What software/drivers/codecs for CD/DVD writing/reading Intel MacBk Pro 2017 on Ventura

Eliot Mess wrote:

Thank you Martin and Grant, This is great to have debunked.

The Pioneer unit appears to do everything I want.

(Why would people go up to the OWC Mercury Pro unit?... Is it a

commercially-rugged device, like power tools have domestic vs commercial versions?)

At $120 USD, that Pioneer drive is much more expensive than most portable drives I see. Then again, it supports Blu-ray Discs (which most burners don't), and burning M-DISCs (which most portable drives don't).

The usual reasons for choosing one of the OWC Mercury Pro units over a cheaper portable drive are:

• That it has its own power supply – it doesn't hog two USB ports (as some portable drives do) or get "finicky" about being plugged into a hub or dock (as the Apple USB SuperDrive reportedly could be).
• That the power supply is detachable (and thus replaceable if necessary).
• That the cord connecting it to a computer is detachable (and thus replaceable).
• That it is tray-loading. That makes it harder for discs to get "stuck inside", and there may also be an indented place for playing mini-CDs (the standard round kind, not ones with other non-standard shapes). Once upon a time, the record companies used mini-CDs to sell "CD singles" (1-4 songs) that were the CD equivalent of 45 rpm records.

I recall though (from Windows XP days, when you could order a Pioneer to be included in the build), that the software mattered.

Macs have software to play CD-Audio discs, to play DVD-Video discs, and to burn CD or DVD data discs.

You will need extra software if you want to

• Author DVD-Video movie discs
• Author Blu-Ray video movie discs
• Play Blu-Ray video movie discs
• Burn a label onto a LightScribe-compatible optical disc using a burner that supports LightScribe. (The OWC burners don't.). I was never impressed by the quality of LightScribe labels. CDs/DVDs with printable surfaces and a color inkjet printer with a special optical disc tray may be a better way to get a label that won't peel off. That is, if you can still find any printers with that feature.)

What MacOS-friendly software does M-Disc burning need?

MDisc – FAQ

"What burning software is compatible with an M-DISC? 

M-Disc (whether DVD, Blu-ray, or BDXL) can be used with any software package you want to use. The data engraving process that makes M-Disc so reliable and durable happens entirely within the drive. The software you use to manage the archiving of your data on an M-Disc can be important in creating organized records that you can later find and use, but it won’t affect the permanence of the data on the M-Disc."

So the important thing is that the drive supports burning M-DISC, and that the blank is a M-DISC blank. It's "on the drive" to auto-sense the media type and adjust the actual burning process accordingly.

Servant of Cats wrote:

The text in that image refers to the DVD Player application for playing DVD-Video movie discs. It doesn't refer to DVD burning.

The built-in DVD Player app works perfectly fine with my Pioneer optical drive. Its only limitiation is that it plays DVDs, not Blu-Ray movies. If you want to play Blu-Ray discs you need another app, perhaps VLC, to play Blu-Ray movies.

You can burn data CDs/DVDs/MDisks via the Finder; and audio CDs via the Music app (previously iTunes).

Burning "playable" DVDs or BluRays is another matter. You need an authoring app to do that; many people recommend Roxio Toast.

We should address this first.

I'm needing long-term document retention for legal reasons, and cannot trust SSDs because of stability/bitrot.

In that case, any writable CD, DVD or Blu-ray disk is not the answer. A high quality disk is rated for 10 years. At that point, you should copy the data off the disk, burn a replacement and throw the old one away.

Burnable disks use a dye. These dyes are viscous and will, given enough time, run together or fade back to their original state. At which point, you start losing data.

Second, as stated numerous times by fellow users, that claim is utter nonsense. I use any and all software I want with the external read/write Blu-ray/DVD/CD drive I bought on Amazon and have had for years. The mechanism is an HL-DT-ST BD-RE **40N, made by LG.

You may have read about 100 year gold DVD disks, but that's very subjective. The only thing that's really different about them is the reflective layer is gold, rather than the typical aluminum. The latter, if it doesn't have a good varnish coat on it, will oxidize and you will lose data. But neither is safe from scratches through the reflective layer. Any scratch through to the polycarbonate, and it's bye-bye to any data the laser doesn't get a bounce back from.

Optical disks with the longest life span were M-DISC. I don't know if anyone makes those anymore. And still subject to scratching.

Eliot Mess wrote:

What MacOS-friendly software does M-Disc burning need?

None. You just use the Finder the same as you would when burning a data CD or data DVD.

Can one play music from the Pioneer unit?

Yes. Connect the drive to your Mac, insert an audio CD. The Music player app will fire up and play and/or import your CD into your Music Library.

Would it need to feed into a DAC, or does it have its own?

You don't need a DAC to play audio CDs on your Mac. If you are asking if the drive has a headphone jack or analog audio interface, the answer is no.

Further info about the Pioneer unit

• The USB cable is detachable.
• It is top loading. (The door opens upward, there is no tray that goes in & out. The point is it's not a slip-in.)
• It is bus-powered by the USB cable but you can get an optional power supply. I do recommend the power supply if you expect to use the optical drive along with other bus-powered USB devices.

