Need advice: External Blu-Ray burner for Mac at DVinfo.net

Simon Denny · January 2nd, 2010, 10:40 PM

I need to purchase an external Blu-Ray burner for my MBP and I'm having a hard time finding one here in Sydney Australia.

The only solution that I have found is to purchase the: LG BH08 Super Multi Blue / Blu-ray / BD-RW / Internal SATA Drive and then purchase a Welland 3.5 USB/ eSata enclosure.

There has to be another option somewhere?

Can anyone offer some advice.

Thanks

Luc De Wandel · January 6th, 2010, 01:50 AM

I have this burner, and it works fine with short movies, but I get error codes when I try to burn a longer one. So it's not really reliable. The system requirements of the burner only mention PC, not MAC. But the Mac recognizes the burner and works for short movies. Don't know why longer ones won't work. Just asked in this forum.

Ronan Fournier · January 7th, 2010, 08:54 AM

Personaly I bough an external version of the Pioneer 203 and I'm happy with it. It has both Firewire 400 & 800, USB 2.0 & eSATA connections. Now the Pioneer 205 is out, it is faster (anyway it is safer to choose the slowest speed for burning Blu ray I think). Check it there:
OWC Mercury Pro FW800/400+USB2+eSata BluRa... (MRF8BDSD12X) at OWC

Martin Mayer · January 7th, 2010, 09:23 AM

I have the previous version of that LG drive (i.e. GGW-H20L) in an external case with a SATA-to-(USB2 and Firewire 400) bridge. Works fine connected to Macs via either USB2 or FW400. You'll need Toast (with the Blu-ray Plug-in).

The GGW-H20L is still available new on eBay for half the price of the latest model.

You say "There has to be another option somewhere?" - what is your concern? price? compatibility?

Luc De Wandel · January 15th, 2010, 01:00 PM

I finally got the LG Super Multi Blue to work properly, well almost. It keeps giving error codes and aborting burning for longer movies, but there's a workaround that works: I make a disk image via Toast first and then burn this image via the 'copy' command in Toast 10. Then everything works fine. I use Panasonic disks.

For added security, I switch all other running apps off ans disable the screen saver while burning.

January 2nd, 2010, 10:40 PM	#1
Simon Denny Trustee Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Australia Posts: 1,409	Need advice: External Blu-Ray burner for Mac I need to purchase an external Blu-Ray burner for my MBP and I'm having a hard time finding one here in Sydney Australia. The only solution that I have found is to purchase the: LG BH08 Super Multi Blue / Blu-ray / BD-RW / Internal SATA Drive and then purchase a Welland 3.5 USB/ eSata enclosure. There has to be another option somewhere? Can anyone offer some advice. Thanks

January 7th, 2010, 08:54 AM	#3
Ronan Fournier Major Player Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Paris, France Posts: 201	Personaly I bough an external version of the Pioneer 203 and I'm happy with it. It has both Firewire 400 & 800, USB 2.0 & eSATA connections. Now the Pioneer 205 is out, it is faster (anyway it is safer to choose the slowest speed for burning Blu ray I think). Check it there: OWC Mercury Pro FW800/400+USB2+eSata BluRa... (MRF8BDSD12X) at OWC __________________ http://www.songesdemoai.com/

January 7th, 2010, 09:23 AM	#4
Martin Mayer Major Player Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Oxfordshire, UK Posts: 416	I have the previous version of that LG drive (i.e. GGW-H20L) in an external case with a SATA-to-(USB2 and Firewire 400) bridge. Works fine connected to Macs via either USB2 or FW400. You'll need Toast (with the Blu-ray Plug-in). The GGW-H20L is still available new on eBay for half the price of the latest model. You say "There has to be another option somewhere?" - what is your concern? price? compatibility? __________________ Martin at HeadSpin HD on Blu-ray

January 6th, 2010, 01:50 AM	#2
Luc De Wandel Major Player Join Date: May 2008 Location: Knokke-Heist, Belgium Posts: 963	I have this burner, and it works fine with short movies, but I get error codes when I try to burn a longer one. So it's not really reliable. The system requirements of the burner only mention PC, not MAC. But the Mac recognizes the burner and works for short movies. Don't know why longer ones won't work. Just asked in this forum.

January 15th, 2010, 01:00 PM	#5
Luc De Wandel Major Player Join Date: May 2008 Location: Knokke-Heist, Belgium Posts: 963	I finally got the LG Super Multi Blue to work properly, well almost. It keeps giving error codes and aborting burning for longer movies, but there's a workaround that works: I make a disk image via Toast first and then burn this image via the 'copy' command in Toast 10. Then everything works fine. I use Panasonic disks. For added security, I switch all other running apps off ans disable the screen saver while burning.