www.makemkv.com

I'm new to all this and could do with some advice. I'm after at ripping blu ray, I own an intel iMac and therefore need an external blu ray drive. After doing some research I see there are two options, buying an internal drive and putting it in a USB enclosure, or buying an external drive and connecting via USB, this being my preference. I live in the UK and therefore my choice seems somewhat limited and reading a few of the specifications, it seems that most aren't compatible with a Mac OS. One product I've found is LG's new external blu ray drive (BE12LU30) but it doesn't say it's compatible with a Mac. However, will it be recognised if I were to plug it in to my USB slot by MakeMKV? All I wish to use it for is getting a blu ray disc on to my Mac so I can watch it using Plex? Can anyone advise me or perhaps suggest some other options for me

MakeMKV relies on your Mac being able to see the drive, rather than the software itself seeing the drive. I have the Plextor PX-B310U which I use on Linux with MakeMKV and it works fine. I also tested it on my Win7 laptop and my friends MacBook Pro, both of which worked.

There are plenty of online retailers that sell the drive if you search for it using the Google Product search.

So are you saying the LG drive will be recognised by MakeMKV then?

So long as it is recognised by OSX, yes.

Also, will Makemkv make the mkv file directly from the BluRay disc or do you have to copy/rip the disk to the hard drive first (45+ gb worth of space?). Which is the preferred method?

It will make the file directly from the disc. This is the preferred method.