One of the things that really bug a lot of people about Mac systems is the fact that Apple has delayed providing Blu-ray support for them, both hardware and software – wise. However, it seems that now there's a really cheap way of playing Blu-ray movies on your Mac system, namely the APP-6907 external optical drive from FastMac.

The very slim and fairly attractive peripheral from FastMac is a combo between a Blu-ray reader and a DVD burner, which means that, once installed, it can be used for a variety of purposes, not only watching movies in Blu-ray format. Hence, writing and reading speeds are pretty OK, since we're talking about 2X BD-ROM reading, 5X DVD-RAM writing, 8X DVD-R writing, 2X DVD-R DL writing, 4X DVD-RW writing, 8X DVD+R writing, 2.4X DVD+R DL writing, 4X DVD+RW writing, 8X CD-R writing and 8X CD-RW writing.

Unfortunately, getting this external Blu-ray combo to work with your Apple Mac system might prove to be a pretty tricky process, since Apple's QuickTime software does not natively support the decoding and playback of encrypted Blu-ray movies.

So, in order to watch a Blu-ray movie you've just purchased from the store, you'll most likely have to install either the Parallels software (for running a Windows OS in a virtual machine) or BootCamp, and play the movies using one of the numerous Windows-only software apps available.

As mentioned right from the title, one of the main advantages this solution provides is related to the pricing, as the APP-6907 external combo drive sells for somewhere around 100 US dollars. However, if you have some money to spare, you could go for some more advanced devices from FastMac, namely the $299 APP-6963 1x BD-R drive or the $399 APP-6964 4x BD-R drive, which will also allow you to burn Blu-ray discs using your Mac.


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