Ohh my I have no super drive?

My new MBP has no built in Super Drive. Are you just doing without one or have you bought a external model?

I need to install my printer guess I could go to HP's web site and down load the install files.

I can see that you don't need one very often. Are you doing without one? What's your solution to this problem?

If you need one, you plug an external one in. Otherwise download what you need.

Yeah that's what keeps me from buying one of these new ones, that and can't change the battery. I still use a disc drive. how do you play dvds? I have concerts that I like to play. I think it'd be a pain to try and convert them and put them on a HD. What a pain when it's easy to pop it in and when done put it away.

I still know lots of people using CD's. Most into music do. CD's sound much better than mp3s. The whole reason for a laptop is to be portable, but now have to get an optical drive to carry around?! I may go for a macabook classic before they're gone.

jeff allan said:

Yeah that's what keeps me from buying one of these new ones, that and can't change the battery. I still use a disc drive. how do you play dvds? I have concerts that I like to play. I think it'd be a pain to try and convert them and put them on a HD. What a pain when it's easy to pop it in and when done put it away.

I still know lots of people using CD's. Most into music do. CD's sound much better than mp3s. The whole reason for a laptop is to be portable, but now have to get an optical drive to carry around?! I may go for a macabook classic before they're gone.

Click to expand...

Well, whether one needs an optical disc player/burner is likely a personal choice for each user, i.e. some do not while others may feel one is mandatory.

I bought an iMac & a MBPro in the spring - neither have built-in optical drives, so I did obtain an external Apple Super-Drive (slot loader) although other less expensive options are certainly available. I use it mainly to burn CD-Rs of MP3 music files that I purchase online and also 'rip' music from my own CDs. I don't listen to CDs or watch DVDs on my computers, so not important to me, but could understand the need of others.

As to software installations, basically all is available online, so optical media are pretty much a 'dead' issue for that purpose; of course, always consider the newer and much higher capacity alternate storage options, i.e. USB flash drives, SD cards, external HDs, etc. Dave

I sure hope that the "no superdrive" revelation didn't just happen. I sure hope you knew this at the time of purchase.

Yes..if you find that you need an optical drive...purchasing an external one is what folks do.

Fortunately like you mentioned...if someone had an older printer that had software that was on a disk...downloading from the manufacturers website hopefully solves most issues in most situations for most users.

- Nick

An FYI... and maybe it's just my 2009 Mac Mini setup... With my Otherworld Computing external DVD drive, I can't play movies using Apples built in DVD Player application. I ended up using VLC Player to play DVDs. It's not a big deal at all, but it lead to some pretty talented and elaborate cursing on my part after I hooked up the new external drive and couldn't watch a Netlfix DVD! If you dig around Apple's site, that restriction is buried in there in the documentation - not hidden, but not obvious. Like I said, not a big deal, but if you didn't know, you wouldn't know. iTunes uses and external DVD drive to import CDs just fine.

jeff allan said:

Yeah that's what keeps me from buying one of these new ones, that and can't change the battery. I still use a disc drive. how do you play dvds? I have concerts that I like to play. I think it'd be a pain to try and convert them and put them on a HD. What a pain when it's easy to pop it in and when done put it away.

Click to expand...

I don't watch videos on the go but even if I did, the picture quality of DVDs pales in comparison to Blu-Ray. But you know what I find to be a pain? Dealing with physical discs, the menus, the trailers, and the warnings that pop up. Not to mention how SLOOOOOW it is to skip chapters or fast forward/rewind. Let's not forget how inconvenient it must be to tote those discs around vs just having them available on your drive. It's also easier to buy or rent off iTunes. Ripping/converting DVDs is trivial, and Blu-Rays only slightly less trivial (we can't discuss the specifics of that here). There's just NO WAY I'll ever go back to watching anything off a physical disc ever again.

I still know lots of people using CD's. Most into music do. CD's sound much better than mp3s. The whole reason for a laptop is to be portable, but now have to get an optical drive to carry around?! I may go for a macabook classic before they're gone.

Click to expand...

Sure... a laptop is portable. And what's more portable... a stack of CDs or that same music ripped losslessly and residing on that same laptop you are already carrying?

If Apple would have an option to download lossless music in iTunes I would never need an optical drive as for movies our house only watches everything in HD on a 55 inch plasma I guess we are spoiled so watching the movie on a smaller screen with less than 1920 x 1080 resolution is a no go.

XJ-linux said:

An FYI... and maybe it's just my 2009 Mac Mini setup... With my Otherworld Computing external DVD drive, I can't play movies using Apples built in DVD Player application.

Click to expand...

Great to know...thanks for mentioning it!

