-Ray rip from this drive to a 2012 MBP.
Running a rip of the Title Track and seems to be working in this case. Speed is running about 4-6.2x. Note that it will go faster as it moves from the beginning (center of disc) to the end (outside of disc).

In the status message, I get the following a few times:
"Program reads data faster than it can write to disk, consider upgrading your hard drive if you see many of these messages". Strange since I have an SSD, I would not expect this message from MakeMKV.

Error popped up "Copy complete. 0 titles saved, 1 failed" OK. This is 7 minutes into the rip.

In the status window:
Error 'OS error - (ipc/send) invalid destination port' occurred while reading '/BDMV/STREAM/00001.m2ts' at offset '10226761728'
Additional DEBUG Code 2281701379 is also shown, but probably because my MBP cannot see the drive anymore.

Looking on my desktop, the Blu-Ray drive with the disc has disappeared. Disconnected the USB 3.0 cable and plugged back in works. The drive and disc are now back on my desktop, but since the Rip failed, this doesn't matter. At this point, I need to exit MakeMKV and launch it again.
Click to expand...
Just tried again, no changes, and it completed in 15m26s. Total data size is 18,658,872,094 bytes, which converts to 19.21MB/s, so under 5x.
While it did complete, I think a portable Blu-Ray drive may be in my future as it is the conversion that will take longer than the rip anyway.
 
It's possible these BR drives have "Riplock" like DVD drives, which will limit the rip speed to around 4-5X even if the drive is rated for a higher read speed.
 
CWallace said:
It's possible these BR drives have "Riplock" like DVD drives, which will limit the rip speed to around 4-5X even if the drive is rated for a higher read speed.
Click to expand...
I don't think that is the problem, I think it is because most of the data is written on the inner part of the disc. Riplock should keep it 1-2x I think.

What is interesting is the speed (printed on the box)

WRITE
BD-R SL 14x
BD-R DL 12x

READ
BD-R SL 12x
BD-R DL 8x

So when "reading" it will be slower. As most BR movie discs are 50GB, then it looks like the MAX speed will be 8x. So getting almost 6x during my last rip confirms seems about normal. So honestly this drive is not much faster than getting a 6x Portable USB 2.0 drive. I think I will wait until after CES to see what gets released in January. Certainly a good USB 3.0 Portable drive will be released.
 
I went ahead and picked up this drive at a local BB.

I'm visiting family for the holiday so I'm not at home with all of my computer stuff, but I did go ahead and try it out on a MacBookPro2,2 (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.33 Ghz 2GB Ram, running 10.7.5) and so far I have not had any "problems." I have not tested any writing yet, but I have successfully played CD, DVD, and Blu-ray, including a successful MakeMKV of The Blind Side (had to buy a cheap movie since my collection is all at home). Once the MKV was complete, I was too anxious to see if it would play back nicely that I didn't read all of the MakeMKV output, but I did look at it when it was about 5 min from completion and it was just shy of 5x read speed (obviously being a higher speed as the laser moves towards the outside of the disc). The only issue I had was watching the Blu-ray from the disc, when a cut scene or other drastic change in image occurred, I did notice a drop in frame rate. I didn't investigate it much, but my initial guess is the fact that this is an older MBP and only has USB2.0. The ripped MKV did not have these same dropped frames when played back from the local HDD. I used VLC for the playback of both.
 
Strange that some of you are getting slow burns. I am using the Verbatim 6x BD-R's, and even though they are rated at 6x, I was burning consistently at 8x (they must be conservative in their ratings). I ripped 18 disks to archive an old drive and had no issues.
 
Just picked this drive up at BestBuy and started a rip just to give it a try.
This is on a '11 iMac, so no USB3.
BR was Transformers Revenge of the Fallen, 45GB.
So in MakeMKV on USB2 it completed the rip is 35m with a 38GB MKV file.

I haven't tried burning anything yet. I'll report back later on once I get a chance to try that out.

I have to pick up some 50GB BR's only have 25GB's atm, I plan on backing up and storing about 7TB worth of data.

Has anyone noticed BR rotting after a year or two like there used to be with cheap brand CD's and DVD's?


*** Currently burning 1 disc, so far avg write speed 4x, current write speed 6x, 13min remaining, 9% complete.
Using Verbatim 6X 25GB disc - writing basically a full disc, 320MB will be empty on the BR after burn.
 
Last edited:
Issue burning DVD/CD..