The OWC unit is a also very good unit. The drive inside is an LG drive and it's in a traditional, rugged OWC Mercury aluminum case.

Eliot Mess wrote:

but even the people who sell it stated that the DVD burning software in a Mac will not cooperate with anything but a Superdrive. That's what they said ... see image below.

That's total BS.

I checked the OWC Mercury Pro optical drive directly on the OWC website and there is no such statement there.

I have a Pioneer optical drive and it works perfectly fine with all my Macs ... and it reads & writes M-disks. (If you want to know it's a BDR-XD07S. The BDR-XD08S is the current model.)

MartinR wrote:

Eliot Mess wrote:

but even the people who sell it stated that the DVD burning software in a Mac will not cooperate with anything but a Superdrive. That's what they said ... see image below.

The text in that image refers to the DVD Player application for playing DVD-Video movie discs. It doesn't refer to DVD burning.

That's total BS.

I checked the OWC Mercury Pro optical drive directly on the OWC website and there is no such statement there.

I don't see it there either.

Sounds like nonsense – unless, perhaps, it's from years and years ago. Apple might have had to pay royalties on each and every copy of the DVD-Video player. So, in the beginning, that application might have worked only with factory-supplied built-in optical drives, and/or the Apple USB SuperDrive.

iMacs and MacBook Pros lost built-in optical drives in 2012, and MacBook Airs never had them. So if there was a restriction in the early days, it may have been quietly lifted when built-in optical drives went away.

In any case, DVD Player was never relevant to reading or burning data discs. Only to playing TV and movie ones.

<< even the people who sell it stated that the DVD burning software in a Mac will not cooperate with anything but a Superdrive. >>

Wait--

What is the SOURCE of that completely self-serving accusation about Apple software?

Eliot Mess wrote:

I have 3 old windows computers with Pioneer CD/CDVD writing drives in them... one was circa 2010, one 2006 ...

If I installed them into external cases, any way these might be usable with a macOS on Ventura?... I'm guessing the firmware would need upgrading? Is that even possible? I've just seen that Pioneer sold out of the DVD writer business late 2024.

No way of knowing if those old drives will work or not. What model(s) are they, and how do they connect to the computer?

I haven't seen anything official about Pioneer selling off their optical drive business, just rumors on reddit. Even if they have, it wouldn't stop me from buying a Pioneer drive. As far as I know, Pioneer is still making optical drives that can write (burn) CD, DVD & BluRay media. Here is the complete list -> https://usa.pioneer/collections/optical-drives

Kurt Lang wrote:

Optical disks with the longest life span were M-DISC. I don't know if anyone makes those anymore. And still subject to scratching.

Amazon and B&H Photo Video are currently selling Blu-Ray M-DISC blanks. The discs that I saw were almost all Verbatim discs. Verbatim's site lists 25 GB, 50 GB, and 100 GB Blu-Ray blanks .

There are a few DVD M-Disc blanks on Amazon, but they were from Amazon Marketplace vendors. Maybe from small stores clearing out old stock?

On the MDisc site itself, there is a "Store" button that doesn't seem to work at all, and several "Buy now" buttons that lead to Amazon listings for Verbatim blanks; listing that say "Currently unavailable. We don't know when or if this item will be back in stock."

Bottom line: It looks like maybe Blu-Ray M-DISC blanks might still be in production, with Verbatim being the only major vendor.

For whatever these two sources are worth

Wikipedia's article on M-DISC claims:

"[M-DISC developer] Millenniata, Inc. officially went bankrupt in December 2016. Under the direction of CEO Paul Brockbank, Millenniata had issued convertible debt. When the obligation for conversion was not satisfied, the company defaulted on the debt payment and the debt holders took possession of all of the company's assets. The debt holders subsequently started a new company, Yours.co, to sell M-DISCs and related services. [citation needed]

As of the 2020s, there are only 2 licensed manufacturers of M-Discs: Ritek, sold under the Ritek and RiDATA brands, and Verbatim with co-branded discs, marketed as the "Verbatim M-DISC"."

Reddit – M-Disc status, bankruptcy, etc. (a forum thread) says:

"Millenniata declared bankruptcy at the end of 2016. The current situation is very strange, and I haven't found any clarity about it. According to Wikipedia, the company's debt holders formed a new company called Yours.co.

Yours.co is a mystery, but they're gone too.

…

I have no idea how Verbatim or anyone else is able to continue making M-Disc media, but I assume the music will stop at some point. Does anyone know more about the status of the brand and the technology IP?"

Nicely done, Servant of Cats. I hadn't heard of anyone using or talking about M-DISC for a number of years, so suspected it had become another technology that got a bit of a run, but then crumbled.

When you get right down to it, I don't know of any technology available now that's safe from degrading media. At least 20 years ago now, there was one. Magneto optical disks. As one write up on them stated, once written, the pulse of an atom bomb couldn't affect the data on such a disk. But, they were kind of expensive, and the drives tended to die rather quickly because the way they wrote (or rewrote) to a disk was to heat a sector enough to actually melt it, then write the data before it cooled completely. The lasers didn't last long.