Finally! A Blu Ray Player application for Mac that plays all my discs!

[Failed Muso]

Ok, so you'll have to pardon my delight and slight over-enthusiasm right now, but this is a big deal for me!

You may recall (but probably won't!) that I've been searching for a viable way of playing back Blu Ray Audio discs on my iMac. Basically, I have a great 5.1 rig in my living room but I spend a lot of time up in my studio/office and so like to be able to enjoy 5.1 material up there. And so, because Apple refuse to support Blu Ray, I was looking at buying a hardware player and then trying to rig up some kind of monitor for it in an already cluttered space. If only I could use my iMac, I'd sigh. And so I looked at my options and found that despite Apple's reluctance to support Blu Ray, 3rd party apps and drives did exist, but none of these applications seemed 'professional'. After much research, I decided to buy the Macgo Blu Ray player application. And, coupled with my Samsung external Blu Ray drive, everything seemed to work fine. But soon, discs were being released that the application flat out refused to play. Discs like all the Yes reissues, Bob Marley, and XTC, amongst others. This was a total pain in the proverbial, and after much communication with the developers, I gave up all hope of ever finding a solution and ended up buying that hardware player, and was able to fudge around the menus but it was far from ideal.

So, this afternoon, I get an email from a site I signed up at some while ago. Part of a technology news site called 'The Next Web', this service aims to provide heavily discounted products and services to members (registration is totally free). In the last six months, I've snagged some great stuff from them for big discounts, such as AfterShot Pro 2 and Screen Flow, two great apps that I use a lot for work and for personal use. Anyway, today's email contained a collection of free offers, some of them trials or things like online courses, but one caught my eye, namely the Leawo Blu-Ray Player. It wasn't a name I'd heard of before in my supposedly extensive research, and it was free so I thought I'd nothing to lose in giving it a try.

And would you bloody "adam & eve it"!?!?!? It only plays all the discs I couldn't before, with full on screen menu visuals and all audio options available. Naturally, because the iMac is connected via optical to my receiver, all the hi-res stuff downscales to regular DD/DTS but I'm more after the 5.1 mixes than the hi-res. I am as happy as the pig in the proverbial...

So, here's a link. You'll probably have to sign up to the TNW Deals service to get the application, and it will also require you to tweet or share to activate the download link, but I can assure you that TNW are a reputable site and won't spam you.

https://deals.thenextweb.com/sales/...e-to-life-for-free?rid=1303692&fb_ref=Default

I hope that this helps others in a similar predicament. Right now I'm trying all my Blu Ray discs and not one has failed yet. Some require you to use the 'virtual remote' as mousing around the menu seems to be a problem, but this is a tiny compromise to make. Also, I'm not sure how long the free offer is on for, so if you're interested you might have to be quick. Here's the developer's page for more info...

http://www.leawo.com/blu-ray-player-mac/

It seems it is free from their page too, although TNW say it normally costs $60.

 

[fredblue]

THANKS Rob! That's brilliant! :upthumb
(I've literally just started exploring BD-A on the Mac, with a cheapo Samsung external burner, that I couldn't believe just "worked" out of the box.. this will come in very handy indeed I'm sure down the line, as I've not got round to MKV-ing Legend, Yes, XTC, yet)

 

[Failed Muso]

THANKS Rob! That's brilliant! :upthumb
(I've literally just started exploring BD-A on the Mac, with a cheapo Samsung external burner, that I couldn't believe just "worked" out of the box.. this will come in very handy indeed I'm sure down the line, as I've not got round to MKV-ing Legend, Yes, XTC, yet)

It does seem a shame that there's no native Mac support for Blu Ray, but aside from them wanting to focus on streaming and downloads within iTunes, and therefore wanting to avoid a hardware based platform, Blu Ray as a format is riddled with obstacles that certainly substantiate Steve Jobs' assertion that the format was a "bag of hurt".