Bought this drive from BB,last week. Config: MBP/Lion/USB2.0/LG BE14NU40. Has run into the same verification problem with atleast three different burns..
1) CD copy(writing) into a Memorex CD-RW,using Toast Titanium successful(very slow burn time), but verification failed.
2) Burn(Writing) of Lion Recovery Image into a Verbatim DVD+R,using Disk Utility successful,but verification failed. I was able to boot using the burnt DVD but *very very* slow, compared to another disc burnt using the internal SuperDrive. Writing/Verification of the same image into the Superdrive/Verbatim DVD+R went through successfully,no issues.
3) Burn(Writing) of Lion Recovery Image into Memorex DVD+RW,using Disk Utility successful,but verification failed(errored out,after about 70-80%).Writing/Verification of the same image into my older LG(2007) drive on the exact same DVD+RW disk went through successfully,no issues(so media issue,ruled out).

Also not able to play a Blu-ray using DVDFab Media/Bu-Ray player, although I can browse the folder structures.

Anyone else running into these kinda issues with this drive ? . Maybe I got a defective one(hopefully) and not a MAC incompatibility issue?

Thanks
 
tmgn said:
Bought this drive from BB,last week. Config: MBP/Lion/USB2.0/LG BE14NU40. Has run into the same verification problem with atleast three different burns..
1) CD copy(writing) into a Memorex CD-RW,using Toast Titanium successful(very slow burn time), but verification failed.
2) Burn(Writing) of Lion Recovery Image into a Verbatim DVD+R,using Disk Utility successful,but verification failed. I was able to boot using the burnt DVD but *very very* slow, compared to another disc burnt using the internal SuperDrive. Writing/Verification of the same image into the Superdrive/Verbatim DVD+R went through successfully,no issues.
3) Burn(Writing) of Lion Recovery Image into Memorex DVD+RW,using Disk Utility successful,but verification failed(errored out,after about 70-80%).Writing/Verification of the same image into my older LG(2007) drive on the exact same DVD+RW disk went through successfully,no issues(so media issue,ruled out).

Also not able to play a Blu-ray using DVDFab Media/Bu-Ray player, although I can browse the folder structures.

Anyone else running into these kinda issues with this drive ? . Maybe I got a defective one(hopefully) and not a MAC incompatibility issue?

Thanks
Click to expand...

I will see if I can duplicate any of your issues within the next day or so.
I only tried ripping a BR movie (MakeMKV) and burning a Verbatim BR data disc (Made a BR with OS X Tiger through Mountain Lion) via Toast Titanium, no verification issues. This is also the first 24GB BR i Have burned and it was right at 14min, not sure what the norm is.

Like I said no verification issues yet, at least with the BR media I have, I'll see what I can find out with CD's and DVD's.
 
Issue fixed..with replacement drive!

tmgn said:
Bought this drive from BB,last week. Config: MBP/Lion/USB2.0/LG BE14NU40. Has run into the same verification problem with atleast three different burns..
1) CD copy(writing) into a Memorex CD-RW,using Toast Titanium successful(very slow burn time), but verification failed.
2) Burn(Writing) of Lion Recovery Image into a Verbatim DVD+R,using Disk Utility successful,but verification failed. I was able to boot using the burnt DVD but *very very* slow, compared to another disc burnt using the internal SuperDrive. Writing/Verification of the same image into the Superdrive/Verbatim DVD+R went through successfully,no issues.
3) Burn(Writing) of Lion Recovery Image into Memorex DVD+RW,using Disk Utility successful,but verification failed(errored out,after about 70-80%).Writing/Verification of the same image into my older LG(2007) drive on the exact same DVD+RW disk went through successfully,no issues(so media issue,ruled out).

Also not able to play a Blu-ray using DVDFab Media/Bu-Ray player, although I can browse the folder structures.

Anyone else running into these kinda issues with this drive ? . Maybe I got a defective one(hopefully) and not a MAC incompatibility issue?

Thanks
Click to expand...

just wanted to update: Looks like a defective drive, replaced the drive at BB and everything seems to be working fine now.
 
I kept having drive dropout issues on about 70% of my BR Rips. I have replaced the too short USB 3.0 cable with a Belkin F3U159B06 6 Foot USB 3.0 Cable for $8 shipped. So far so good, but from what I can tell, sometimes a cheap USB Cable can cause the drive to disappear.

Having the longer cable is great too as I am ripping to a laptop, not a stationary desktop.

Currently "testing" on Looper from RedBox, running at 5x Read.
 
timing out

I'm trying to use DVDFab to copy a blue ray disc. Disc reads in just fine
on the LG BE14NU40 connected to the Mac but then DVDFab asks for a writeable disc to be inserted. Problem is I cannot open the drive tray to put in a disc....it looks like it times out or something as the drive is not even listed in Finder any longer....any suggestions? Takes about 2.5 hours to read in....
Only way to get the disc out is power cycle...the blue ray drive
 
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