Blu-ray on the new Mac Mini?

[hakuryuu]

I am well aware of the fact that there is no official Apple support for blu-ray.

If I were to buy an external blu-ray drive is there any OS X software that allows me to watch movies? I have a PS3 so this isn't a big deal, but it would be nice if possible. Not a big fan of not having a physical copy of my movies. I only recently allowed myself to not buy CDs as I just like physical copies. Sure they just sit in the shelf 90% of the time but I get to rip the higher quality versions compared to what I get from iTunes.

And blu-ray just looks and sounds better.

 

[gkarris]

Leopard doesn't support Blu-ray playback - you'll probably have to wait until the next OS X....

Physical media competes with Apple's support of media downloads (softcopies) anyways...

 

[Munc]

if Apple received 30% of blu ray sales there would be 2 blu ray drives in there

 

[old-wiz]

3rd party apps can read/play blu-ray under osx.

 

[Sensamic]

Will the new mac mini play smoothly a 1080p .mkv video file?

I use my PS3 for blue-ray, but I have a lot of video content that is 720p and 1080p. Will the mac mini play these just like any other video or will it be slow? This worries me a lot.

 

[Westyfield2]

With the old Mac Mini you could open it up and put a Blu-Ray drive in!

Not sure about the new ones yet... if they've kept the ODD as 12.7mm then yeah it will be possible (though how hard is it to access?) but if they've changed to using a super-slim 9.5mm ODD (like the MacBooks/Pros) then no... last time I checked there weren't any 9.5mm slot loading Blu-ray drives on the market.

USB is possible of-course.


Re software, MakeMKV can rip Blu-rays and Plex/XBMC can play the ripped Blu-rays... but I don't know of any application that can play Blu-rays straight off the disc on OS X.... unless old-wiz want’s to enlighten me?

 

[heliocentric]

With the old Mac Mini you could open it up and put a Blu-Ray drive in!

Not sure about the new ones yet... if they've kept the ODD as 12.7mm then yeah it will be possible (though how hard is it to access?) but if they've changed to using a super-slim 9.5mm ODD (like the MacBooks/Pros) then no... last time I checked there weren't any 9.5mm slot loading Blu-ray drives on the market.

USB is possible of-course.


Re software, MakeMKV can rip Blu-rays and Plex/XBMC can play the ripped Blu-rays... but I don't know of any application that can play Blu-rays straight off the disc on OS X.... unless old-wiz want’s to enlighten me?

make mkv can stream blurays straight to vlx or xmbc without the need to rip the disk

 

[pdjudd]

but I don't know of any application that can play Blu-rays straight off the disc on OS X.... unless old-wiz want’s to enlighten me?

At the very least you need a protected path and support in the OS for all of the DRM that Blu-Ray's require. VLC might ignore these requirements, but I am not very optimistic. There is a reason that Blu-Ray support in OSX is limited to non-encrypted content - Apple never put the necessary support in the OS for other devices to read the video content in it.

Any path that the OP would take is going to have questionable legality associated with it.

And I would assume that the drives used in the new mini's are the 9mm drives and I still have yet to hear of any blu-ray ones.