I too plumped for a Samsung external burner (SE-506) but that's the least of your worries when it comes to playing Blu Rays in OS X. There just doesn't seem to be a consistently good player application that can keep up to date with licensing and the more recent authoring techniques. Macgo's application seemed to be the best of a bad bunch, but this little gem seems to walk all over it. It's still far from perfect, but I'll take it I picked up a used Samsung standalone player to be able to play the discs that Macgo couldn't but it's a pain in the ass because you ideally need a monitor for all those discs that don't confirm to the direct play format.

I don't think we'll ever see a proper solution and as it's not my primary rig, I'm not too fussed, but finding this free application that seemed to play everything without any quibble was very welcome indeed. That said, it didn't seem to like Drums & Wires. Never mind.

 

[fredblue]

It does seem a shame that there's no native Mac support for Blu Ray, but aside from them wanting to focus on streaming and downloads within iTunes, and therefore wanting to avoid a hardware based platform, Blu Ray as a format is riddled with obstacles that certainly substantiate Steve Jobs' assertion that the format was a "bag of hurt".

I too plumped for a Samsung external burner (SE-506) but that's the least of your worries when it comes to playing Blu Rays in OS X. There just doesn't seem to be a consistently good player application that can keep up to date with licensing and the more recent authoring techniques. Macgo's application seemed to be the best of a bad bunch, but this little gem seems to walk all over it. It's still far from perfect, but I'll take it I picked up a used Samsung standalone player to be able to play the discs that Macgo couldn't but it's a pain in the ass because you ideally need a monitor for all those discs that don't confirm to the direct play format.

I don't think we'll ever see a proper solution and as it's not my primary rig, I'm not too fussed, but finding this free application that seemed to play everything without any quibble was very welcome indeed. That said, it didn't seem to like Drums & Wires. Never mind.

Jobsy was right, Blu-ray is a lotta hurt! It's a pain in the posterior! Fwiw, I'm just gonna rip the buggers, I don't care about HFPA playback & menus working properly on the Mac and all that jazz (and 3 streams of the same thing..!? what a daft waste of disc real estate) from the disc, I'm extracting the 5.1 audio only out of them... but I would still like to try and keep up with whatever software actually does work with menu navi etc on the Mac just.. because! Very grateful for the superb info

 

[Failed Muso]

Jobsy was right, Blu-ray is a lotta hurt! It's a pain in the posterior! Fwiw, I'm just gonna rip the buggers, I don't care about HFPA playback & menus working properly on the Mac and all that jazz (and 3 streams of the same thing..!? what a daft waste of disc real estate) from the disc, I'm extracting the 5.1 audio only out of them... but I would still like to try and keep up with whatever software actually does work with menu navi etc on the Mac just.. because! Very grateful for the superb info

An absolute pleasure to help, as always

I'm pretty sure that we will never have a smooth and trouble free Blu Ray experience on the Mac. In fact, I think someone is more likely to come up with a viable 5.1 hi-res download/streaming platform that will negate the need for physical formats sooner rather than later. With average download speeds soaring and storage getting exponentially cheaper, it is, in my very humble opinion, completely inevitable and would be extremely welcome.

But until that day, we must work with what we've got and make a fist of it

 

[BerryCarol]

Thanks for the great deal. Actually, I catch up this free player a couple days ago and downloaded on computer already. Since I've been a user of Macgo Mac Blu-ray Player, I didn't expect too much on the free one. Anything that's fully functional (and legal) isn't going to be free, because the DRM tech needs to be licensed and that costs the software vendor money. so be careful when choose. Sometimes it is the experience and time we value most, rather than money I think.

 

[Failed Muso]

Ok, so I may well have spoken too soon

I recently received the new Grace Jones HFPA disc, "Disco" and this disc refuses to play on the Leawo player as well as the Macgo one. More than a little disappointed

The search goes on...

 

[fredblue]

Ok, so I may well have spoken too soon

I recently received the new Grace Jones HFPA disc, "Disco" and this disc refuses to play on the Leawo player as well as the Macgo one. More than a little disappointed

The search goes on...

Ahh that's a PITA.. Great disc(o) that Disco Blu, innit? At last an HFPA with some content on it!

 

[Failed Muso]

Ahh that's a PITA.. Great disc(o) that Disco Blu, innit? At last an HFPA with some content on it!

Indeed! Tis a belter