Blu-ray and gma 950

An external Blu-ray drive would mainly work as a data drive attached to a mini. It would also work as a media player, but without the proper handshake indicating a fully encrypted path from the drive all the way to the display, the video quality would be throttled back to DVD quality equivalent. So you wouldn't get any hi-def benefit over normal DVDs.

Even though the GMA950 supports HDCP, it is not implemented in the OS X driver for the Mac mini. And as far as it not supporting Blu-ray or HD-DVD, I'm not really sure what that's about. I have never heard that said before. Maybe that just means there is no built-in decoder for H.264. But I don't think that would matter since the decoding, in theory, could be handled by elsewhere.

Apple DVD Player 5.0.1 in reference to blu-ray media - this media type is not supported.

Here is my setup:
Apple Mac mini w/Intel core 2 duo 2.0GHz, Intel GMA 950 graphics (supports HDCP), Mac OS X 10.5.2 -- SuperDrive has been replaced with a 12.7mm height Panasonic blu-ray burner, model UJ-225, specs here:
http://www.panasonic.com/industrial/computer/storage/optical/models/uj225b.asp

Sony Bravia KDL-40XBR4 hdtv

DVI to HDMI cable, meets HDMI 1.3b specs


The blu-ray movie I tried to play was 3:10 to Yuma. The System Profiler recognizes the Panasonic blu-ray drive. The Mac OS Finder recognizes blu-ray media and identifies it by labeling the optical disc icon with "BD." I have not tried burning to blu-ray media, but my understanding is that it will function correctly based on other people's experiences.

Apple Mac OS X will not playback commercial blu-ray movies. I believe it is a software issue. I do not have a clear understanding on Apple's stance with blu-ray's HDCP; however Apple fully supports their own proprietary digital rights management (DRM) with iTunes. Apple's Cinema displays do not support HDCP for digital media playback.

Silly me... here I thought Apple had changed their stance on industry standards when they embraced USB and released the bondi blue iMac. This is a no win situation for consumers. If more people start banging the monopoly drum, will Apple change?

The Intel GMA 950 graphics core does not support H.264 / MPEG-4 / AVC hardware acceleration. Take a look at the chart posted on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA

When the chipset in the Mac mini is updated again, hopefully Apple uses the G45 or G47 with the GMA x4500 graphics core. According to wikipedia, the GMA x4500 will be available Q2 2008 and will facilitate blu-ray playback.

Wait a sec - so when you put in the BD-DVD it recognized it as such, but then DVD-Player wouldn't play it because it was an unsupported format?

This is beyond lame. Apple is completely in bed with Sony on Blu-Ray, so all I can assume is we'll get a Leopard update that adds BD-support. They just need to get off their buns and do it.