Blu-Ray Player Laptop External USB DVD RW Burner Drive

I just received this Blu-Ray player today and I just finished testing it out. Here are the results:1) I have a Gateway laptop (PC) running Windows 7. This Blu-Ray player came with some software on a CD including the TotalMedia Theatre 3 software which allowed my PC to decode and play Blu-Ray movies. The only catch is that the registration serial number and the general information file were in garbled Chinese. But don't worry, the actual serial number is at the top of Serial text file and it worked fine. This drive requires two USB slots to run, but it works great on a PC.2) I have a one year old iMac running OS X 10.6.8. The drive was recognized and could be controlled by my Mac, but the Mac OS does not include any software to decode or play Blu-Rays and the included software is only for a PC. So my solution after some minimal amount of research was to download and pay for 'Mac Blu-ray Player' which is currently offered on discount for about $44 total. With this software, Blu-Rays are now playing on my iMac also.

Updated. May 4 2015So at first I gave this product a 5 star, cause it worked out of the box. But after i put away and tried to use it again, it stopped working. It said on my Mac, that it was drawing too much power. So it wouldn't even read or turn on. I tried and tried, reformatted my cpu, even bought separate adapters power cables, it still would not work. It really did turn out to be a piece of junk. It has been sitting idle since the day I bought it. I would pull it out to see if it would randomly work, on all my pcs laptops and desktops, still not working. So that rules out the computers being at fault.Complete garbage. Maybe you will have better luck but I wouldn't get it again.Review for MacAlright let's make this quick, and let you in on my experience. When i opened the package, it was sleek small, and not clutted with a bunch of books. Yes the oddest thing is, there are no logos brands, branding packaging none of that, just a black generic box,which is a double edged sword, we don't know which company to complain to. But then again, since it isn't part of any brand, this is DIRT CHEAP!1. Program disc. Popped in my art/video game software to see if it reads. Yes, it reads, pop in and go, no drivers nothing. NOT FOR MAC anyway.2. DVD works like a charm. CHECK!3 Blu Ray, first off, if you need a free blue ray player for MAC there is a popular one available called FREE MAC BLU RAY PLAYER! I don't know why people have such a hard time doiong a quick search, i knew there had to be one available, and there was. Heres the link. http://download.cnet.com/Free-Mac-Blu-ray-Player/3000-13632_4-75891746.html (if you are reading this 10 years from now, it may not be up anymore)So for the blu ray, that was kind of tricky. I popped in the disc, it read the title, but when i tried to play the disc, it failed. THREE TIMES. Tried searching within the disc and folders, still no luck. I said, guess it wasn't meant to be. OR i need to purchase a "REAL" BR player. I put the disc away and did some internet searching. Maybe i was loading the video wrong. All of the sites says to do what i did. I said, what the hek, let's give it another shot. THIS TIME, i wiped the information side of the disc with a clean towel, and popped it in. IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!! I re tested it over and over and over, it just worksThis is a 40$ blu ray / dvd player that WORKS! (i didn't check the burning, but i'm confident it'll work =)

The good thing about this unit is the hardware, it's compact and works flawlessly. I especially appreciate the extra power supply jack that allows users to run a second USB power feed or a 5-volt external power source. The bad things are the lack of a useable users' guide (a virtually unreadable 3-page pamphlet) and the failure to mention that Macs require third-party software to run the Blu-Ray function. Amazon Customer Service provided invaluable help in directing me to third-party software vendors (I ultimately chose MacGo, because of the free trial download, which brought the unit to life on my MacBook Pro). Resolution is excellent on my non-Retina screen for both Blu-Ray discs and DVDs.

So far so good. Even reads discs my internal LG drive won't. Slow transfer speeds but that's not the drives fault it's just limited to what usb2 can handle. (Not an issue for playback). It has been under almost non-stop use, so we will see how long it holds up. We are now over a month of heavy use and still works great. I did want to address some of the negative comments I see for this though. 1) It gets it's 5v from the usb connection, and depending on your port you probably wont have to plug the power only usb in, since it will run off the main cable if your port can handle it. 2) The CD is for win 98 probably because that's the last time you needed special drivers for a disc drive ....... sorry saw it a couple times and it made me laugh.

The hardware works perfectly well, but it may not provide software for handling Blu-ray discs. (A disc with what seems to a Nero release for Windows was included, but I can't and didn't test that.) Noobs may be wary. Third-party software should work fine with it. Works with several modern Linux distributions. The manual is chock-full of intelligible but amusingly broken English. An additional USB power cable included, but I have not needed it yet (appx. 1 week moderate use).Overall, a decent little bit of hardware for the price, provided you aren't intimidated by finding and installing some additional software for playback and/or decryption on your own.EDIT, 2015-12-05: USB-to-SATA bridge failed. Drive appears dead unless you pull the standard SATA drive out of the case. THe drive itself is now happily resident in my larger laptop, but it's no longer a USB drive. Still well worth the price even as an internal upgrade, but beware the spotty USB-SATA bridge. Dropping off another star for this, as it's offered specifically as a USB drive.