Hey,
my mum has a 20" 2007 iMac (2.4 GHz, 256 MB VRAM, 4 GB RAM, USB 2, 10.8). I thought sometimes about connecting a blu ray drive via USB 2; would this work? Is the iMac fast enough to display blu ray movies? And if so, would you see any difference to normal DVDs? The display is only 1680x1050, so smaller than HD, but I don't know, I thought it could work though, with better quality than DVD... no?
And anyway, which drive can I buy? Googling, you find many USB 2 powered drives, not expensive, but I wonder about drivers, would they just work or not?

Any help?
PeteParker

[P]

You can easily test the performance yourself: Find the biggest high-bitrate HD action movie trailer in H.264 format online and try to view it. If you have don't have problems with it, you should have no problems with Bluray.

Whether you'd see a difference is up to how close to the display you sit, but honestly, you would be very hard pressed to see a difference at any reasonable distance. Take that trailer you just downloaded and watch it in DVD quality (480p is going to be as close as you get online) and compare to what the HD trailer looks like. Also try playing them in VLC and play with the options to see if you can improve something.

Looking at the hardware player is starting at the wrong end. Start by finding a software Bluray player and check what hardware they recommend. Often you can buy them in a bundle.

[WizOSX]

You should also be aware that OS X won't play Blu ray discs automatically. You can pop in a regular DVD and it will just play automatically but not Blu ray. The same is true for Windows 7. So you have to do something extra to play those discs. One popular option is to make a copy to your hard drive of a Blu ray disc that you own using MakeMKV and then play it from the hard drive using VLC.

[angelmb]

I use this software…

http://www.macblurayplayer.com/features.htm

It is OK to watch Blu-ray movies BUT it does lack a functioning menu system so while you can enjoy the movie, you won't be able to enjoy any extras included on the Blu-ray discs.

It seems that any Blu-ray drives should work. I use a LG BE12LU30 USB 2 powered drive. There is another model that even includes HD-DVD support.

I include a snapshot from Tintin's Blu-ray, quality-wise is up to you to say if it is worth the buy.





There is another software I haven't tried yet, Aurora Blu-Ray Player, which to me, looks kind of a copy of Mac Blu-ray Player. Weird.

Hey, thanks for the many and helpful answers... The blu ray software seems good indeed, I found a review on the German version of Tom's Hardware and they said it's pretty good, too. Again, one thing I don't understand - VLC can't just play blu ray discs? Why is that? Will it in the future? Can't it play about anything? Apparently not, hmm... Thanks already! Seems to work well, in general. (One thing: If you can't find the menu, can you still switch languages? Important... and switching off subtitles... and can't you access the extras differently, usually, they are simply files on the disc, no...?)
Thanks, Pete

[P]

Originally Posted by PeterParker 

Again, one thing I don't understand - VLC can't just play blu ray discs? Why is that?Will it in the future? Can't it play about anything? Apparently not, hmm... Thanks already! Seems to work well, in general. (One thing: If you can't find the menu, can you still switch languages? Important... and switching off subtitles... and can't you access the extras differently, usually, they are simply files on the disc, no...?)
Thanks, Pete

The DRM on Bluray is quite complex. First there is AACS, which is cracked, but on top of that there is something called BD+ that basically amounts to including a corrupted movie stream and then running an application inside a Java VM to correct the stream on the fly. BD+ has to be cracked again periodically as they come up with new variants.

VLC can play Blurays that are protected by AACS but not by BD+. You need to install a plugin, a library and a database of known keys. It looks a bit complex to get it to work, but just google "vlc bluray" - there are some step-by-step instructions. It is a project that is very much under development, however, which is why it is not included in the default VLC install. It seems you also still need to update that key database every so often.

Blurays protected by BD+ can not currently be played. I don't know if they plan to fix that or not.

On DVDs you can usually enable subtitles and extra languages using the regular player controls, and find the extras by selecting the extra tracks manually. I suspect that Blurays work similarly.

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by PeterParker 

One thing: If you can't find the menu, can you still switch languages? Important... and switching off subtitles... and can't you access the extras differently, usually, they are simply files on the disc, no...?
Thanks, Pete

Yes, you can switch languages and activate-deactivate subtitles via the application menu and/or an OSD menu.

While the files for the extras are there, and you can select and open them within the app itself, I haven't found a way to actually play them. The screen just remains black.