Failed Muso
800 Club - QQ All-Star
In a last ditch attempt to seek out alternative views and possibly some assistance, I thought I'd reach out and see if there are others like me who persevere with Blu Ray on their Mac's, specifically Blu Ray Audio.
When Steve Jobs famously said that Apple wouldn't be adopting Blu Ray because it was "just a bag of hurt", he was either being spot on in his assumptions, or his very words just killed any potential adoption of the format. Either way, that bag of hurt does, to some degree, exist. I have two 5.1 rigs at home. One is downstairs in my lounge and is capable of playing back nearly every physical and digital format via dedicated hardware. Upstairs, in my studio/office, I have retired some of my old hardware up there so I can benefit from 5.1 whilst I work. I have dedicated Pioneer universal DVD players that handle everything except Blu Ray and my iMac is connected to my ageing Sony amp via optical. So, rather than buy a standalone Blu Ray player, which I couldn't easily connect to my HDMI-free Sony receiver, I decided to buy a USB Blu Ray drive (Samsung) and use that instead, fully aware that all the audio would get pushed down to lossy DD/DTS. This doesn't bother me up here, as this isn't my primary listening place. Up here, I care more about 5.1 than I do hi-res.
Anyway, the real issue is finding a suitable Blu Ray player application for the Mac. I ended up choosing Macgo Blu Ray Player as it had the most positive reviews and turned out to be the same code base as virtually all the other Mac Blu Ray player applications (Aieesoft, Aurora, iDeer, AnyMP4). I'm not sure how that works, but it seems there are a handful of developers that all use the same base application and then tack on their own front end. There was one other application called DVDFab Media Player.
The problem is that with almost each new Blu Ray Audio release, each disc seems to fail to play or be recognised by these players. I'm assuming that this has to do with ever-changing functional libraries, keys and licensing that is part of the Blu Ray paradigm. Most recently, Relayer refuses to play and discs like The Endless River, Drums & Wires and Delta Machine will only play in what is known as Quick Play Mode where you have to guess which link is which before you eventually find the correct version you want to listen to. I've emailed their support teams who pretty much tell me they are constantly improving the experience and adding fixes to play the latest discs but I fear they are concentrating on movies, rather than the far smaller audio market.
So, i was wondering if anyone else here has similar stories or issues and whether we can cobble together a bit of knowledge to share with others.
I'm this close (does 'thumb and forefinger millimetres apart' action) to just spending £50 on a cheap standalone deck with a digital co-ax audio out on it... :howl
When Steve Jobs famously said that Apple wouldn't be adopting Blu Ray because it was "just a bag of hurt", he was either being spot on in his assumptions, or his very words just killed any potential adoption of the format. Either way, that bag of hurt does, to some degree, exist. I have two 5.1 rigs at home. One is downstairs in my lounge and is capable of playing back nearly every physical and digital format via dedicated hardware. Upstairs, in my studio/office, I have retired some of my old hardware up there so I can benefit from 5.1 whilst I work. I have dedicated Pioneer universal DVD players that handle everything except Blu Ray and my iMac is connected to my ageing Sony amp via optical. So, rather than buy a standalone Blu Ray player, which I couldn't easily connect to my HDMI-free Sony receiver, I decided to buy a USB Blu Ray drive (Samsung) and use that instead, fully aware that all the audio would get pushed down to lossy DD/DTS. This doesn't bother me up here, as this isn't my primary listening place. Up here, I care more about 5.1 than I do hi-res.
Anyway, the real issue is finding a suitable Blu Ray player application for the Mac. I ended up choosing Macgo Blu Ray Player as it had the most positive reviews and turned out to be the same code base as virtually all the other Mac Blu Ray player applications (Aieesoft, Aurora, iDeer, AnyMP4). I'm not sure how that works, but it seems there are a handful of developers that all use the same base application and then tack on their own front end. There was one other application called DVDFab Media Player.
The problem is that with almost each new Blu Ray Audio release, each disc seems to fail to play or be recognised by these players. I'm assuming that this has to do with ever-changing functional libraries, keys and licensing that is part of the Blu Ray paradigm. Most recently, Relayer refuses to play and discs like The Endless River, Drums & Wires and Delta Machine will only play in what is known as Quick Play Mode where you have to guess which link is which before you eventually find the correct version you want to listen to. I've emailed their support teams who pretty much tell me they are constantly improving the experience and adding fixes to play the latest discs but I fear they are concentrating on movies, rather than the far smaller audio market.
So, i was wondering if anyone else here has similar stories or issues and whether we can cobble together a bit of knowledge to share with others.
I'm this close (does 'thumb and forefinger millimetres apart' action) to just spending £50 on a cheap standalone deck with a digital co-ax audio out on it... :howl
