Page 1 of 3

List of Blu-ray drives that work

Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 8:50 pm
by daheado
I was wondering if there is a list of players that are known to work. I'm thinking of getting the external Blu-ray drive from fastmac.com http://fastmac.com/blurayext. It's only $119.99 so its a great deal. Does anyone know if it works.

Re: List of Blu-ray drives that work

Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 9:34 am
by SnotMonster
Hi - I took the plunge and ordered one of these about a week ago. Still awaiting delivery, but I can post back once it arrives and I've tried it out

Re: List of Blu-ray drives that work

Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 1:53 pm
by jmerrilljr
I don't know about that particular model. I bought one with a faster read time which also burns BD.
My first drive didn't work after two burns. They did send me another but it took a couple of weeks.
Go with LaCie

Re: List of Blu-ray drives that work

Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 6:05 pm
by stinkweasels
This one works. Does blu-rays in 25-40 minutes . :D

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827136162

Re: List of Blu-ray drives that work

Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 1:41 am
by counter_clockwise
If you're able to use an internal drive or have an enclosure, I got the Lite-On iHES208 and it works perfectly. I had an issue with OSX and my 2009 Mac Pro where the drive would lock up if I left a disk in too long, but that seems to be fixed with the latest EFI firmware update.

http://www.google.com/products/catalog? ... 7941945717

I think I got it on sale for 109 at Walmart.

Re: List of Blu-ray drives that work

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 1:54 am
by VBLUE42
stinkweasels wrote:This one works. Does blu-rays in 25-40 minutes . :D

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827136162
I have this drive but was never able to get MakeMKV to recognize a Blu-Ray disk in the drive under OS X 1.6.2

Re: List of Blu-ray drives that work

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 3:04 am
by stinkweasels
VBLUE42 wrote:
stinkweasels wrote:This one works. Does blu-rays in 25-40 minutes . :D

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827136162
I have this drive but was never able to get MakeMKV to recognize a Blu-Ray disk in the drive under OS X 1.6.2
That's weird, I've done about 50 blu-rays with no issues in 10.6.1 and 10.6.2 :?:

I did upgrade the firmware to 2.00 in Boot Camp prior to using it, though

Re: List of Blu-ray drives that work

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 3:40 am
by VBLUE42
Yeah so did I. I did find out just recently when I put a DVD in the drive that it had not had the region set yet. That may have been the problem but I don't thing Blu-Ray disk are region specific but I could be wrong. I will try it again when I get my hands on another Blu-Ray movie.

Re: List of Blu-ray drives that work

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 3:25 pm
by Noddy
daheado and SnotMonster

just wondered if you guys had any luck with the Fastmac drive ? looking at getting one myself.

Re: List of Blu-ray drives that work

Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2010 3:41 pm
by SnotMonster
Still awaiting delivery - estimate was 2 weeks so it's due in the next day or so

Re: List of Blu-ray drives that work

Posted: Thu Jan 28, 2010 7:25 pm
by mrbass
What I ended up getting after searching weeks for a stupid overly priced external bluray drive was an internal one.

Got a $40 external enclosure to put internal bluray drive in.
VANTEC NST-530S2 Aluminum 5.25" USB 2.0 External Enclosure
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817392021
I did cut one power wire to the fan since no need for it with a bluray drive.

Bought this Lite-On 8X BDROM with dvd/cd burning for $109 at walmart...though now in stock at newegg for $99.
Although in ripping never get pass 4X bdrom speed. Still rips are about 30 to 45 mins for ripping main movie with makemkv.
LITE-ON Black 8X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal BD-COMBO Model ihes108-29 - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827106300

Newegg does a piss poor job of specifying it burns dvd/cds so here are the stats from the box.
DVD+-R write speed 16X
DVD+-R DL write speed 8X
DVD-RW rewrite speed 6X
DVD-RAM rewrite speed 12X
DVD-ROM read speed 16X
CD-R write speed 48X

Re: List of Blu-ray drives that work

Posted: Sat Jan 30, 2010 2:44 am
by Noddy
Thanks SnotMonster, looking forward to your review.

Re: List of Blu-ray drives that work

Posted: Sat Jan 30, 2010 7:52 pm
by toxlab
I recently bought a Plextor BD USB Model PX-B310U for about $170 from Amazon (newegg has it too). Hooked to the Mac Mini, the BD or DVD disk mounted right away under Leopard. Fired up makemkv which also recognized the disk (both DVD and BD) and have used it to archive many of my DVDs and BDs to my HD on my Mac mini home theater running Plex. Works great. Several other people have used it for the same purpose based on the amazon reviews. Gets great reviews too (at amazon and newegg).

Re: List of Blu-ray drives that work

Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 4:53 pm
by SnotMonster
Dear All

This afternoon I received the low-cost drive from Fastmac - plugged it into my iMac and was able to rip my first Blueray movie without a hitch. Looks good so far

Update: 3 rips - all 100% successful. Not fast with 2x read; takes about an hour per rip but I don't find that a major issue. Oh, and Fastmac customer service sucked - the delivery took a week longer than expected but they didn't even bother to respond to my multiple requests to try and track the package.

Re: List of Blu-ray drives that work

Posted: Fri Feb 12, 2010 2:10 pm
by Noddy
Thanks for the review,are you still using it without any problems ?

I did notice that they increased the price to $140 http://store.fastmac.com/product_info.p ... ts_id=406/ I still think I might give it a go

Thanks again