External Blu-Ray Drive?

[wrender]

I need to get a Blu-Ray drive for my Kubuntu laptop.

Does anyone know of any external USB Blu-Ray drives that play well with Kubuntu?

[wrender]

I was looking at this one...

Pioneer bdr-xd04

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PU...rives/BDR-XD04

[dmeyer]

Most, if not all, work. Just don't buy anything esoteric.

Just remember you can't play Blu-Ray movies on Linux.

[wrender]

Ok Thnx

ps. It seems like it is possible to play Blu-rays with VLC

http://video-player-software.blogspo...ck-in-vlc.html

[wrender]

Here seems to be something else saying it is possible...

http://blog.coolaj86.com/articles/pl...-blu-play.html

[dmeyer]

I have a blu ray drive in my laptop and I have seen those guides. Pretty much every Blu-Ray that has shipped since 2009 uses BD+ which vlc can do nothing about. So yeah if you have a big collection with lots of older titles then you would probably find some use.

The MakeMKV route will be your best bet but in all honesty, don't expect Blu-Ray playing in Linux to be a pleasant experience. I use a Win7 VM and passthrough my disc drive, rip the disc and play it in Linux.

[wrender]

Interesting... How come you don't rip in Linux directly with MakeMKV?

[dmeyer]

Interesting... How come you don't rip in Linux directly with MakeMKV?

After a while I just got tired of the hassle. I don't know how MakeMKV has progressed but at a time it wasn't the most reliable thing around. I should probably revisit it but I'm just so used to my current painless setup.

[wrender]

Here is an update for those curious

I ended up purchasing a Samsung SE-506BB 6X USB2.0 External Slim Blu-ray Writer Drive.

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-SE-506.../dp/B00AO1XFM0

Works great and and is nice because it is small/compact and uses a single USB2 cable for power/data.

I used MakeMKV and it ripped my Blu-ray Movies fast and easy to Perfect Quality Encryption free MKV files. Average movie size is about 20ish Gigs.

Haven't yet tried to use the VLC/MakeMKV Stream method for direct playback off disk.


ps. The only thing I wish was that it was USB 3.0. Not that it matters for real use because that the data through put would never need it. However one would think that all modern devices would just ship with the latest standard and for the fact that it would support lower power idle state.