External DVD/BluRay Burner recommendation

It's been awhile since I've had to do this kind of research, so I'm hoping that it's much simpler than I'm making it. These days, OS/hardware/software incompatibilities make me see red. Anyway...
The CD/DVD drive in my early 2008-era Intel iMac running OS 10.6.8 bit the dust awhile back and can not only NOT read disks, but always refuses to spit them out. In the cursory research I've done, it appears the laser reader is shot. Rather than pay to have a new one installed which would cost me substantially more, I'd prefer to just buy an external (yeah, like I need another USB/Firewire device connected to an already tach'd out hub) and if anyone has recommendations, I'd sure appreciate it hearing about it. I've heard good stuff about LGs, but I'm not necessarily tied to the best deal/cheapest...I just want something that has more longevity than what Apple put into the machine.
Thanks!!

Not all DVD player units for computers are Mac compatible.
LG has a few and can be found on Amazon.com
There are others found here.
http://www.amazon.com/LG-GP10NB20-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B004K2Z4MS/ref=sr_1 _3?ie=UTF8&qid=1398883289&sr=8-3&keywords=Mac+compatible+external+LG+optical+dr i ve
http://www.amazon.com/LG-Electronics-Portable-External-GP40NB40/dp/B009DS6OFU/re f=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1398883289&sr=8-7&keywords=Mac+compatible+external+LG+opti c al+drive
Here's another source for Mac compatible optical drives. These are better quality optical drives.
These are also tray loading drives.
Tray loading optical drives are more reliable, plus they are capable of playing those smaller mini sized discs.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/VLU2SD24XS/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MR3F82SD24S/
Also, Macs do not play Blu-Ray discs natively. If you have video discs that are in the Blu-Ray format, you will need to find a Mac compatible Blu-Ray /DVD player and a separate software Blu-Ray player application.
OWC ( http://eshop.macsales.com/ ) has Blu-Ray playing drives, also.
Found here.
http://eshop.macsales.com/search/external+blu+ray
Also, check Amazon.com
Good Luck.

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I bought the external DVD player/burner for my Macbook. I tried using it with my Dell laptop but it will not work. Is it not configured to work with anything but apple operating systems?

I bought the external DVD player/burner for my Macbook. I tried using it with my Dell laptop but it will not work. Is it not configured to work with anything but apple operating systems?

If you purchased the Apple USB SuperDrive, it will only work with select Apple devices. It won't work, for example, on my Late 2011 model that has a SuperDrive built-in, but it will work with an Air, Retina model, new 'drive-less' iMacs, etc.
As far as I know, though, you can only hack the drive to work with some other Apple devices, but not with Windows PCs. Which is a shame as other, less expensive DVD/CD devices will work with just about any machine.
Sorry,
Clinton

Need a great mac compatible DVD-BluRay burner

I have a late 2011 iMac, 32 GB memory, with a LaCie 4tb external thunderbolt hd. I burned finished DVD's on the mac's 'super drive' or whatever it's called, but I can only burn regular DVD's that won't hold more than 45 minutes or so of any quality, plus the peeps said some wouldn't play on their t.v.. I need to purchase a DVD (bluRay also would be great) burner that can burn layers or large files with high quality and dependability. Also, I purchased a quikie el cheapo DVD creator for menu's because I don't need the complications right now of big programs, but am wondering if it really matters what authoring/burning program you use (please say no). It would seem that if I export my files in the proper format for DVD or BlueRay, the quality should transfer? (Shouldn't the NTSC,H.S64, AAC 48kHz do for DVD, or H.264 Blue-ray 1080i 29.97 format options as supplied in PP work?) Learning, ever learning.
Thanks much in advance.

nadinefromwa wrote:
I have mixed HD (Panasonic P2 cards) and SD media in my sequences, so I need to stay with MPEG-2 until I get to the point of all HD content then.
If you are mixing HD and SD footage it is best to stay in an SD sequence (unless you absolutely must go HD for some reason) and author a regular DVD. If you up-scale SD content to HD you will loose quality.
nadinefromwa wrote:
I, for some reason, thought the faster the burn the better the quality but not so. I will stay slow. And the bitrate has always been a mystery to me. It seems like if I leave everything at the default in PP and Encore, I'll be okay.
The burn speed itself has nothing to do with the video quality of the final DVD. Lower burn speed simply means that will avoid write errors during the burn process. The video quality is determined by your encoder settings; The bitrate in general should not exceed 7.5 mb/s and you should use a constant bitrate for content under 60 min and variable bitrate for longer videos. Adobe Media Encoder certainly has more settings but I'm not that familiar with this particular piece of software.
nadinefromwa wrote:
One question - I found I could bring in my mxf files and size them to fit the frame in premier pro with the SD footage. Do you think that would create an issue for the final product? (Although I didn't do that on the previous DVD's that didn't work) I haven't attempted a burn yet from this mixed bag.
You would be better off asking Adobe-specific questions either in the Adobe forums or maybe over on the COW. I personally have very little experience with either Encore or Premiere Pro.
As is the case with most authoring software Encore will create DVD Images that can be played on your machine prior to burning. That means you can do tests to try out your workflows and settings without having to physically burn a DVD.
http://helpx.adobe.com/encore/using/building-finished-project.html
nadinefromwa wrote:
Also then, it sounds like I shouldn't need to worry about the new burner until I reach the point of wanting to burn bluray? The iMac super drive should be fine for the regular DVD's for now?
Absolutely. Blu-ray is for HD and DVD is for SD.

