[stevesnj]

I am getting an HDV cam and want to burn to BluRay or HD-DVD. Anyone doing this yet with an internal or external drive? Any suggestions on brand?

[Mithras]

The best place to check for this kind of information is Accelerate Your Macintosh! News Page - 2/7/07, specifically the drive compatibility database. So far just shows one result for a BluRay installation.

[mduell]

I'm guessing they should all work; it's just another optical drive.

Lite-On's 2x drive is $570 at NewEgg.
Or Philips for $576 with free media.

Keep in mind you'll need to route a SATA cable from one of the available ports on the logic board to the optical drive bay, unless you want to shell out $700+ for the Sony or Plextor models.

Either way, I think you're going to be pretty limited for software.

[- - e r i k - -]

By limited, do you mean limited to Toast?
Sonic / About / Press / Sonic Delivers First Blu-ray Disc Software for Mac

[mduell]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

By limited, do you mean limited to Toast?
Sonic / About / Press / Sonic Delivers First Blu-ray Disc Software for Mac

Yea, you can use Toast, but you can't use other software like DVD Studio Pro.

[starman]

Couldn't you make an image with DSP and then burn the image with Toast? That's what I used to do in the early days.

[brassplayersrock²]

what? no one knew about the lacie burner/reader? it's on the expensive side though (for now)
LaCie - d2 Blu-ray Drive - USB 2.0 & FireWire

-a

[mduell]

Originally Posted by brassplayersrock 

what? no one knew about the lacie burner/reader? it's on the expensive side though (for now)
LaCie - d2 Blu-ray Drive - USB 2.0 & FireWire

$1150!! And it's not even shipping yet! Typical LaCie ripoff.

And they're even imposing additional limitations on movie playing: "To play a protected BD movie in HD through a digital DVI or HDMI interface: HDCP GPU + HDCP ready display"

[brassplayersrock²]

nobody ever likes my ideas ; - )

your right though, it is expensive, and the limitations, could you explain a little more please?

-a

[ajprice]

MCE Blu Ray drive for Mac Pro and G5

That should do what you are wanting, and Toast comes with it.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by brassplayersrock 

your right though, it is expensive, and the limitations, could you explain a little more please?

AACS, the DRM scheme that is used on both HDDVD and BluRay, has an optional setting called the Image Constraint Token (ICT). When the ICT is set, output to any non-encrypted display (those without HDCP) must be reduced to 960x540 (one quarter of 1080p); without ICT set the player may send the full quality signal to an unencrypted display. All of the current HDDVD and BluRay movie disks do not have ICT set. None of Apple's hardware (displays or computers) support HDCP.

So either LaCie doesn't understand the spec and has imposed additional limitations on customers, or the text on their website is incorrect.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by ajprice 

MCE Blu Ray drive for Mac Pro and G5

That should do what you are wanting, and Toast comes with it.

Hmm, that's quite tempting. I'm tired of having to burn **** in puny 4.7 GB chunks. IT TAKES FOREVER TO BACK UP 1 TB+ THAT WAY!

Can you even get BD-Rs yet?

[Edit: Wow, $20/disc: Philips Blu-Ray BD-R Disc in Jewel Case kinda takes me back to the old days when I was the first person I knew to get a CD Burner. Definitely don't miss those days of 2x CD burning.]

[mduell]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

Hmm, that's quite tempting. I'm tired of having to burn **** in puny 4.7 GB chunks. IT TAKES FOREVER TO BACK UP 1 TB+ THAT WAY!

If you're backing up that much data, why not buy a tape drive or external hard drive?

Or even just use dual layer DVDs.

[brassplayersrock²]

dual layer disks = 8.5 gigs. blueray disks = 25 gigs (according to the philips link above) . as mentioned above, backing up 1 terra + of data would take a while

-a

[MaxPower2k3]

that drive is $700 + $20/25GB disc. That works out to $1500 to back up 1TB.
a 500GB external hard drive is $250, if that. That's $500 to back up 1TB
a 25-pack of DVD-R DL discs is $33 at newegg. That's $160 to back up 1TB

Buy a couple of hard drives and put your data on there. Use that until Blu-Ray gets cheaper. In the mean time, even ignoring the cost of the Blu-Ray drive, the 40 discs required to back up 1TB cost $300 more than just buying a whole new set of hard drives every time you need to back up your data. It's not really a feasible backup method for the time being.

[brassplayersrock²]

maxpower2k3 should get a special math wiz status or something

-a