Since the late '90s, Macs have welcomed DVD movies. Pop a disc in your drive, watch Apple's DVD Player app open, and enjoy the show. Simple. But DVDs' high-definition successors, Blu-rays, never got the same warm reception. Today, the right third-party hardware and software will let you play Blu-ray discs on your Mac. But, uh … maybe you shouldn't?
Jan 10, 2020 Get Macgo Blu-ray Player Pro from the Mac App Store - $64.99; Maybe just don't. In hindsight, Steve Jobs may have been right to keep Blu-ray drives out of Macs. On a laptop screen, you may not be able to fully enjoy the HD splendor of a great Blu-ray picture. (And hauling around an external drive plus discs would make the experience a lot less. Mac Blu-ray Player supports DTS 5.1 surround sound and Dobly Digital for awesome audio quality. Pro Tip: Most DVD playback software won’t let you capture images from your movies. With Mac Blu. Technical Specifications of Blu-ray Player for Mac. Detailed technical specifications of Leawo iTransfer, including system requirements, data types supported, devices supported, etc. Aug 09, 2013 Leawo Free Blu-ray Player for Mac offers comprehensive solutions for you to play all kinds of media files on Mac computer, be it iMac or MacBook, with high quality. Originally tailored for Blu-ray content playback, this Blu-ray player software for Mac accepts Blu-ray disc, Blu-ray folder and Blu-ray ISO image file input. Enjoy Blu-ray Movies at Home. Blu-ray Player Software Play Blu-ray Disc/Blu-ray Menu/ISO files/BDMV folder with full preservation of all audio tracks, subs streams, chapter markers and videos, along with DTS5.1. Mac OS X 10.8- 10.13 High Sierra Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10.
Tell us how you really feel, Steve
Steve Jobs famously hated the licensing hurdles and hefty fees Blu-ray imposed. With his characteristic taciturn restraint, he publicly called the format a 'bag of hurt' and likened the groups behind it to the Mafia. Apple never built Blu-ray drives into Macs, and eventually ditched optical drives altogether to focus on selling movies through iTunes.
But some Mac users still need to burn their own Blu-rays or read data off BD discs, so there are plenty of third-party Blu-ray drives available for the Mac. And once those drives became available, a few enterprising companies who did (presumably) pay up for the keys to decrypt Blu-ray discs released Mac apps to play regular Blu-ray movies with those drives.
Unfortunately, searching for mac Blu-ray player online gets you a lot of highly suspect sites with creatively translated English, each pitching their own totally not-at-all-questionable video player that may or may not actually play Blu-ray discs. But there are a few options respectable enough to make it into the Mac App Store. We'll discuss those in a moment, but first, let's talk about another app that sounds like a good idea, but really isn't.
Blu-rays on VLC
VLC is a justly beloved open-source video player — free, robust, and able to play tons of different formats. With the right tinkering, Blu-ray can be one of them. But playing Blu-rays on VLC is like free-climbing a skyscraper without safety equipment: Sure, it's technically possible, but it's also incredibly difficult, full of drawbacks, and almost certainly a bad idea.
For starters, the site I originally used to find the right files that would supposedly enable Blu-ray playback on VLC is, as of this writing, no longer capable of establishing secure connections. (Which is why I'm not linking to it here.)
When it was up and running, its sparse instructions didn't seem to work, and I had to go digging for another site's advice to get VLC playing even sort of nice with Blu-ray. Then I had to separately install Java to have any hope of getting Blu-ray interactive menus working.
Even after all that, VLC wouldn't play most discs I tried with it, ominously warning me of revoked certificates and other things that sound like they involve well-paid lawyers. And when it did play discs, it refused to let me skip past the annoying preview video tracks before the movie; sometimes, trying to do so just dumped me back at the beginning of them.
VLC works great for lots of things. Blu-ray playback isn't one of them. Just don't do it. Especially when you've got another free and far more legitimate option waiting for you in the Mac App Store.
Leawo Blu-ray Player
The two currently available Mac Blu-ray apps come from Chinese companies. Shenzhen-based Leawo's is by far the cheaper – as in, it's free – and while it's perfectly adequate, you definitely get what you pay for.
I tested Leawo's player with a selection of discs from every major studio (plus Criterion, for you cinephiles out there), ranging from titles I bought back in 2009 to discs released in 2018. They all played just fine, with a crisp picture and clear sound. Leawo's menus let me easily switch audio and subtitle tracks, and jump between different video files on the disc with a Playlist option. And unlike hardware Blu-ray players, it's not region-locked, so you can watch discs from all over the world.
