Coming from Windows to Macbook Retina

How am I supposed to go about watching some of my movies on the go? (No digital copies, all blurays)

 

You can either share a drive from an existing iMac or you will need a USB Super Drive to play discs.

You can pick up a USB Super Drive from as low as $60

I recommend the Super Drive because its built by Apple therefore if you have any problems you know you have the great reliability of Apple customer service on hand and you also don't have to worry about compatibility.

 

I was looking at that, but it doesn't play blurays and my collection is all bluray.

 

I'd look for alternative options.
I've found some below but you'll need to do some research as well as some shopping before settling on the one you want.

Amazon.com: Samsung USB 2.0 External Optical Drive SE-S084D/TSBS Super WriteMaster, Slim External DVD Writer (Gloss Black): Electronics

Amazon.com: AmazonBasics USB 2.0 8x DVD Writer External Optical Drive (Black): Electronics

 

Why not wait a few months for Windows 8 laptops with 2560x1440 screens (Microsoft's answer to the rMBP...the resolution is emphasized in Windows 8 along with 1366x768 and 1920x1080) to arrive so you could have an ultra-high-res laptop with an onboard Bluray player? Watching a movie on the go with an external optical drive just seems like a cumbersome solution.

 

I agree that the thing can be cumbersome. One solution would be to rip the movies to your computer as digital files and import them into your iTunes library. That being said, you will end up with 4-6GB files which will fill up the RMBP's internal SSD rather quickly. Since you want to watch Blu-ray movies on the go, your best option is to buy a notebook with a built-in Blu-ray drive.

 

I'd rip the movies myself... but if you really want to play a movie right from a bluray you'll of course need an external bluray drive, and then also buy some bluray movie player software... all of this exists for Mac, but its nothing built in. Normally people wanting to do something like that a lot would not get a laptop thats designed against the whole idea. Macs are designed with the idea of not using a whole disc for a movie, but doing it all just with files.

 

Exactly. If wanting to watch Blu-ray was a consideration for the OP, the Retina MBP was about the worst possible one he could have bought.

 

If he doesn't want to wait for 2560x1440 Windows 8 machines, and he hasn't already bought the rMBP or it's still within the return period, probably the best solution would be swapping it for a Sony Vaio S15. It weighs the same as the rMBP (4.4 lbs) and offers a 15" screen like the rMBP, but has an onboard Blu-Ray drive. While the 1080p screen is lower-res than the rMBP's screen, the Blu-Ray movies will still display in their native 1080p resolution, so it's "just as good" for movie-watching. The screen is not suitable for serious photo editing because of certain color reproduction issues, but for everyday users (the type watching movies instead of making them), the IPS screen offers great viewing angles and an excellent viewing experience. It can be configured with a respectable GPU and quad-core CPU if the original poster needs that, but can also be had with a dual-core CPU and integrated graphics to save money if the OP is really just watching movies and doing everyday tasks (the rMBP's performance parts are kind of wasted in that situation).

 

I would start ripping your collection to h264

if you use the mp4 container format, you can play the movies without any extra software on all major operating systems.

 

Words of wisdom and truth here folks! Have recently done this and have mastered the archival workflow

 

ripping your collection is the best answer for portable viewing... but you can buy 3rd party Blu-Ray drives and blu-ray playing software for OSX if you really want them.

 

ripping have a time and electricity investment (30min-1hour each or more ), unless you going it to watch it again and again, I would say get a external BD drive.

 

I can assure you that, at least in the U.S. (anywhere in the U.S.), the amount of money paid to an electric company to power a notebook (even a power hungry one) and Blu-ray drive during the ripping and encoding process is going to be minimal and not a significant variable in the cost equation. It is definitely going to be less expensive to pay for the electricity to power their current Windows machine to rip Blu-ray movies than it will be to buy an external Blu-ray drive and OS X compatible software. The amount of time spent could be considered valuable if one skips work for days on end to complete the task of ripping an entire library but things can be automated up to a certain point. Rip several movies (which doesn't take that long) and add them to an encoding queue. Let the system encode the ripped Blu-ray movies overnight and, by morning, 8-10 movies should be in an iTunes compatible format. The amount of initial time doing this will be a little significant but worth it in the long run compared to the hassle of carrying around an external drive and stack of movies (which will take up more space than the drive) just to watch them on the go. Even if an external hard drive is used to store the movies, that will take up less space than an external Blu-ray drive and zip sleeve of movies.

 

The problem is you can't ripp BD overnight . Unless you crawl up from bed at night. OR you mean grab 15-25GB of data from the optical then encode them?

 

I mean rip multiple Blu-ray movies in a few hours and then setup an encoding queue to encode the ripped files to an iTunes compatible format overnight. It takes me about 20 minutes to actually rip a Blu-ray movie (i.e. copy the audio/video contents off of the disk) and then about 45-60 minutes to actually encode a ripped movie to a format that will work with iTunes, my AppleTV's, and my iPad 3. I can setup Handbrake to encode multiple movies overnight. So I rip 8 movies to an external hard drive I have (taking up about 160GB) and then setup Handbrake to encode each movie in a queue overnight. I would then wake up, casually rip 8 (or so) movies throughout the day, and setup the encoding queue for that night. Rinse and repeat until all the movies you want are in your iTunes library. It initially took me a few weekends (I have about 420 Blu-ray movies) to rip and encode the movies I wanted but all of the encoding was done overnight. I didn't have to monitor when Handbrake was done and instruct it to encode another movie, I would just load up a queue of movies to encode.

 

It only takes a moment of your time to rip a bluray movie, and only a moment of your time to encode a bluray movie to h264.

 

The obvious solution is to just download the x264 .mkv files from the internet, if you already own the actual blu-ray should be perfectly legal.

 

that depends on several factors - and the morality of such an act may not be 1:1 with the legality