Despite the fact that my Mac mini (not to mention a series of Mac models in the years preceding that) is my primary entertainment device, I'm a johnny-come-lately when it comes to Blu-rays. I was never interested in them. DVDs, digital media files of various types, and (more recently) streaming have been enough for me.A few of my more recent DVD purchases, however, have come in the form of dual DVD/Blu-ray editions. This piqued my curiosity, and since my mini is connected to an external optical disc burner that can handle Blu-rays as well as DVDs (I never bought it for Blu-rays; I was just trying to future-proof myself a bit) and I have a 1080p display, I looked into Blu-ray player applications and decided to give Macgo Blu-ray Player a shot.I started with version 2.16.10, using Hellsing Ultimate Volumes IX-X as my guinea pig. The menus weren't usable by mouse (not a deal breaker, since the arrow keys and return key worked just fine for menu navigation), and there was that 'unregistered version' warning plastered over the screen; but it worked well enough as a proof of concept that I bought and registered the application.Then I got brave. I decided to spring for a movie that I'd been intrigued by for years but which I'd never acquired because I'd never managed to find a DVD edition that (1) I could be confident was uncut and (2) didn't cost an arm and a leg. It was Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981), and Mondo Vision had just released it on Blu-ray.The film looked positively gorgeous, but there were a couple of flaws. The first flaw: I couldn't find a way to turn off the English subtitles, even though I was listening to the original English mono soundtrack. (More accurately, the option was plainly there in the menus; it just didn't work.) The second, and much more serious, flaw: the movie froze in two scenes. It was reproducible, the lockups always occurring at exactly the same points.I worried about the possibility that this could be the result of a damaged disc. MakeMKV, however, successfully ripped the movie onto a spare hard drive, and I was able to watch it from there using VLC without incident. (Possession turned out to be a more-than-worthwhile purchase, btw.)Some time not long after that, the Macgo folks offered me an inexpensive upgrade path to their Pro version for being a recent customer. And since the Pro version promised various feature improvements and bug fixes, I chose to go for it. That was version 3.0.0. I tried this one with Possession.And hallelujah! The menus were now navigable by mouse. The subtitles could be turned off. And the freezes were a thing of the past. Everything worked as smooth as butter.Since then, I've bought only a very few more Blu-rays, so it's not like I've conducted extensive or thorough testing yet. Macgo Blu-ray Player Pro has also been updated 17 times since then. But just last month I used version 3.1.9 to watch Firefly (the complete series) and Serenity on Blu-ray, and everything looked and sounded magnificent and functioned well. The menus required keys for navigation, but i suspect navigation by mouse may not be a capability shared by all Blu-rays. Only time will tell.But so far, so good. I'm pleased.
- Macgo Blu Ray Player Pro 3 1 2008
- Macgo Blu Ray Player Pro 3 1 2 Ton