But bones don't get much barer than Leawo's offering. It doesn't support Blu-ray menus at all; if you want to view special features, you'll need to guess at their location from the Playlist menu. If you're dying to watch, say, The Sound of Music's pop-over interactive commentary with sing-along mode, Leawo's app will not be one of your favorite things.
The app takes a solid minute (I timed it) just to load a disc, a process that requires multiple un-intuitive menu clicks, and whoever ported it into Mac didn't bother to change the drab Windows-like interface.
If you just want to watch Blu-rays on your Mac, Leawo will definitely do that. It's perfectly serviceable. It doesn't seem to install spyware or bother you with ads. But there's a better (and considerably more expensive) choice if you want a more robust experience.
Macgo Blu-ray Player Pro
Hong Kong-based Macgo's Blu-ray Player Pro usually sells for a whopping $79.95, though you can watch for frequent sales that will knock the price down to a still-lofty $39.95. On the App Store, with a 'family' license to run on multiple Macs, it'll cost you $64.99. (There's a marginally cheaper non-Pro version, but like Leawo's app, it doesn't fully support menus, so why bother?)
For that price, you'll get an experience nearly identical to popping a disc into any regular Blu-ray player. Macgo's app played my test discs flawlessly, with full support for menus and a virtual remote that even mirrored the what-are-they-even-there-for red, blue, green, and yellow buttons on the average Blu-ray remote. Its interface isn't Mac-like, but it's clean, intuitive, and unobtrusively minimal.
Discs loaded quickly — 15 seconds, tops – and played the same pre-roll ads and trailers they would in a hardware player, though thankfully, I could skip them just as easily as I would elsewhere. The app offers hardware acceleration for smoother playback, though aside from loading speed, I didn't notice a difference in quality between it and Leawo's app. Macgo's app even supports BD-Live online features, though you'll have to go into the Preferences to turn that feature on; it's switched off by default. I couldn't tell or test whether Macgo's app was region-free, but I'd be surprised if it weren't.
The only shortfall I found in Macgo's app, besides its price, was its lack of support for 3D or 4K UHD Blu-rays. I'm sure that's a dealbreaker for some folks, but most users probably won't lament it.
Maybe just don't
In hindsight, Steve Jobs may have been right to keep Blu-ray drives out of Macs. On a laptop screen, you may not be able to fully enjoy the HD splendor of a great Blu-ray picture. (And hauling around an external drive plus discs would make the experience a lot less portable.) Desktop Macs with big screens already have Netflix, iTunes, and lots of other less noisy and expensive ways to watch HD movies.
For the same $120 - $180 you'd shell out for Macgo's app and a good external drive, you could buy a decent Blu-ray player to hook up to your big-screen TV. (Reputable names like Sony and LG offer region-free players you can score for $100 or less with a little comparison-shopping.)
If you don't own a TV or a Blu-ray player, do own a Mac, already own an external Blu-ray drive for some other purpose – like ripping the Blu-ray discs you own for your personal digital collection – and really, really want to watch Blu-rays specifically off the discs, you'll likely be pleased with Macgo's app, and reasonably satisfied with Leawo's.
But with so many other, less troublesome ways to watch movies on your Mac, maybe you're better off leaving this particular bag of hurt alone.
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Summary: Want to play Blu-ray disc, Blu-ray folder or ISO file on computer but don't know which Blu-ray player you should choose? Now you can free download AnyMP4 Blu-ray Player to enjoy Blu-ray with fantastic visual experience.
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Comparing with DVD and CD, Blu-ray disc can offer you true HD video quality and better visual/sound experience. What's more, it can carry more than 5 times capacity of common DVD. So you can see that, now on the market, almost all new released movies and games are burned to Blu-ray.
Considering that normal media players can't play Blu-ray disc/folder or ISO file, here we introduce you with the best free Blu-ray player to play Blu-ray on Windows 10/8/7 PC.
Free Blu-ray Player
1. Blu-ray Master Free Blu-ray Player - Best free Blu-ray player
Free Blu-ray Player is the easy-to-use Blu-ray playback software. Apart from the free Blu-ray playback, it also supports free DVD disc watching. What's more, it can be the common video and audio player to play MTS, MXF, AVI, MP4, WMV, MOV, MPEG, RMVB, FLV, MKV, FLAC, WAV, WMA, MP3, MP2, AAC, AC3, AIFF, M4A, etc. with excellent video effect.
