External Blu-Ray player for MacBook Air
June 6, 2018 9:21 PM Subscribe
Looking for a cheap-ish, external USB 3.0 BD drive that will allow me to watch BD movies on a MacBook Air. (More inside)
My school just got all the teachers new MacBook Air computers and they are equipping our classrooms with new projectors and Apple TV. I used to have a Blu-Ray player hooked up in my room to play various DVD and BD movies for my classes (for stuff I couldn't stream) and the new wireless setup makes that impractical. I'm thinking if I could connect an external drive to the Mac and screen mirror it to the Apple TV that would be good for my purposes.
I have a cheapie external DVD drive that I bought for my Windows laptop that works fine for playing DVD movies on the Mac. My google-fu shows me articles about discontinued drives and lots of mentions that additional software is necessary to play the BD discs even if I find compatible hardware.
If anyone has made this work and can recommend a drive that's currently available (Amazon preferred) and can confirm whether I need to buy software. etc. I would greatly appreciate it. I really don't want to spend more than $100, and it should work with my Windows 10 laptop as well (since that's mine and the Mac belongs to the school).
My school just got all the teachers new MacBook Air computers and they are equipping our classrooms with new projectors and Apple TV. I used to have a Blu-Ray player hooked up in my room to play various DVD and BD movies for my classes (for stuff I couldn't stream) and the new wireless setup makes that impractical. I'm thinking if I could connect an external drive to the Mac and screen mirror it to the Apple TV that would be good for my purposes.
I have a cheapie external DVD drive that I bought for my Windows laptop that works fine for playing DVD movies on the Mac. My google-fu shows me articles about discontinued drives and lots of mentions that additional software is necessary to play the BD discs even if I find compatible hardware.
If anyone has made this work and can recommend a drive that's currently available (Amazon preferred) and can confirm whether I need to buy software. etc. I would greatly appreciate it. I really don't want to spend more than $100, and it should work with my Windows 10 laptop as well (since that's mine and the Mac belongs to the school).
The BluRay playing instructions for VLC that selfnoise refers to get a little complicated for Mac, as Apple doesn't really make file/folder structure all that available to someone who isn't familiar with Mac OS structure.
You can buy media playing software for $30-40 that will do this for you. Google around.
As for hardware, you're going to be in about the $100 range for most external BluRay players.
Amazon Link
posted by kuanes at 5:30 AM on June 7, 2018
You can buy media playing software for $30-40 that will do this for you. Google around.
As for hardware, you're going to be in about the $100 range for most external BluRay players.
Amazon Link
posted by kuanes at 5:30 AM on June 7, 2018
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posted by selfnoise at 4:45 AM on June 7, 2018