Filed under: Accessories, Hardware, Peripherals, PowerMac G5, Mac Pro
Blu-ray recordable drive for Macs
Is it time to finally put your HD mountain biking documentary on Blu-ray? Apple upgrade vendor MCE Technologies announced availability of a totally Mac-compatible Blu-ray recordable drive for Mac Pro and Power Mac.The $499 (internal) drive is compatible with Mac OS X 10.5.2 and later, requiring no special drivers for burning -- just install it in your Mac Pro or Power Mac bay, pop in blank Blu-ray media, and you're ready to roll. The drive does both single-layer (6X BD-R or 2X BD-RE) and dual-layer (4X BD-R, 2X BD-RE) burning for capacities of 25GB or 50GB respectively. That's up to 50,000 photos, 12,500 music tracks, or 4 hours of HD video.
There's a $599 version bundled with Roxio Toast 9 and the Toast BD//HD Plugin, as well as an external drive with FireWire and USB 2.0 ports for $749.
To write professional Blu-ray discs that can play on set-top Blu-ray players or Sony PS3, you'll need Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 Encore along with Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 or Final Cut Pro. Basic Blu-ray movies can be burned with Roxio Toast 9 and the BD/HD Plugin.
[via The Mac Observer]
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
ZeroCorpse said 12:09PM on 7-01-2008
No love for the MacBooks, huh?
Drat.
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bob said 12:31PM on 7-01-2008
final cut can burn bluray?
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Hobbes said 12:52PM on 7-01-2008
Final Cut supports HD-DVD formats, but not Blu-ray as of yet, which is very surprising given Apple's support for the format.
TVGenius said 7:45PM on 7-01-2008
Yeah, exactly.
Hello, Apple, How about some Blu-ray love for DVD Studio Pro??
Moose said 12:40PM on 7-01-2008
As a tower user with one admittedly wimpy DVD burner this is quite tempting, I have a potentially very stupid question: When you hit the eject key on the keyboard, which drive bay will open, or does it by default open both? Is there a way to control that with a key combo? 1 + command = drive 1, or 2 + command = drive 2.
Clue me in...
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John said 12:53PM on 7-01-2008
The eject button opens the top drive. To open the bottom drive you use the alt/option key with the eject button.
Moose said 12:50PM on 7-01-2008
I meant 1 + command + eject, or just 1 + eject, and so forth, since that wasn't clear at all from my post...
Hobbes said 12:57PM on 7-01-2008
Apple's documentation says that Option+Eject opens/closes the second drive. Not sure if pressing only Eject works on both or just the first drive. I don't have 2 drives to test this.
Gene Cowan said 1:40PM on 7-01-2008
When you install a second optical drive in the Mac Pro, it automatically places a little eject icon in the menubar. That lets you choose which tray to eject.
Moose said 2:06PM on 7-01-2008
thanks folks!
NutMac said 12:56PM on 7-01-2008
This is very nice and all but is there any way to watch (not burn) Blu-ray movies on a Mac?
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Hobbes said 12:59PM on 7-01-2008
To do that you'd need a combination of drive + monitor + video card that support HDCP (DRM). I don't think any of these is available yet.
A1 said 2:07PM on 7-01-2008
Unfortunatly no, Apple are really dragging their asses on this (considering their directors of the BDA Blu-ray Disc Association).
FCP needs Blu support now. :(
William Hook said 2:11PM on 7-01-2008
@ Hobbes: Incorrect, as long as both the monitor and video card support HDCP, it can be done over DVI as well.
The alternate method, of course, is to just use bootcamp and XP or Vista with PowerDVD. However, it's a pain in the arse, and you need a video card that can do that. I think the nVidia 8800 series has HDCP, and probably the newer ones too.
William Hook said 2:12PM on 7-01-2008
Er, crap, I meant to reply to bobbrown.
bobbrown said 1:48PM on 7-01-2008
There is NO WAY to watch Blu-ray hollywood movies using OS X. The OS has to have the appropriate DRM software AND the video card has to have HDMI AND the monitor has to have HDMI. The internal drive should work with MBP using an enclosure and eSATA through express card 34 slot.
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ivanosky said 4:23PM on 7-01-2008
Since not that many monitors and graphics cards use HDMI, the HDCP (DRM) protocol still works with DVI..... So the only thing stopping u from watching Blu-ray on your MAC is your graphics card and software that have to be HDCP compatible.
Julian Weisser said 2:14PM on 7-01-2008
I would ASSUME the external works for the macbooks... Did you really think they would have an internal drive for macbooks?
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ZeroCorpse said 4:10PM on 7-01-2008
I don't see mention of an external, but I didn't follow the link, either.
ZeroCorpse said 4:10PM on 7-01-2008
Oh, wait. There it is. I just missed it.
$799 huh?
Yeah. Forget it.