Besides, while playing Blu-ray, It has a few screen modes like full, half, normal, double for you to choose, so it is a convenient player that can bring you full pleasure.
Highly compatible with Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP (SP2 or later), you could use it freely on your PC.
Now, let's check how to use this free Blu-ray player to watch Blu-ray on your computer.
Step 1. Free download this software on your computer, install and run it immediately. Meanwhile, do not forget to insert your Blu-ray disc into your computer.
Sep 2. Click 'Open Disc' in the main interface. Alternatively, you are able to click 'Open Disc' from the dropdown of 'File' in the top-left corner.
Then you just need to select the title, chapters, etc. to see the Blu-ray disc movies on your computer.
It is very easy, right?
However, the free Blu-ray player fails to support 720p HD, 1080p HD, even 4K. Seeking for the 4K Blu-ray player? Visit here.
2. VLC Media Player - Free Media Player
VLC Media Player is a very popular media file playing tool. This free Blu-ray player is also designed with a powerful built-in encoding engine, which will give a smooth Blu-ray playing experience.
VLC Media Player is an open-source app. It enables you to play Blu-ray or other media files on computer or from web. As one all-featured media player, it also has the capability to play some unusual formats by using its external codec. What's more, it offers some feature-set like subtitle synchronization, filters and more.
3. Leawo Blu-ray Player
Leawo Blu-ray player is another popular free Blu-ray player. More than just a simple Blu-ray player, it also allows you to play DVD disc smoothly. It is a great Blu-ray playing choice for Windows 8.1/8/7/Vista/XP users. This free Blu-ray player can play the newest Blu-ray and DVD discs released on the market.
The cool feature of this free Blu-ray player is that, it will only take a little processing power to make the HD movie playback. Even you do other works on your computer while the Blu-ray movie playing, you won't feel stutters.
As a powerful free Blu-ray player, it also enables you to play 1080p HD and common SD videos. It claims that it can play almost all video and audio formats with lossless quality. Moreover, Leawo Blu-ray Player carries many built-in advanced audio decoding technologies like Dolby and DTS. So you can get a really good sound experience.
4. Aiseesoft Blu-ray Player
Aiseesoft Blu-ray Player is one professional Blu-ray disk/folder and ISO file playing software. Whether you are a Windows 10/8/7/XP/Vista user or using a Mac, you can rely on it to play Blu-ray movies with superb visual experience. Apart from Blu-ray, it also can help you play DVD disc/folder, 4K UHD, 1080p/720p HD videos.
Blu Ray On Mac
Aiseesoft Blu-ray Player is not a totally free Blu-ray player. The good thing is, you can free download and use it with limitation for 30 days. It pays more attention to the video and audio playback quality. You can get the lossless sound effect and HD image quality.
5. AmazingShare Free Blu-ray Player
AmazingShare Free Blu-ray Player Software is a free media player which can help you play Blu-ray, DVD, 3D, HD, SD videos with high quality. Like AnyMP4 Blu-ray Player, it enables you to play Blu-ray folders (BDMV folders) easily. It allows you to play DVD with any limitation.
Mac Blu Ray Player Pro
Though this free Blu-ray player claims that it can help you play Blu-ray disk, through our tests, many functional limitations will pop-up while playing. You have to upgrade to a paid version to get all features. It fully supports DTS5.1 and offers high-quality stereo output.
6. Simple introduction of Blu-ray
Blu-ray is a digital optical disc data storage format which carries high-quality files. Video in Blu-ray can be 720p, 1080p or even 2160p in resolution. Compared with DVD, Blu-ray disk can hold 25/50 GB storage. Even though many people complain that there are no significant improvements, Blu-ray actually can provide much more detailed images than DVD. The blue laser used by Blu-ray disc has a 405 nm wavelength that can focus more tightly than DVD (red laser).
Mac Blu Ray Player App
Blu-ray disc can store hours of High-definition (HD) videos with up to 2160p resolution and at up to 60 frames per second. The difference between Blu-ray and DVD is that, DVD is limited to 576p or 480p resolution (maximum).
Conclusion
Blu Ray Software For Mac
We have talked about free Blu-ray player in this post. 5 best free Blu-ray players are recommended to help you play Blu-ray disk, Blu-ray folder and ISO file on computer. You can choose your preferred one according to their introductions. Leave us a message if you have any better recommendation.