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I create the movie/video file and when I go to "share" the project, the only option given is "Blu-Ray/AVCHD". So I "share" to a project file on the desktop and it plays wonderfully via QuickTime, but when I burn that file to Blu-Ray DVD on an external burner, the result is not playable on the TV via a Blu-Ray player. The player says it is a "data" disk, not video. Where did I go wrong?
iMac (M1, 2021)
As you've been told you need an app that can create and burn a playable Blu-Ray video/project. Go to the App Store and search fro Blu-Ray creator. You'll get this app that can do what you want:
You can also do a Google search for "blu-ray creator for mac" and get a number of options. Some have demo versions which you can try. They will probably put a watermark on the output but you can test it so see how easy it is or not.
Agreed. That's all I use RW disks for - to test what I'm doing works before burning a regular disk.
We have a Sony Blu-ray player, and it works well with the Sony rewritable Blu-ray disks. But I do stick with the 25 GB disks for testing. I've had several 50 GB rewritable disks, all of which could only be erased twice, and sometimes even only once for reuse. After that, any attempt to erase them again would simply trash the disk in such a way you could never use it again.
Garage is done! Now I am back to trying suggestions so I can burn a copy on my external disk drive ASUS Turbo Drive. Right now iMAC says the drive is not supported, so I will see if loading the BD Suite will be accepted....peace
Okay! Could my ASUS BW-16D1X-U burner/driver not be compatible to my iMAC. I can find it when I go to "Burn Disk", but it either says to load a disk (already loaded) or "Waiting for Drive" (already hooked up). Manual says it is compatible for OS X 10.6 and above. I have Ventura 13.5. I would gladly move to Toast, but if it's the burner, then maybe FCP is not the issue. Any thoughts out there?
I've read through the topic again and noticed one thing that hasn't been mentioned yet.
Is your external Blu-ray drive plugged directly into a port on the Mac, or a hub? If the latter, that doesn't work well. Not even with a powered hub.
It's plugged into the Thunderbolt slot in the back of the monitor screen via an optical to USB cable from burner. When I go to System Information and click on Disk Burning, it shows the burner. It just doesn't make sense to me. I've just used iMOVIE and tried to burn a disk and it says there isn't any disk in the drive, but there is. That's why I wondered if this burner was not compatible, even though it states (burner box info) compatible and it is "seen" by the computer.
Please post exactly which year and model iMac you have. Also the make and model of the Blu-ray drive. I'm just having a problem trying to imagine an optical to USB cable. I've never heard of such a thing.
Thank you. That makes more sense as there's nothing "optical" involved here, as far as the cables go. You have the drive's USB 3 cable connected to an Apple adapter and then directly to a port on the iMac.
Did the external drive come with software drivers? If so, did you install them? And if the answer to that is yes, that may be the problem. On the Mac, you rarely, if ever, need to install any drivers that come with external drives. They usually only complicate things unnecessarily. If they exist, remove them.
There I go again! Calling something that it isn't:-(. Thanks for the "correction", Kurt. No, I didn't load the software. Only reason I didn't is because my iMAC won't read or write with this burner/reader. Good thing, I guess:-)....peace
Yes, with no drivers installed, it seems the OS just doesn't like this burner.
Is there any other drive you could borrow to see it it works? Even just a DVD burner to find out if it can creat a disk that works. Heck, even DVD in the drive you have. If that works, then it may be the laser for burning Blu-ray disks isn't working correctly.
Instead of wasting my time and money on burning Blu-ray discs for playback on a TV set, I purchased an LG UBK-90 UltraHD Blu-ray player and have that connected via HDMI to my 4K TV set. An LG UBK-80 would also suffice. Either player can handle external drives formatted as FAT32, NTFS, Linux ext3, or HFS+ filesystems up to 16 TB. Possible price breaks at Walmart.
I can play retail UHD or regular Blu-ray discs, regular DVDs, music CDs, or insert a USB stick and play 480p or greater .mkv or .mp4 video files upscaled to 4K with the LG on the TV. No specialized software or learning curve. Just plug-n-play whatever the format.
That's also what we do for our personal videos. I create up to 4K videos in DaVinci Resolve, save them as an .mp4 and put them on a USB drive. No need to burn Blu-ray disks at all when the Sony UltraHD player we have can read the same completed video from a USB drive.
The only thing you lose is the ability to create a menu. But that's unnecessary if there's only one video to choose for a given theme in the first place.
Hold on! Wait a minute! Back up a mile! How do you or what do you do to get the video you created using software on the iMAC (I am using FCP) to some type of media storage to insert and play on your TV?
I presume FCP can export an .mp4, so that's all you need to do there, other than deciding on a quality level.
Otherwise, it depends on what you have for a set-top box to play your personal .mp4 videos on. For our Sony UHD player, the manual says nothing about drive format. I had to look it up online. There I found the player can read drives formatted as NTFS, FAT or ExFAT. What none of the results I found mentioned was the partition map. It took me several tries to finally discover the player doesn't like GUID or the older Apple Partition Map. It must be Master Boot Record.
You can also fit much larger videos on a USB drive than Blu-ray disks. Have a 98 GB .mp4? Put it on a 128 GB USB drive. And if you want to go with really huge files, you can also use an external hard drive (or SSD). Just as long as it's formatted in a way your player understands.
WOW! I understand about a quarter of what you relayed, but what I am coming away with is to try transferring the video to a USB drive. That I understand:-). FCP wants to Blu-Ray/AVCHD as an option to "Share". Since I use a Sony to do digital video and have Sony products to view (TV and Player), perhaps that would be the option to choose and then try and get it to the USB. My trial video is only 5 minutes, so I've got plenty of storage on a USB drive. What I don't understand and don't need to as long as it works, is will exporting an MP4 play directly without any other software manipulation. Reporting back what happens....mucho thanks, Kurt....peace
Jon
I don't create any video content since I am not doing home or professional movies. That would be too time consuming anyway — at least for the value I place on my time and interests.
If I want to watch an occasional YouTube video in upscaled 4K glory, I put it on a USB stick and feed that to the UBK-90 player for display on my 55-in 4K TV.
Or… I rent a DVD or Blu-Ray from the 2-mile distant public library and put that in the player or view some of my own 4K UHD commercial disks from my personal library.
Can't get a usable blu-ray copy to play in a Blu-Ray DVD player to show on TV.
