Pioneer BDR-206bk blu ray drive issues

The HL-DT-ST-GH61N is the slowest I've come across. It reads files at 1/4 the speed of a Pioneer 111D that's in a older mac I use at a place I work. You would think that a supposedly fast new computer, mac pro, would have a fast burner in it. A 6 core I use sometimes also has this burner in it. I guess apple got a good price on these. Most burners are in the $20 range retail, so why cut corners there?

Wow, never had it that bad. I was looking at this and have scoured the net, (for the past couple of days anyway), one webpage I found mentioned the ESB2 AHCI driver in SL.

Funny, the Spindown app in Developer tools might show the drive as idle and this changes to active when you press the eject key. But it doesn't respond.

Your drive still good?

Hi RPJallan,

I have the same MP you do and a BDR-206BK drive. I was hoping you might answer a few questions:

- I tried reading a blu-ray disc with handbrake and it hung on the 4th of 7 titles. Have you tried this ?

- The blu-ray drive door doesn't open as it is mechanically blocked by the Mac Pro chassis. Did you adjust / solve this problem ?

- Did you have to install any kind of drivers or firmware for the drive ?

- What software have you tried for blu-ray playback that you've found works ?

Thanks a million.

John

Westmere wrote:

Hi RPJallan,

- I tried reading a blu-ray disc with handbrake and it hung on the 4th of 7 titles. Have you tried this ?

John

It might be the disc also. Reading Bluz I have no hanging. Remember if you are talking about circumventing copy protection (which I'm guessing you are), that's forbidden on this forum.

- The blu-ray drive door doesn't open as it is mechanically blocked by the Mac Pro chassis. Did you adjust / solve this problem ?

I'm at bit of a loss to see what you're describing here. If you had problems reading the disc that suggest the disc is in the drive in the first place. How did the door open to accept it there?

If you had the drive outside the MacPro chassis when you inserted the disc, do the same again. When the tray is open you'll need to cut power to the drive so that it reamins open or turn the drive upside down and just quickly remove the bezel from the front. You'll see a couple of tabs holding it.

- Did you have to install any kind of drivers or firmware for the drive ?

Shouldn't need to.

- What software have you tried for blu-ray playback that you've found works ?

There is very little around. VLC will do it tho, (the latest version).

I just installed (2 days ago) the Pioneer BDR 206 into my MacPro and have experienced similar problems mentioned here. At first it worked great, but later in the day Toast 11 would quit when I tried to open it. Disk Utility would do nothing but give me the beach ball. System Profiler wouldn't show the Blu-Ray drive at all. This has happened about 3 times and rebooting once or twice fixes the problem. Also, when I try to reboot, my Mac gets stuck at the desktop picture while trying to restart and I have to hold the Power on/off button to get it to restart.

I also bought my burner from OWC and will give their tech support a call. Sounds like nobody here has found a solution to this problem except it seems to go away on its own?

You might be having them for a while, looking at the other threads with these, the guys who have problems that cleared up all seem to have a subtle difference, they are running a drive which is ever so slightly a different revision. I think they have the BDR-206MBK, (mine's a BDR-206D). I don't know how much difference the suffix makes but maybe..........?

As for me i've been trying to beat this issue too wondering about one two methods right now;

1). Firmware upgrade for the drive, I'm running V1.04, Pioneer have V1.05 as current.

2). During power up the Mac does something that initialises the drive or whatever. I'm using Console.App and looking at the verbose to figure out what, maybe somebody more clever than me can do it?

Oh, it's not Toast - I don't have it.

gumsie wrote:

"What software have you tried for blu-ray playback that you've found works ?"

There is very little around. VLC will do it tho, (the latest version).

gumsie: VLC will playback Blu-ray? Under OSX?? Can you confirm that please???

My invoice for this drive says it is a BDR-206BK but in System Profiler, it says it is BDR-206D. I too have firmware v1.04 and am not wild about having to do a firmware upgrade unless I have to. So far since I rebooted this morning, all is well, but the day isn't over.

Linda Cameron wrote:

My invoice for this drive says it is a BDR-206BK

Ah, mine just says BDR206. (I'm in the Uk, didn't buy from OWC).

I too have firmware v1.04 and am not wild about having to do a firmware upgrade unless I have to.

Nope, wasn't suggesting you should. Just something I'm mulling over.

So far since I rebooted this morning, all is well, but the day isn't over.

I've found that one thing that'll keep the drive up pretty much all day is to not set the drives to sleep in System Prefs, (Energy Saver pane), and leave BD in the drive, (It'll stop spinning after a few mins).

You have to use something like MakeMKV to rip a copy of the BluRay movie to your hard drive then it can be played with VLC or Movist. You cannot play a BluRay just from putting the disc into the burner. Very odd. But if you do make a ripped copy, you get a backup of the disc.

mooblie wrote:

gumsie wrote:

"What software have you tried for blu-ray playback that you've found works ?"

There is very little around. VLC will do it tho, (the latest version).

gumsie: VLC will playback Blu-ray? Under OSX?? Can you confirm that please???

mooblie wrote:

gumsie wrote:

"What software have you tried for blu-ray playback that you've found works ?"

There is very little around. VLC will do it tho, (the latest version).

gumsie: VLC will playback Blu-ray? Under OSX?? Can you confirm that please???

I can, but with one caveat. You'll also need an app called MakeMKV. Have a look at the options presented on their forum/help pages.

My Mac has not been asleep all day, but I usually do put it to sleep if I am away for a while and I don't like the idea I can never put it to sleep just because of this BluRay drive.

If you upgrade your firmware, let us know how it works out.

gumsie wrote:

I've found that one thing that'll keep the drive up pretty much all day is to not set the drives to sleep in System Prefs, (Energy Saver pane), and leave BD in the drive, (It'll stop spinning after a few mins).