Ok, what is the best external Blu Ray burners/software combo right now

[theater dreamer]

Based on some feedback from solarrdadd, I am going to redo this topic, and hope for some suggestions.

I purchased a new laptop last spring, an HP Pro Book. It has a DVD RW optical drive. Because I am looking to put a large portion of my collection on the cloud, I am looking for a good external Blu Ray burner. I would also like the option of playing the occasional Blu Ray movie on my laptop, so I am also searching for software allowing me to do this.

I have read several of the discussions on the forum already. What I am looking for specifically is a Blu Ray burner packaged with useful software. I'd love to know what you guys are using, and how much you like it.

If you've found that the best option is buying an OEM Blu Ray burner, and purchasing software separately, tell me what you've done. I'm looking to spend about $100. I can spend more if if find something that would wow me, but if I can keep it to $100 or less, I'd be happy.

I plan on taking advantage of Wal Mart's disc to digital offer, and doing it at home obviously cuts the cost in half when you're doing ten or more discs.

Any suggestions and/or feedback would be appreciated.

Thank you!

Bill

[theater dreamer]

Could I get some suggestions, please? They don't have to be the very best, but some suggestions on ones to consider would be helpful.

[solarrdadd]

first, welcome to the forum.

second, there is no such thing as the best combo, sorry. the best if what happens to have or seemingly have worked the best for the person that has or is using it.

what i recommend is that you determine your needs for use of the hardware & software, research online reviews of product including those recommended here and once you find the closest match to your needs, buy that.

being proactive like that rather than waiting for others to tell you what is best for you will help you yield better results. don't get me wrong, suggestions are nice and they can give you "food for thought" but, ultimately, you must decide for yourself.

the great thing about the internet is that everyone is dying to tell you what they have experienced with a product. go to amazon and search these products and read some of the users reviews. that's probably a good start.

also, a potential better title to this thread might have been: "external blu-ray burners/software, which do you use & do you like it"

good luck in your search. when you do make your purchase, let us know how you like what you have purchased and what ultimately helped you make your choice.

[theater dreamer]

Thank you for the welcome.

Believe me, I've been doing a lot of research already. I'm not the kind of guy just to post something, and wait around for an answer. The topic was put up to gather more information while I was doing research at the same time. I've spent somewhere between 5 to 10 hours of reading topics here, on AVS forum, and Virtual Dr.com, as well as reading product reviews on Amazon, and looking at what's available on eBay. I've emailed my other techie friends for suggestions. I've poured through recent catalogs from Provantage, looked at New Egg. I've done random Google searches, looking to see what the top rated burners are for 2014 and 2015. I just figured that the best place to post would be on a place dedicated to Blu Ray movies, that maybe people would be aware of burner/software combos released that I might have missed.

I do see that I could have better worded my topic, so I'll edit it.

Thank you.

Bill

[solarrdadd]

Originally Posted by theater dreamer

Thank you for the welcome.

Believe me, I've been doing a lot of research already. I'm not the kind of guy just to post something, and wait around for an answer. The topic was put up to gather more information while I was doing research at the same time. I've spent somewhere between 5 to 10 hours of reading topics here, on AVS forum, and Virtual Dr.com, as well as reading product reviews on Amazon, and looking at what's available on eBay. I've emailed my other techie friends for suggestions. I've poured through recent catalogs from Provantage, looked at New Egg. I've done random Google searches on hacks + my DVR model, looking to see what the top rated burners are for 2014 and 2015. I just figured that the best place to post would be on a place dedicated to Blu Ray movies, that maybe people would be aware of burner/software combos released that I might have missed.

I do see that I could have better worded my topic, so I'll edit it.

Thank you.

Bill

Outstanding! Dreamer sounds like your on the right path. For the record, I use a Samsung Slim Portable Blu-Ray Writer/Reader Model SE-506. It comes with PowerDVD software suite (stripped down you need to buy the upgrade to full version) and I've had no problems with it.

I use it to back-up my hi-rez FLAC & DSD audio files as well as standard data, pictures and videos. I don't watch movies on the PC but for test purposes I did throw in a bluray movie with no problem.

Is it the best, no, does it do what I need it to do without any issues, yes.

Good luck with your search and keep us posted.

[theater dreamer]

Solarrdadd, thank you, again

The model you have, by the way, was the one I've been leading towards getting. The thing that's held me up thus far is what seems to be conflicting information. The Amazon item description seems to show that it will read dual layer Blu Ray discs (which, I believe, are the 50 GB discs).

Can you confirm for me that it will read and burn dual layer Blu Ray discs?

I do have a question, also. Which version of the Cyberlink PowerDVD software does it come with? Do I need to upgrade it before I can play or burn Blu Ray discs? Or do I just need to upgrade it for more features? I will likely upgrade at the end of next month, but between this burner, and the movies I am going to buy, I don't want to spend the other $50 to upgrade the software right now. I can, as I have the money, but I maintain a hard budget for myself. I find if I don't keep that, I can far too easily go beyond it.

Thanks!

[hottuna]

Originally Posted by theater dreamer

...Because I am looking to put a large portion of my collection on the cloud, I am looking for a good external Blu Ray burner...

I’m not sure if I’m missing something but how does wanting to put your collection on the cloud necessitate a Blu-ray burner? I’m sure you would need a reader at least to access the disc data, but what are you trying to do by burning a Blu-ray?

[onyxbfly]

Originally Posted by hottuna

I’m not sure if I’m missing something but how does wanting to put your collection on the cloud necessitate a Blu-ray burner? I’m sure you would need a reader at least to access the disc data, but what are you trying to do by burning a Blu-ray?

