Macgo Blu-ray Player Pro

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.

Simply the best. Menus work perfectly. Don't waste your time and money on the "standard" version. BTW, the current link is for 3.3.0, not 3.3.1.

Cool! I'll give it a try

Easily the best Blu-ray player I have used on Mac, way better then this companies other Blu-ray player since you can see the menus making it much easier to access the extras. It has a far amount of bugs such as the inability to delete bookmarks and having the program open appears to prevent the screen saver from coming on even if the movie has been completely stopped. Once things like that have been fixed I can only imagine that the horrible standard version of the product will just get killed off. I would like to see some features from Apple's DVD player come across such as slow motion and a listing of bookmarks with text indicating what the bookmarks is.

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.

I just finished watching all six seasons of Game of Thrones on Blu-ray Disc (the sixth season of which was released just two months ago) via Mac Blu-ray Player Pro 3, with almost no problems.

The picture quality is superb on the built-in display of my iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015). While I can't report on how well the extensive support for pass-through digital audio works, I can say that the Dolby Atmos audio tracks sound fabulous over my Sennheiser headphones.

Blu-ray menus work very well, with special features and multiple TV episodes per disc all easily accessible. (I did once encounter a glitch with a special feature submenu that wouldn't disappear, but I couldn't reproduce the glitch.) The user interface in this Pro version is elegantly simple, a considerable improvement over the UI of the standard version of Mac Blu-ray Player.

Documentation is lacking for the Pro version. (The UI is so simple, extensive documentation may not be needed, but I'd like some explanation of the many audio options.) The English on Macgo's web site is appalling. I wish that Mac Blu-ray Player Pro would remember when I've already watched a disc and skip the first-play warnings and disclaimers and instead go straight to the top menu. I also wish that it would remember my audio track selection for each disc (e.g. Dolby Atmos or TrueHD vs AC3). Those are my only complaints.

On the whole, I'm very pleased with Mac Blu-ray Player Pro 3.