When I bought my MacBook Pro in 2015 I also got an optical drive. One day I made an attempt to play a BlueRay video disk and, well - you know the rest of the story. Apple's USB optical drive isn't compatible with BlueRay (DVD works).
That was a couple of years ago (when I tried). I still have a pile of BlueRay disks and was wondering if there's a way to play BlueRay disks.
-David
MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015), OS X El Capitan (10.11.1)
There are tons of external blue drives that will work on a Mac, you need to buy one of those if you want blu ray support. The blu-ray discs require a laser that is different to the one for DVDs. So a DVD only drive will never be able to play blu-ray discs. This has nothing to do with the Macs lack of support.
You will also need a Blu-Ray software to playback the movies.
See here for more details: https://www.imore.com/how-watch-blu-ray-discs-your-mac
Once you have both of those things your Mac will be able to play blu-ray movies just fine.
I'm very confident Apple could include the ability to play BlueRay into their computer systems as the rest of the world did ten years ago. I don't really care if BlueRay isn't an Apple thing - but I wouldn't go out of my way to spin it as if the technology doesn't exist and therefore Apple couldn't play BlueRay even if they wanted too. That would be silly.
Yeah, I have no doubt there are many solutions. I'm putting feelers out there to see what product is the coolest in terms of that sleek and elegant Apple way - which I love.
So, that means my question is:
What does everyone use for an external, USB, BlueRay compatible drive?
What about compatible software to play BlueRay movies?
I'll search a bit, circle back, and post here.
BTW - thanks for the link (I'm checking that out now)
- David
silver_mica wrote:
but I wouldn't go out of my way to spin it as if the technology doesn't exist and therefore Apple couldn't play BlueRay even if they wanted too. That would be silly.
I imagine that's why Phil didn't say the technology didn't exist.
What does everyone use for an external, USB, BlueRay compatible drive?
What about compatible software to play BlueRay movies?
It seems as if a good place to start would be the link Phil provided.
Well Apple has not included an optical drive in their computers in years, and being that bluray is a licensed technology I doubt Apple has any desire to pay Sony for the software license use in their machines if they have no optical drive to go with it.
As mentioned options abound, not everything needs to be provided by Apple out of the box.
This one looks sleek enough: Blu Ray 3D 4K External DVD Drive USB 3.0 Burner,Slim Bluray CD DVD Player Reader for PC Mac
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.
Software options in the link I provided above.
I figured lack of BlueRay had more to do with a business choice. I hardly watch any movies (I seem to watch two or three movies a year) so I might have missed Apple-user drama. That is to say, I don't really know what people think with regard to Apple not playing BlueRay (I'm referring to their external drives of course). But, Anywho . . . I'll order something soon. Looks like I can get software to play back the BlueRay through the Apple Store (preferred). Thanks again for the links.
Steve Jobs answered that question in public by saying the Blu-Ray licensing was "a wold of hurt". It is not Technology, but Licensing that kept it away from the Mac.
Betamax was better technology than VHS for Video Tapes. Sony lost out, and betaMax died, because their licensing was so awful.
Apple not compatible with Blueray?
