What’s the best external DVD drive and player for a MacBook Air?

I would have a look at OWC DVD / CD / Blu-ray drives. they are a go to source for Mac compatible hardware.

There are many inexpensive portable ones that will work - although some need to be plugged into two USB ports so they can draw more power than a single port is required to offer.

Other World Computing has desktop drives with detachable power supplies and USB 3.0 B to USB-A cables. Since these drives have their own power source, they work fine off a single USB port, even one on a dock or hub. You can also replace the USB 3.0 B to USB-A cable with a USB 3.0 B to USB-C one to cut out the need for a separate adapter.

Re: “But There’s no slot to load a disc”

The OWC desktop CD/DVD and CD/DVD/Blu-Ray drives are tray-load. You push a button and a tray slides out.

"What’s the best external DVD drive and player for a MacBook Air?: Has anyone found a good DVD player for a newer MacBook. App,e store does not have and said to go 3rd party"

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Best DVD Drive and Player:

QuickTime Player ought to work just fine for home videos; it is found directly in the Applications folder of your macOS. As for the CD/DVD burner to purchase, this is what I use on my M2 Mac, and my 2018 Intel Mac: External USB CD/DVD Writer - Verbatim. It comes with Nero burning rom.

TheLittles wrote:

Best DVD Drive and Player:

QuickTime Player ought to work just fine for home videos

I could be mistaken, but I don't believe that QuickTime Player handles DVD-Video discs.

macOS includes a DVD Player application. These days, it is hidden away in Macintosh HD > System > Library > CoreServices > Applications > DVD Player . But it should run when you load a DVD-Video disc, and you can also get to it fairly easily by searching for "DVD Player" using Spotlight.

Blu-Ray (a format that Steve Jobs referred to as "a bag of hurt") is another matter. If you want to play a Blu-Ray movie disc, you'll need both a drive that can handle Blu-ray discs, and a third-party player application.

TheLittles wrote:

“I could be mistaken, but I don't believe that QuickTime Player handles DVD-Video discs.”

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QuickTime to Play Videos:

If it were a paid for DVD that is purchased off-the-shelf, then, no, it would not play. But, for home videos of MP4, MOV, and WMV, it would play them just fine in QTP(b/c they are files that are burned onto a disk).

If you have the right software, you can make DVD-Video discs of home videos. I did that using iDVD (in the days when Apple supported it), and you can do it today with third-party applications such as Toast.

QuickTime Player is not designed for those home DVD-Video discs any more than it is for purchased Hollywood ones. The ones that you make at home are not encrypted, and do not have decryption keys stored in an area of the disc that consumer DVD burners are artificially prevented from writing, but as for the video data, that is still structured in the same way, using the same codec.

“I could be mistaken, but I don't believe that QuickTime Player handles DVD-Video discs.”

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QuickTime to Play Videos:

If it were a paid for DVD that is purchased off-the-shelf, then, no, it would not play. But, for home videos of MP4, MOV, and WMV, it would play them just fine in QTP(b/c they are files that are burned onto a disk).

Thanks for that info Servant of Cats!

Re: “What about a cd player for commercial cds?”

Home stereo CD players and home theater DVD / Blu-Ray players are not designed for computer use and will not let you read or write data.