# ASUS External Bluray SBC-06D1S-U



## Dadi_oh

Anyone use one of these on their MP? I am not looking for Bluray playback. I want to rip my Bluray disc collection onto disk for use on my Macbook Pro Home Media Player. I run AnyDVD under Parallels on my Mac Pro so I guess the recognition of the drive would be through Windows running as a VM under Parallels. 

Anyone try this?

NCIX.com - Buy ASUS SBC-06D1S-U External Slim 6X Blu Ray Playback DVDRW Combo Drive Retail USB2.0 Black - ASUS - SBC-06D1S-U/DBLU/G/ACI/AS - in Canada


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## Guest

I'd be interested to find out if this works too. I'd love to start ripping my BD collection onto hard drive but haven't bothered to chase any of this down as of yet. Apparently there's also an OSX app that will rip (but no payback) BD's as well .. I forget the name offhand but it was reasonably inexpensive.

I really really wish Steve would just let us have freakin' blu-ray playback .. bag of hurt or not. Mac's used to be cutting edge as far as video playback went once upon a time ... now I suspect that we won't even have any optical drives soon enough  I mean windows has been able to do it for years now ... the fact that OSX can't is really egg in the face at this point in time.

EDIT: That link doesn't work


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## Dadi_oh

Thought I updated the link. Oh well. Hopefully this one works....


NCIX.com - Buy ASUS SBC-06D1S-U External Slim 6X Blu Ray Playback DVDRW Combo Drive Retail USB2.0 Black - ASUS - SBC-06D1S-U/DBLU/G/ACI/AS - in Canada


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## Amiga2000HD

The whole bag of hurt comment was with respect to the licensing process for Blu Ray. The licensing process was greatly simplified by the Blu Ray Disc Consortium a whileafter Steve Jobs made that comment so licensing isn't as much of an issue anymore.

Also, Apple has it better than the PC makers with respect to the DRM issue because they control both the hardware and the software. Blu Ray playback on PCs requires the software maker (Microsoft, typically) and the PC manufacturer (pick one) need to get playback working correctly but also the DRM measures required by the Blu Ray people working in both the software and hardware domains.

And yet, there's still no Blu Ray playback support on Macs despite the licensing difficulties largely being simplified and no need to co-ordinate support between multiple hardware and software companies. Apple's isn't interested in building the best multimedia computer available, in this case, Apple's interest extends no further than making sure their computers aren't able to infringe on iTunes store sales. Apple ceased to be a warm, fuzzy, love-in underdog computer company some time ago.

What really honks me off is that I can't rip my Blu Ray discs easily to be able to use the content on my iPad, computer, and other devices of my choosing in addition to the Blu Ray player hooked up to my TV. The way the entertainment industry treats its paying customers is disgraceful.


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## Dadi_oh

Amiga2000HD said:


> What really honks me off is that I can't rip my Blu Ray discs easily to be able to use the content on my iPad, computer, and other devices of my choosing in addition to the Blu Ray player hooked up to my TV. The way the entertainment industry treats its paying customers is disgraceful.


So when you say you haven't been able to rip Bluray "easily" you mean that you just require third party SW to do it? I have AnyDVD-HD which I "assume" is going to work although I have not tried it on Bluray yet (thus explaining my original question about the ASUS Bluray drive). AnyDVD works wonders on regular DVD's. I have yet to find any of my DVD's that it can not crack. 

I have pretty much finished ripping my extensive DVD library (>600 titles) onto my Mac Pro server and now that Bluray disc prices have come down from the stratosphere (and I have a 50" 1080p TV) it is now worth my while to start buying Bluray. I realize I will have to start adding more storage to my Mac Pro (currently at 1X1TB and 3X2TB). May have to go to external 4 bay RAID setup once the Blurays start to pile up.

So back to my original question...  Has anyone tried this external ASUS Bluray drive on their Mac to RIP Blurays?


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## Guest

@Amiga2000HD Yep you're right. At this point Apple is not going to go in that route because it conflicts with their own movie sales, which sadly, squawk in a just barely in the realms of HD (personally [email protected]/sec bitrates aren't very appealing to me when I can have [email protected]/sec+ on a BD). Also the Apple solutions don't give you the up to 50G of material that you can get on BD's such as additional soundtracks, extras, etc. Sucks, but I think you're right in the fact that we'll never see this capability added to OSX. 

@Dadi_oh: Apparently makeMKV works natively on OSX .. I haven't tried it yet.

For me I'd personally like to be able to rip a full ISO of the BD's. I want to keep all of the features, multiple soundtracks and all the goodies intact. In other words I'd like to make a full backup of the discs instead of just the main feature. I have done this with a lot of my DVD collection, or at least the ones I thought were worth it anyway. Some I just did a handbrake rip with.

You might have luck finding this out on xlr8yourmac.com ... 

Accelerate Your Mac! Mac Drive Upgrades/Compatibility Database

They don't list any Asus there directly from what I just saw, but there are 23 different reports about various blu-ray options for OSX.


