Linux Format forums

Dutch_Master · LXF regular Joined: Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:49 am Posts: 2353

After a recent hardware upgrade (that lost me 7+ years of photo's, unfortunately Evil or Very Mad

) I have a need for a new SATA optical drive. Given the (fairly) recent headway Linux has made in using Blu-Ray devices, and their massive storage capacity compared to a DVD, I'm inclined to go for a BR drive. How are users experiences with BR drives and blank media, does it require a working BR setup for playing a DVD (or would the drive react as a DVD drive when inserting a DVD) or any other quirks and pitfalls using a BR device on Linux (in particular Debian)?

I have no interest in playing HD video, nor movies on/from BR disks. I do have a number of movies on DVD that may or may not need libdvdcss to play. BR players have more stringent DRM measures then DVD had, would I still be able to view these disks?

TIA!

nelz · Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2012 10:46 pm Post subject:

DVDs are played the same on BR drives as they are on DVD drives.

Blu-Ray playing is a bit more of a fiddle, I generally use MakeMKV to rip Blu-Rays and then copy the files to my MythTV backend for watching (MakeMKV preserves chapters and subtitles and is a lossless rip so it's the same as watching from a disc).

I don't have a Blu-Ray writer, so I'll let someone else comment on that.
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nordle · LXF regular Joined: Fri Apr 08, 2005 10:56 pm Posts: 1497

Just out of curiosity, what advantage does BR have over USB stick?

I've got a Pioneer writeable BR.....can't remember the model. Never used it, except for how Nelz describes.

Got a couple of 64GB USB3 sticks for rotating backups of "important" files, such as photos, home video and business files.

Isn't always annoying when people never respond to the question you asked in a way that actually answered it constructively, rather than question your reasoning for even asking Smile

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nelz · Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2012 10:42 pm Post subject:

Actually, it's a reasonable answer. If there is no need to play Blu-Ray discs, there's really no need for a Blu-Ray drive. USB sticks, or even an external hard drive, make far more sense for backups.

If you have a decent Internet connection, you could use cloud-based backup storage. The cost of a BD-RW drive and a handful of discs would pay for years of similar capacity on Amazon S3.
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Unix is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who it's friends are.