Filed under: Hardware, Peripherals
Second generation Blu-ray ships for Mac
MCE Technologies announced today that they are shipping their second generation Blu-ray drives for Macintosh computers. These drives, which come in both external housings and internal models for Mac Pro desktops start at $399US. They are the fastest and most comprehensive Blu-ray drives available for the Mac so far. Last summer, MCE released their first generation of Blu-ray drives.The will burn at 8X for Blu-ray, 16X for DVD R/RW + DL, 40X for CD-r/RW, 5X for DVD-RAM and HD DVD-ROM. Some models support HP Lightscribe for burning labels onto appropriate disks. All the drives are natively compatible with OS X 10.5.2 or later, and can record directly from within the finder without any specialized software.
Blu-ray movie discs and content can be created with Adobe Premier Pro, Roxio Toast 10 Pro, and Final Cut Pro.
Since Steve Jobs was famously for Blu-ray before he was against it, Apple has not included any Blu-ray hardware in stock Macs, but the OS as mentioned supports burning data discs. Unfortunately, you can't view a Blu-ray movie on a Mac unless you are running Windows XP or Vista under Boot Camp.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
David Hildreth said 6:42PM on 4-09-2009
FCP can create Blu-ray discs huh?
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Joseph said 7:34PM on 4-09-2009
I have a 1st Gen Mac Pro and the ports on this baby are dramatically different. Interesting. I wish mine was rolling like this. Still could use a couple more USB on the back.
Joseph said 7:38PM on 4-09-2009
oops! 1Password does not work well w/ Tuaw.
no way to delete that huh?
anyways, I had 2 comments
1. FCP may have meant FCS and by FCS they meant DSP.
2. DSP doesnt do blu-ray just yet.
cdtemporary said 7:00PM on 4-09-2009
Hmmm, must be a new yet unreleased version of FCP. The rest of us crazy mac people would normally be using DVD Studio Pro. Maybe we should save up for this new update...
Humour aside, how about listing disk utility too....
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David Hildreth said 7:02PM on 4-09-2009
You can't create a Blu-ray disc with DVD Studio Pro either.
Joe said 8:36AM on 4-10-2009
Unfortunately, I don't expect to see Blu-Ray support added to DVD Studio (or iMovie) until there's an iMac rev with a Blu-Ray option. It's a shame that Apple hasn't supported it yet. Usually they're pretty forward-looking with new technology - they ditched floppies and moved ahead to USB back when PCs were still clinging to PS2 ports, before that they made SCSI a standard option when PC users were daisy-chaining zip drives to their printers, wireless and webcams on everything, IR ports, DVI connections, and today they're pushing for displayport and moving away from physical media. Sure, there's licensing to complain about with Blu-Ray, but one of the perks of buying Apple is letting the manufacturer put all the complicated pieces together and giving us a nice, complete package.
Adding hardware that is on the cusp of support is a much more PC-world thing to do - like adding SCSI and firewire ports my PC towers years ago. I swtiched to Mac because I was done playing jenga with my computer parts.
Joseph said 7:33PM on 4-09-2009
New Title: MCE ships it's second bag of hurt.
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Microdot said 8:09PM on 4-09-2009
why would anyone spend $400 to put a blu-ray drive in their mac pro, when they can by a pioneer BDR-203BKS for half the cost, and just run it to their extra sata port (which would also work much faster than the supposed ide drives they are pitching here)? the drive costs about $200... $4 for a sata cable... another $0.99 for a sata power adaptor, and youre done.
maybe im confused.
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A1 said 5:24AM on 4-10-2009
Good man. Thanks for that, i know am going to get the BDR-203BKS!
Should i use badweasels guide? (See a few posts above)
Jason said 9:21PM on 4-09-2009
"Since Steve Jobs was famously before Blu-ray before he was against it,"
Little copy edit needed....
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badweasel said 11:08PM on 4-09-2009
I have to say, I bought MCE's previous drive and I didn't like it. It was huge and didn't fit very well into my 8-core. It was just a sata BD drive that they painted the door blue to hide the real manufacturer - then they use a sata to atapi interface adaptor. Ultimately I ended up tossing their interface card in the trash and running an sata cable to one of the free ones on the motherboard.
Now that computer's optical drive tray gets stuck when ejecting and inserting.
Not sure if their new model is better or not. From the site it looks like the LG with their label on it. Go to frys and buy it much cheaper!
I have a detailed guide on installing a BluRay drive in a mac pro with lots of photos... enjoy:
http://www.tomorrowland.com/guides/mac-pro-optical-drive-install-part-1/
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Jon said 2:33AM on 4-10-2009
How long can Apple ignore this? Sure, there are sucky licensing issues (which Apple should have complained about when the spec was being designed since they are on the Blu-ray board) but other companies seem to be managing. Apple is 100% alone in their stance.
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Wal said 11:25AM on 4-10-2009
It isnt the licensing from a financial perspective, but from a technological perspective. Apple would have to change OS X to have it actively monitor and attempt to lock down the processes and even the OS to try and prevent someone from accessing the video stream. Ignoring that it is a waste to spend so much resources on attempting to do that, it probably isnt even possible on a UNIX based system.
John T said 4:01AM on 4-10-2009
I always use blu ray for music. http://jcoop05.wordpress.com
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Look said 6:34AM on 4-10-2009
Is it possible to Rip a Blu-ray disk using this drive? And which software should i use...?
thanks.
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Matthew said 10:09AM on 4-10-2009
Really wish they would support this by now, maybe we will all see something in june on blu-ray?? Although at the minute i dont need it, i will in the future plus I want the option to burn HD home movies! just my 2 cents, or should I said 2p?
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required said 11:37AM on 4-10-2009
I will not buy another system until they ship with blu-ray. I was set on the 17" MacBook Pro, but c'est la vie. Hopefully soon.
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Joid said 2:10PM on 4-10-2009
New MacBooks are coming up!
MB403
2.4 ghz Intel Core2Duo
2 Gb ram
160 Gb harde schijf
Intel GMA X3100 met 144 Mb
MB404
2.4 ghz Intel Core2Duo
2 Gb ram
250 Gb harde schijf
Intel GMA X3100 met 144 Mb
Reply
Joid said 2:11PM on 4-10-2009
WTF? LOL
Please ignore this message above!
Joid said 2:22PM on 4-10-2009
Its funny that I had the same problem with 1Password as Joseph had