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## Dadi_oh

mguertin said:


> @Dadi_oh: Apparently makeMKV works natively on OSX .. I haven't tried it yet.
> 
> For me I'd personally like to be able to rip a full ISO of the BD's. I want to keep all of the features, multiple soundtracks and all the goodies intact. In other words I'd like to make a full backup of the discs instead of just the main feature. I have done this with a lot of my DVD collection, or at least the ones I thought were worth it anyway. Some I just did a handbrake rip with.
> 
> You might have luck finding this out on xlr8yourmac.com ...
> 
> Accelerate Your Mac! Mac Drive Upgrades/Compatibility Database
> 
> They don't list any Asus there directly from what I just saw, but there are 23 different reports about various blu-ray options for OSX.


Thanks. I will check that out. 

I am, in fact, ripping entire DVD's at the moment. I use a headless Macbook Pro as a media server and running Plex to stream off my Mac Pro. Works well giving me full menus and such. It does behave a little odd during previews where it plays the preview for a few seconds and then fast forwards to the next preview. Also, in some chapters on a DVD it will suddenly fast forward to the end of the chapter. This is usually within the last minute or so of the chapter. Only happens rarely but very odd. Probably a problem with Plex so hopefully will be addressed in a future release.

I also use handbrake to encode the DVD's to MP4 files to have all my movies available to my kid's Macbooks and to put them on my Patriot Box Office media player. Using handbrake constant quality setting of 19, most movies are less than 1GB and look pretty good even on my 50" screen (upscaled by Plex). So in a sense I am duplicating efforts a bit since I have to dedicate one of my 2TB drives to just MP4 files. Two of the 2TB drives contain the ripped DVD images.

I will probably keep using AnyDVD to rip DVD's since I have already paid for it and it is actively kept up to date for all titles including Disney who are notorious for all sorts of protection schemes. I just run Parallels VM with Win7 and keep that on a third monitor. Only time I use Windows is to rip a DVD  I do everything else in OSX.


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## Guest

I use Plex as well and have noticed some oddities but for the most part it is fine. One thing that kinda sucks is that Plex can't restart your video where you left off when playing from an ISO though  It remembers the last played location, but when you select it you land back on the DVD menu. Oh well .. what can you do. I love Plex .. I have it running on my OSX server (mac pro) and serving up to 7 different machines around my house 

From reading the compatibility it seems that many of the LG drives are supported. I may pick one up today along with an external case and give it a shot ... if it doesn't work out I can install it internal in one of my linux boxes and probably still rip with MakeMKV on there. If I decide to do this I'll report back with results! Canada Computers has the LG CH10LS20 drives for $75 this week btw and I think you now have one in Ottawa. Now if they just had decent external cases with FW I'd be happy! USB 2.0 is slow on OSX so ripping 25G+ movies would be painful @ 20MB/sec


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## Dadi_oh

mguertin said:


> I use Plex as well and have noticed some oddities but for the most part it is fine. One thing that kinda sucks is that Plex can't restart your video where you left off when playing from an ISO though  It remembers the last played location, but when you select it you land back on the DVD menu. Oh well .. what can you do. I love Plex .. I have it running on my OSX server (mac pro) and serving up to 7 different machines around my house
> 
> From reading the compatibility it seems that many of the LG drives are supported. I may pick one up today along with an external case and give it a shot ... if it doesn't work out I can install it internal in one of my linux boxes and probably still rip with MakeMKV on there. If I decide to do this I'll report back with results! Canada Computers has the LG CH10LS20 drives for $75 this week btw and I think you now have one in Ottawa. Now if they just had decent external cases with FW I'd be happy! USB 2.0 is slow on OSX so ripping 25G+ movies would be painful @ 20MB/sec


I was looking at this. Refurbished and only $68 but shipping to Canada is over $43  I wish OWC had decent shipping rates across the border. They ship for less than $10 in the US 

(*) OWC Mercury Pro FireWire 800/400, eSATA,... (MRSFW8U2) at OWC

I noticed the same thing with Plex. With MP4 there is no problem going back to where you left off but with DVD it makes you "think" it will take you back but ends up on the main menu. Minor annoyance. Still love the interface.

So you say you run Plex on your Mac Pro and serve it to the other machines? Dumb question but how does that work? I run Plex on the media server and then point it at my Mac Pro which shares the media files. Or am I misunderstanding what you are saying?

I seem to be hijacking my own thread


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## Guest

I have all my media loaded up on Plex Media Server on my Mac Pro server, I run the Plex client on all the other machines and all of the content just shows up -- you don't have to load up and scape all the content on all the Plex machines and you don't have to mount any of the shares where the content lives. Plex seamlessly servers up all the content over the local lan with http, so you don't have to add (and scrape, etc) all the media on the client machines. You need the latest versions of Plex to do this (0.9.x).