External DVD player/burner region free?

Hi there,
This kind of question has been posted before but the latest thread is from 2006 so I just wanted some up to date information.
My optical drive has been through its 5 changes and has settled on region 2. I want to watch and back up a region 1 dvd. If I were to buy an external DVD player would my mac force it to read only region 2 or would it be region free?
If it is region free does anyone have any recommendations on a good external DVD drive?
Thanks very much.

As I understand it, it is ultimately the DVD drive's firmware that determines that drive's region setting, not the Mac itself (although it's the Mac that initially lets you change the region stored in that firmware, up to five times). When you first connect an external DVD drive, its region encoding will be whatever the manufacturer set it to be.
If you want true region-free playback, you'll have to find a DVD drive whose firmware can be updated to make the drive region free. This process always used to be much easier on a PC than a Mac; I don't know if that's still the case.

Question about choosing an external dvd/cd burner

The burning speed listed in my iTunes preferences goes up to 24x, then "Maximum Pssible". I am thinking of purchasing a LaCie DVD/CD burner that has write(48x)/rewrite(32x)/read(40x). When using with my iMac does this mean that I can burn at 48x with the iTunes burning preferences set to Maximum or does the maximum burning capabilities with my iMac top out at 24x?
Also, the internal burner device (a Matshita model) seems to have something called buffer protection. Can anyone explain what buffer protection is and is a mandatory consideration when using second, external player/burners?
Thanks for any help.

The 24X currently in iTunes is reflecting the speed that is capable of the internal burner in your iMac.
Also, the internal burner device (a Matshita model) seems to have something called buffer protection. Can anyone explain what buffer protection is and is a mandatory consideration when using second, external player/burners?
This is to ensure that your burner does not run out of data while it is burning. If the burner runs out of data, the burn will fail.

Internal BluRay burner recommendations for Snow Leopard on a new Mac Pro?

We're finally getting new Mac Pro's...hallelujah!! I was just wondering if anyone out there could recommend a good internal BluRay burner that will be compatible with the Intel Quad Core, Snow Leopard, and FCP7. Any assistance is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Melanie

Melanie Dupre wrote:
We're finally getting new Mac Pro's...hallelujah!! I was just wondering if anyone out there could recommend a good internal BluRay burner that will be compatible with the Intel Quad Core, Snow Leopard, and FCP7. Any assistance is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Melanie
Hi Melanie
Why does it have to be an internal Blu-ray drive? How many computers are you getting?
I would recommend purchasing the OWC Mercury Pro FireWire 800/400, eSata, USB 2.0 SATA 5.25 Case Kit and choosing your own SATA Blu-ray burner to install in the case. That way you can connect it to just about any MacPro, MacBook Or even a PC if necessary.
Here is a link:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MRSFW8U2/
Or if you don't want to build your own, OWC has several that they have built for you but I haven't been keeping up with any other them enough to recommend a specific Blu-ray burner. In any case, here are a couple likes.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MRF8BDSD12XT/
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MRF8BDSD12X/
Ron

External dvd reader/burner doesn't show in Finder

Hi and thanks in advance for your help -
I've just purchased an external dvd burner because the pre-super drive dvd reader in my macbook is getting a little tires. It doesn't appear in the finder, but when I check with the System Profiler or Disk Utility application, it is listed there. It's a no-brand dvd burner (from the Fnac chain in France) which appears as a "Slimtype DVD A DS8A3S", am I missing something here?
Thanks

That was the next question I was going to ask.
If your external DVD player has its own power supply, you should definitely use it. If it came with 2 USB cables, it's in your best interest to use both of them with DVD player. One will be responsible for transferring data from the DVD player to the computer, along with supplying some power. The second cable will provide the rest of the power for the drive
~Lyssa

Compare DVD-R burn quality by internal Super Drive to External DVD-R burner

Has anyone compared the video 'quality' of a DVD-R burned using the internal Super Drive
on my MacBook Pro (Windows 8.1 64 bit) to the same DVD-R burned using a standalone
Sony DVD-R Recorder / player? One would think the quality would be slightly better using
a standard external DVD-R disc burner.

I see no difference in the video quality. Although I use a different external burner than your brand. It's possible some external burners are better than the optical drives on a MacBook Pro or vice versa.

