I downloaded the trial and it came up with a series of error codes after the splash screen loaded.Īll these apps have free trials, you can see if they work on your hardware. It's $59.99 but I couldn't compare it to the other 3. I fired it up, and guess what? It looks just like Aurora and MacGo. Wouldn't you know, they are having a sale too, but the app is $49.95 for a 'limited' time. The app works fine, no dropped frames, and it was a pleasure to use. I suspect the 2 players have a common code base. I asked someone from Aurora about the similarity, and they were a bit evasive. Even the preference windows are exactly alike. Beyond the welcome screens, the Aurora player and the MacGo player appear to be largely identical. It's also on sale for $39.99, down $10 from its usual retail price.

I also took a look at the Aurora Blu-ray player software. Of course regular DVD discs are supported, as well as Blu-ray discs. I'm not seeing dropped frames, and the player can also play ISO files. The US $59.95 software (discounted to $39.95 until Feb 3) is a solid application. You can disable notifications at any time in your settings menu. Since then that app has been updated several times, and one of our readers suggested I survey the field again. It worked pretty well, and movies looked great on my Apple Monitor. Despite Apple's dislike of Blu-ray, I find it a nice archival medium for photos - 50 GB blanks are under $5, and are readily available in computer stores and online.Ī while back I looked at software for playing back Blu-ray movies, and reviewed the MacGo app.

The OS supports data Blu-ray discs, and you can burn them with commercial utilities like Toast. If you must play Blu-ray discs on your Mac, however, there are plenty of internal (for Mac Pro) and external Blu-ray drives that work just fine. Maybe they don't want to pay the license fees, maybe they'd rather sell you movies from iTunes, who knows, but Blu-ray hardware from Apple isn't likely. It's been a while since Steve Jobs declared Blu-ray a 'bag of hurt', and in the years since Apple has been uninterested in the Blu-ray disc format.

Mac blu ray player software review