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## Dadi_oh

mguertin said:


> I have all my media loaded up on Plex Media Server on my Mac Pro server, I run the Plex client on all the other machines and all of the content just shows up -- you don't have to load up and scape all the content on all the Plex machines and you don't have to mount any of the shares where the content lives. Plex seamlessly servers up all the content over the local lan with http, so you don't have to add (and scrape, etc) all the media on the client machines. You need the latest versions of Plex to do this (0.9.x).


Aaaahhh :clap: Didn't realize they had this server/client setup. Makes more sense. Sounds like what I should be doing. My wife likes to watch movies on her MBP and would like to view DVD so she has access to subtitles. Until now I didn't know how to achieve this so she would just watch MP4's using quicktime to stream from my Mac Pro.

Gotta try this when I get home. So many things on my plate....


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## Guest

Yep it's awesome ... and it requires no configuration at all, just fire up Plex on any other machine on your local network and it should already be working


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## Dadi_oh

mguertin said:


> Yep it's awesome ... and it requires no configuration at all, just fire up Plex on any other machine on your local network and it should already be working


I just see the one download (117MB Plex-v0.9.1.13.dmg). Does this contain both Plex Media Server and the Plex Media Center? I assume I install the server on the Mac Pro and just the Media Center (client) on the other devices in the house.


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## Guest

It's all included in the one download, you just drag Plex into the Applications folder on all the machines you want to use it on. The server/client stuff is transparent. If you're upgrading from the 0.8 stuff or earlier let it be known it will have to rescrape all of your content, which can take some time! The Plex forums are pretty good as well if you run into any problems. If you are already using the 0.9.x stuff no rescraping required, it will "just work" on all your local machines.


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## Dadi_oh

mguertin said:


> It's all included in the one download, you just drag Plex into the Applications folder on all the machines you want to use it on. The server/client stuff is transparent. If you're upgrading from the 0.8 stuff or earlier let it be known it will have to rescrape all of your content, which can take some time! The Plex forums are pretty good as well if you run into any problems. If you are already using the 0.9.x stuff no rescraping required, it will "just work" on all your local machines.


Thanks again. I think I am on 0.8 so I will need to rescrape but no big deal. I will go ahead and install on my Mac Pro and all the Macbooks and my Mac Mini in the house. They even have iPhone and iPad apps I noticed. I doubt I would ever bother with watching something on the iPhone but it does mention using iPhone as a remote which might be cool during one of our inevitable "who last had the remote house searches". It might be marginally more useful installed on my iPad but I think that means buying it twice since I don't believe iPhone and iPad apps are "pay once" if I purchase on one device.


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## Guest

You pay once and can install the Plex iOS app on both devices (if they are both tied to the same iTunes account). That said I much prefer Klexi as a client (also have to pay for it). I watch video on my iPad all the time from Plex Media Server actually. I've purchased both of those iOS clients. When traveling I watch video from my home server (I have a static IP and have routed the Plex ports to my server). Beats the hell out of hotel TV/Movies and I don't have to worry about loading up video on my iPad before I leave.

And yes, I think we've totally derailed this thread by this point


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## Dadi_oh

Tracks? Where we're going we don't need... Tracks.... (Emerson Brown... Back to the Future)


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## MannyP Design

Dadi_oh said:


> Tracks? Where we're going we don't need... Tracks.... (Emerson Brown... Back to the Future)


<geek>You mean Emmett Brown</geek>


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## Dadi_oh

MannyP Design said:


> <geek>You mean Emmett Brown</geek>


Doh! Should have gone with my first instinct and said Doc Brown...


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## Dadi_oh

Moved my Plex media server version 9 down onto my Mac Pro and then installed Plex on the other Macs in the house. Works great! I ran into one hitch where the remote Mac would not play DVD ISO's but played MP4's just fine. Did some searching and found a reference buried deep within the bowels of Plex that it treats streaming of MP4 and DVD images differently. You must mount the remote computer drive containing the DVD ISO's before the local Plex can play them. Just an FYI in case you run into that. Added it into the login items to mount the DVD drives and works fine on the remote Macs now :clap:


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## Guest

Interesting on the ISO's .. I haven't run into that but i don't have many iso's loaded up in plex as of yet. They few that I do play without me having to manually connect to the share ... but I bet it's just auto connecting to it as it knows about it and occasionally when I exit plex I notice that the share is connected on my client machine.

They just released a big update a few hours ago with a bunch of new features if you're interested.


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## Dadi_oh

Yes. The auto update box popped up on my wife's Mac Mini this evening and I did not do the update. I wanted to check it out first since I just got things running right with the current version. I checked the Plex forums and there are some issues being reported with Plex Media Server (PMS... what an acronym  so I think I may wait a little and see how that plays out.


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## Guest

Dadi_oh said:


> Yes. The auto update box popped up on my wife's Mac Mini this evening and I did not do the update. I wanted to check it out first since I just got things running right with the current version. I checked the Plex forums and there are some issues being reported with Plex Media Server (PMS... what an acronym  so I think I may wait a little and see how that plays out.


Yep I did the same thing, they are saying they will have an update within the next few days addressing the bugs. We should start a Plex thread LOL


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