External DVD -/+ DL burner

My client wants this FCP project on a DVD+R and my G5 only does -R, so I need to get an external burner that also does DL in addition to DVD+R. Any brands recommended, or to stay away from? Thanks.
Sharon

macsales.com does not have the overhead of the
pricier Lacie products.
they also don't have the durable metal cases that Lacie has
or lightscribe
or TOAST (very powerful suite of burning software)
DAVE

External dvd/cd drive recommendation sought

I have an iMac G5 20" screen. Even my machine has an internal dvd/cd player/burner, I would like to also use an external one. Can anyone recommend a good quality external?

I'm partial to LaCies. My job is to film company training sessions, seminars and other events, edit them down to interesting, watchable movies, and burn them to DVD and CD. I've been through several internal and external burners and when I picked up a LaCie USB Slim I never looked back. The LaCie folks just make good quality long lasting burners.
I plugged it in to my Intel iMac and it worked right off the bat. Had a bit of a problem because I am using Toast which runs under Rosetta and that limits my burn speed to 2X (over 24X on other OS's) but even at that speed I get a quick fast copy or DVD made and know it is not going to be a toaster.
Hudson

Lacie external DVD/CD burner

I bought an external burner to reduce the wear and tear on the internal optic drive and because the Lacie burner is twice as fast. The model I have comes with a 400 firewire port so I have it daisy chained to a bunch of external hard drives. When I first got the burner, it worked like a charm and I could knock off maybe 10 DVDs in a row before I would give it a rest. Now, almost every DVD is rejected during the verification process even after I let it rest for as long as 20 minutes (the length it takes the internal optic drive to burn a DVD). Has the burner died or am I daisy chaining it to too many hard drives?

I'm talking abouot the Intel computer - that's my primary computer. There are four externals daisy chained together and the burner is plugged in to one of them. Fortunately, I have a cable with a 400 firewire connection on one end (the burner has only 400 ports) and a 800 connection on the other end, so I can connect the burner directly to the computer. Thanks for the tip on burning 3 DVDs before letting it cool down. Will keep this in mind the next time I have to burn a whole bunch of DVDs. Will post back early next month since I don't have any projects right at the moment.
Message was edited by: Sunny's mommy

External DVD/CD burner?

I burn a lot of my home videos and I feel that i am putting a lot of stress on my burner and dont want to burn it out, no pun intended.

Depends on what you mean by "a lot". While your drive can only take so many consecutive burns (I'd stop at 5) the easy thing to do is to give it a bit of time to cool between them. Also, if you have ApleCare it's not something you should need to worry about for a while.
Otherwise, just go out and buy a cheap external drive which you can abuse to your heart's content.

Y510p dvd/bluray burner for ultrabay

Does anyone know where I can purchase a dvd/blu ray burner for an ideapad y510p with Ultrabay. Or would the Ideapad y500 optical drive be compatible with my y510p?? Please Help!

My question is along the same line.
Will a Lenovo 43N3229 Ultrabay DVD burner work in the Y510P?
Thanks

External dvd drive/burner

I connected a pioneer 106 external drive via usb and it was not recognized. I believe I was told my computer does not have usb 2. Could this be, and if so I can I remedy this. I only have a cd drive internally.

Go to the apple menu ---> about this mac ----> More Information. Look under USB to see if your drive is actually detected. If it is, use Patchburn to enable it. Patchburn is a free program used to help Mac's detect unsupported burners.
If you do get it working, you could always dissassemble the case which takes about 5 minutes. After doing this you will see the IDE Ribbon and Power Connection. You now have an internal drive, swap it with the internal CD if you wish.
Good Luck

External DVD burner - USB or Firewire?

when I got my first OS X system - about six years ago - I bought a firewire DVD burner. it worked great for all this time and finally died a few months ago.
time to get a new one! But I am having a hard time finding an external firewire Drive - all I see is USB.
can someone recommend a good FW 1394 external DVD / CD burner drive somewhere
or...
can someone assure me that USB is now so terrific that I don't need firewire and will be very happy with a new state of the art USB 2.0 drive?
thanks!
willfriedwal;d

Be careful with Other World. They sell DVD burners in two different types of enclosures. The info at the top of the burner page says Oxford 911 chipsets, but the Mercury Value DVD burner they sell for $71.99 uses a different set - the Prolific 3507 set. Google that name and see how many angry people you find. I bought one after being told by a salesman that the only difference between the Mercury Value and the Mercury Pro was cosmetic. Wrong. The Value drive wouldn't mount a disk when plugged into the firewire port on my 20" G5 iMac. It did mount when plugged into the USB port, but my understanding is that you can't boot from a CD in a USB drive (not easily anyway), and you can in Firewire. My internal drive is dead in the water, and estimates I got to replace it were $250 or so, so I'm going external. Gonna buy the Mercury Value Pro with Oxford 911 now that I got my money back (no easy task either, but I finally got it.)
Just thought I'd pass that along.
brotone

External DVD/BluRay Burner recommendation

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