Bluray and Mac?

I have a MacPro tied in to my theater system and haven't found a movie file yet that has had issues when run with VLC. I have an older 2.4 Ghz MacBook Pro 17" and it can choke at times with a 1080p movies as it doesn't have the horsepower as the MacPro.

Try plex.

The best help I can give you is to suggest you rip your own blu-ray discs. That way you can control the quality. If you're getting files "online," well, you're on your own.

If you are ripping these to .mp4 and .mkv yourself, tell us how you're doing it and what settings you are using.

Your Mac is plenty powerful. Create your own files, you'll see improvement.

Are those movies between 30-50 GBs in size? If not, then they're not blu-ray movies per se...they're transcodes done by someone else.

AVS tends to frown on discussion of such pirated content. If you're relatively new to the Mac home theater scene and just starting out evaluating front ends and software players like Plex or VLC, I'd recommend you create your own files from content you own or legally record yourself. That way you have the original for comparison, i.e. you can play the dvd or blu-ray in a standalone player and then watch your rip/transcode of that disc on the Mac to see if you can tell the difference.

What the past few years of Mac home theater has been about is figuring out how best to achieve transparency between source and transcode.

The applications I use most are MacTheRipper, EyeTV, MakeMKV and Handbrake.


No, you can do this entirely within OS X. Just pick up any OEM blu-ray drive from Newegg, stick it in a VanTec 5.25" USB enclosure, and rip with MakeMKV. This will give you a very large .mkv, the same video as on the blu-ray just put in a different container. Since HD audio can't currently be played back by a Mac running OS X most of us allow MakeMKV to extract the down-rezzed audio core, which it does by default. It's your choice whether you tell it to include the HD audio as well. With the i7 MBP you have you should be able to play this huge file back in Plex without any problem.

However, most of us then hand this file off to Handbrake to create something smaller and more appropriate for Macs and iOS devices. MakeMKV blu-ray rips look amazing when transcoded into one of the many optimized Apple presets in Handbrake.

There are hundreds of threads, helpful articles and many discussion forums devoted to just these topics--MakeMKV, Handbrake, Plex et al, how to rip, how to transcode and how to play those rips and transcodes back.

When you're trying to set up your home theater it's best to work with files of known origin.

I concur with the above post. Although, technically, in the USA, making copies of movies you own, unless it it comes with it, is illegal to circumvent copyright protections on the disc. And I am aware of stuff like AnyDVD, so it may not be illegal to sell it, just to use it, LOL.

As for MKV files, there are a lot of variables that effect the look. My initial thought, you don't have VLC setup correctly for your machine. Also, the resolution and bit rates of the transcode have a big effect of the look. Some programs can upconvert, for lack of better term, the resolution of the file. Low bit rate files just look bad on the big screen.

I haven't used VLC. I read it suppose to be very good. I would definitely try out Plex. I have used it, and it works well. Just make sure to adjust the settings for your TV and MBP so your get a picture and sound. It should play most files you can throw at it too.

I'm unaware of the Asus, but that price seems too low. Most of us here have an LG, a few have Pioneer or Sony, a decent price is between $70-$100:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827136183

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827136181

then $30 or $40 for the enclosure.

BTW: if you're only interested in ripping the main movie and not any "extras", I read that setting the minimum file length in MakeMKV to 1400 seconds for movies (a little more time for TV shows) eliminates lots of those "extras" that I was having to (tediously) uncheck prior to the rip. It works well for me.

From what I understand, for MakeMKV to work with BD, your drive needs to be able to at least burn DVD. That ups the requirements enough to exclude a lot of available drives, but you can find a working compatibility list at the MakeMKV forums.

chefklc, I have a 27" iMac and have been looking at several HDMI to Mini Displayport converters (Kanex, Belkin, Dr. Bott, Belfan, Atlona) that downscale 1080p to 720p so you can watch Blu-ray on the iMac. Atlona makes another converter (http://www.atlona.com/ATLONA-HDMI-MI...-SWITCHER.html) that upscales 1080p to 1440p. Theoretically what would give me a better image, one that is being downscaled to 720p or upscaled to 1440p (the 27" iMac's native resolution)?

Also, if you are playing SD DVDs on a Blu-ray, which are being upconverted by the player and then passing through a converter, what makes more sense to use, one that is downscaling to 720 or upscaling 1080 to 1440?

It seems the 27" Cinema Display supports 1080 but the EDID of Mini Displayport does not...why would Apple even tout that spec if it's only theoretically possible?!?

Must be nice, VLC crashes constantly on my Mac when playing large 1080p movie files. Did some digging online and found lots of people with the same problem and no real fix.

Have to use XBMC for my MKV playback.

MakeMKV rips just fine with a read-only drive. Easily obtained, by a patient shopper, for under $50.

Any reason for MacPro users not to get this one? (it's from OWC)

That's a good drive, Ted, for a decent price, it also happens to do a very good job burning standard dvds (if you still do that.) No reason not to get it unless you thought you might want to write blu-ray media at some point in the future. Newegg usually has the LG burner model for <$100.

One comment--that drive is not a fast ripper, most LG drives ship with Riplock, so you won't get advertised speeds when ripping unless you flash the drive firmware (and void its warranty.) I have a slightly older LG burner model in an external USB enclosure and have not bothered trying to remove the Riplock, I just use it to rip blu-rays with MakeMKV and don't mind that it takes a little longer. (Also, I haven't yet burned a blu-ray disc...)

that's the one I've used now for about a year. works great - no complaints;
that's a great price too

ken

No one with any experience with or advice on the various HDMI to Mini Displayport converter/scalers?

J, I don't recall much, if any, discussion of that here over the years. And I have no personal experience with it, I don't even own a Mac with miniDP out let alone in.

A question for you, though--why are you considering doing this, spending hundreds on a converter in order to allow standalone CE devices to project discs onto your iMac--when your iMac itself could easily manage and play back all that content? I'm genuinely curious...

chefklc, I'm just simply looking for a solution where I don't need to rip anything and go to inordinate lengths and HD space in order to watch a movie. There are maybe 3 ways I know of doing this, two are software based and one (a scaler/converter connecting a Blu-ray player to the Mac) isn't.

1) Supposedly you can use MakeMKV to simultaneously decrypt/transcode the disc and watch it streaming through VLC, without conversion...has anyone tried this with any success?

2) Running Boot Camp, installing Windows, and using PowerDVD or similar to watch Blu-rays off an external...but I'm unsure if you could actually get a true 1080p out of this, due to the Mac's native resolution. Also, I've read about users having to downgrade the driver on the graphics card because it interrupts the HDCP compliance and gives an error.

3) Use a standalone Blu-ray player with a scaler/converter. I have a standalone that plays region free Blu-ray and SD DVDs (I assume I could find an appropriated external and flash it, but...). Simply connect one to my 27" Mac and then to the BD player...no ripping, converting, installing Windows, figuring out bugs in 3rd party grey area software.

The last option probably wouldn't cost me much more than an external BD drive, or an external and Windows 7. Converter/scalers I'm looking at are between $100-$170.

Last time I tried this I never got it to work.

(IMO) this is not big deal tho... you rent.. come home.. put disc in.. rip.. ~30 minutes later you can watch.. then you delete (since you state that you don't want long term HD consumption).. so you just need 30-minutes and a spare (and temporary) 30G of HD space. Its really very low maintenance.

Yes, I've done it with several discs. A bit cumbersome, but it works.

OK, if you're using either a 27" iMac or 27" display, I can vouch for the Atlona AT-HD620. It's pricey at $180, but I'm seeing great results so far. Cheaper than buying a new HDTV.