^^ THIS^^

One could say that you would spend more money than necessary buying a burner. Or one could say hey why not in for a penny in for a pound and might as well spend money once.

Just for the record a burner is absolutely not necc for extracting your flicks and uploading them to the cloud.

Discussing software is a slippery slope and best left off forum. But to point you in the right direction.....

http://www.doom9.org/

http://www.afterdawn.com/

http://www.videohelp.com/

How many blurays do you intend to back up to the cloud?
Eventually you would need a very large cloud storage solution. Regardless of the compression method (or not) its going to add up quickly

Enjoy.

[theater dreamer]

Originally Posted by hottuna

I’m not sure if I’m missing something but how does wanting to put your collection on the cloud necessitate a Blu-ray burner? I’m sure you would need a reader at least to access the disc data, but what are you trying to do by burning a Blu-ray?

Originally Posted by onyxbfly

^^ THIS^^

One could say that you would spend more money than necessary buying a burner. Or one could say hey why not in for a penny in for a pound and might as well spend money once.

Just for the record a burner is absolutely not necc for extracting your flicks and uploading them to the cloud.

Discussing software is a slippery slope and best left off forum. But to point you in the right direction.....

http://www.doom9.org/

http://www.afterdawn.com/

http://www.videohelp.com/

How many blurays do you intend to back up to the cloud?
Eventually you would need a very large cloud storage solution. Regardless of the compression method (or not) its going to add up quickly

Enjoy.

Hey guys, a good question.

To be honest, by itself, it doesn't, obviously. But in my research, there seems to be a dearth of quality Blu Ray readers only on the market right now. If there are more out there, they're bloody difficult to find (and I was a research major in college, doing Supreme Court precedent case digging. So, I should have at least average skills at finding things).

The few Blu Ray readers I've found appeared very flimsy, or they came from, well, no name companies (or they had no company name at all). Plus, I would like the option to play Blu Ray movies on my laptop occasionally, and none of the readers I've found have even the most basic of software to do that. I'm going to research some software a bit today, and see what, if anything, tickles my fancy.

I did see one of the sticky posts at the top of this forum, which pretty much said anything to do with stripping rights protection was a no no, and would get a probable ban. I edited my posts, which said something that could get me in trouble. I wanted to have the Star Wars Blu Ray movies on my hard drive, and we know that's a no no. I will have to wait and see if ol' George Lucas ever gives Disney the go ahead to put them on Ultra Violet.

How many movies do I want to put on the cloud? Probably about 50 in my collection, right now. Perhaps in my noobishness, my terminology is wrong, so before any moderators look at what I'm saying, and think about sending me on vacation, I am meaning "the cloud" as far as my Ultra Violet movies. I've become a big fan of Vudu.com. I have some medical issues, which I had originally detailed in this topic, but I felt they really didn't belong here. Needless to say, when they pop up, it makes it near impossible to switch Blu Ray movies, because I can't get out of bed. And, if I should need to spend any prolonged period of time in the hospital again, I would like to be able to watch my movies without lugging around my Blu Ray movies.

So, a big part of my goal here is to get a Blu Ray drive that I can plug into my laptop, put in a Blu Ray movie that is available on Vudu, and do the disc to digital thing Wal Mart is offering. I have a small group of movies that have not yet been released on Blu Ray yet, or they are available in such a small print, that I cannot justify spending $40 on a movie when I can get the DVD, and a HDX copy for $2.50. I'm looking at Eight Men Out, As Good As It Gets, etc. I have about 25-30 movies on Blu Ray right now I'd like to add to the cloud, er, my Vudu collection (correct me if I am wrong. I view Ultra Violet as being on the cloud, because if on the very remote chance Vudu went under, Ultra Violet would still have record of my purchases, and I'd be able to watch the movies on other streaming sites).

Finally, while I don't have an immediate need for a burner, it makes no sense to buy a reader, and then a burner. I've found a really nice LG Blu Ray burner that I am thinking about buying.

LG Electronics BE14NU40 14x USB 3.0 Super-Multi Blu-ray External Rewriter Burner



I am developing a website that is going to have a lot of imagery, as I display my vintage and pre-war baseball card, memorabilia and ephemera collection. The Blu Ray burner would be a really nice option to do database backups. I could also put a disc with all my pictures, scanned recepits, databases into my safe deposit box with my most valuable cards.

Finally, within the next year or so, I am seriously considering building a HTPC/gaming PC. It's been 5-6 years since I built one, so I would like a burner to have in case I don't put a Blu Ray burner into the tower (not likely, I'll get a new internal one, I'm sure).

I hope that answers your questions. Thank you both for the input!

Bill

[theater dreamer]

I went ahead and purchased the LG drive above. Looking forward to seeing it in action.

[Harrychoen]

I just picked up a Blu Ray drive called USB 3.0 Aluminum 6X BDXL 3D Blu-Ray Writer for my iMac and also wanted to canvass current opinions on what the best playback software is. I'm currently trialling the MacGo software and it seems ok, albeit that it doesn't display the menus properly sometimes. I've also experimented with the VLC Player workarounds with no luck yet
This is already the best one among my using.

[Betamax]

Originally Posted by theater dreamer

I went ahead and purchased the LG drive above. Looking forward to seeing it in action.

Hey Dreamer,

I own that drive and have been using it for over a year now. Not had a problem with it and seems to read everything I throw at it. Very reliable! Good luck with it.

[Chiyo_chichi]

There's very little in the way of 3rd party BD player software for the PC, unfortunately. Which is the real problem for people who want to enjoy BD on the PC without getting dirty.