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FU1977 Author

Level 1

7 points

4K UHD Blu-ray reader for M1 Macs?

Hello,

I'd like to play my 4K Blu-ray discs on my M1 iMac (and occasionally on my M1 MacBook Air) with an external reader. I have trouble finding one that I am sure it will be recognised by my computer(s) – all the articles I find are quite old and no one explicitly mentions M1. It would be best to have a plug&play reader; also I am not interested in burners – I just want to be able to play my film collection on the iMac – though I see that all the readers are burners too.

Re software, any suggestion? Again, nothing fancy, I'm only interested in playing the discs.

Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks.

iMac 24″, macOS 12.3

Posted on Apr 12, 2022 3:18 AM

Top-ranking reply

FU1977 Author

Level 1

7 points

Posted on May 6, 2022 10:24 AM

Hi all. Latest news in the 4K odyssey.

I bought a Pioneer external drive, Model BDR-XS07TUHD https://pioneer-blurayodd.eu/products/bdr-xs07tuhd/index.php It's plug and play, works both with my M1 iMac & M1 MacBook Air, no need to plug the Air to the main AC. It runs quietly and has a very good overall quality. It comes with an app to tweak some settings, to make the silent mode automatic etc.

It can read DVDs with Apple DVD Player.

The only free software that plays Blu-ray well is Leawo FREE Blu-ray Player Mac https://www.leawo.org/blu-ray-player-mac/ AnyMP4 Blu-ray Player for Mac works, but the free version has an obtrusive watermark. Any other app makes both my Macs crash: kernel panic, pink screen, shut down and reboot.

4K discs can be played by the Leawo software too, but in my case it doesn't work: the drive keeps "loading..." the disc. I have been assured it is a compatibility issue with the Pioneer drive, and it will be fixed in the next software update (later this month). In fact, MakeMKV reads 4K discs when inserted and can rip them, so I think it is indeed a software issue with Leawo. I'll update this thread when I know more.

Hope this helps anybody who wishes to play Blu-ray and 4K discs with the new M1 Macs.

Cheers.

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4K UHD Blu-ray reader for M1 Macs?

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