- Nick

CNET had a fix for getting the DVD Player to work with an external drive. It worked on ML, I haven't tried it yet on Mavericks. Link.


UPDATE: I did the same trick on the Mavericks version and it worked perfectly. The article says to edit the file and then run permissions fix. I used HexEdit to do the editing, but it wouldn't let me edit the file directly, so I had to do a "Save As" first, where I added my initials to the file after the name, so it came out as "DVDPlayback.xxx," where the "xxx" were my initials. Also note that the article didn't get into much detail on the file, it's actually the file DVDPlayback in folder "A" the article shows. So what you really edit is "/System/Library/Frameworks/DVDPlayback.framework/Versions/A/DVDPlayback" when finally located. Once edited, I put the new file in my home folder, then used Finder to move it to the "/System/Library/Frameworks/DVDPlayback.framework/Versions/A" folder. At that point I renamed DVDPlayback to DVDPlayback.old and my new file from "DVDPlayback.xxx" to just "DVDPlayback." Both of those changes required my administrator's password to accomplish. I did run Permissions Repair, but it didn't see any issue with those files. I tested with a DVD and my external SuperDrive in a holder from OWC. Worked perfectly. Easy to do.

UPDATE 2: I meant to add that by adding ".old" to the original, if I need to put it back for any reason (unlikely, but never underestimate Murphy), all I have to do is delete the edited version and rename the original by eliminating the ".old" and it's all back to before-I-Messed-With-It state.

Hmmm probably why I just bought a 2012 MBP and I upgraded the ram for 4 to 16 and saved even more money! and I can put in my own SSD!

MacInWin said:

CNET had a fix for getting the DVD Player to work with an external drive. It worked on ML, I haven't tried it yet on Mavericks... Link.

Click to expand...

Awesome. I'm definitely going to give this a shot over the holidays as I have a few Netflix DVDs coming in! Thanks for sharing the info!

lifeisabeach said:

...... Ripping/converting DVDs is trivial, and Blu-Rays only slightly less trivial (we can't discuss the specifics of that here). There's just NO WAY I'll ever go back to watching anything off a physical disc ever again.

Click to expand...

Well, there are many 'personal' reasons and rationales for owning 'physical media', i.e. LPs, CDs, DVDs/BDs etc, such as looking at one's collection, perusing the cover, reading the booklets (at least on the musical recordings), etc., AND plenty of reasons for just wanting audio & video stored on a computer/external drive, in the cloud, and/or as a streaming option.

But I tend to be in the former category - now entering my late 60s and having collected optical discs since 1984 - currently own about 4000 CDs and 1500 DVDs/BDs (nearly 200 of the latter) - I was caught in the middle of this transition of switching from one type of collection to another (now my son has ALL of his stuff stored electronically).

SO, at this point in my life, there is no way (or interest) for me ripping all of this optical collection - just too many other things that I rather be doing, like going to Wrightsville Beach - Dave

lifeisabeach said:

I don't watch videos on the go but even if I did, the picture quality of DVDs pales in comparison to Blu-Ray. But you know what I find to be a pain? Dealing with physical discs, the menus, the trailers, and the warnings that pop up. Not to mention how SLOOOOOW it is to skip chapters or fast forward/rewind. Let's not forget how inconvenient it must be to tote those discs around vs just having them available on your drive. It's also easier to buy or rent off iTunes. Ripping/converting DVDs is trivial, and Blu-Rays only slightly less trivial (we can't discuss the specifics of that here). There's just NO WAY I'll ever go back to watching anything off a physical disc ever again.



Sure... a laptop is portable. And what's more portable... a stack of CDs or that same music ripped losslessly and residing on that same laptop you are already carrying?

Click to expand...

I need it simply for work with clients. I think apple should offer an option. An imac or laptop is supposed to be all in one. Simple. Heck the old MB body was skinny enough. Put more STUFF in it. They could've kept the size and gave the cd drive option or 2nd hard drive or whatever, instead of making smaller and charging more. Simply give an option to add it for those that want it.

I don't care about blue ray. Besides, when my kids want to watch one of our dvd's if we go somewhere, it's convenient to have. Many concerts I own are on dvd....I'm not gonna pay to download or watch it on netflix when we have it right there. It's way too early to leave out.

The day of the DVD is fading fast. Same happened when the original iMac had the audacity to do away with the floppy. That was the end of civilization as we knew it!

My current machine from 2009 has an optical drive, but I rarely if ever use it. A few years ago I was burning DVDs of my dad's home movies and such for all the relatives, but now I just push them to a private YouTube channel and send the intended recipients the password. SO. MUCH. FASTER.

I bought an external "Superdrive" for $40 someplace and a Firewire case for it for another $25 -- in hindsight I could have easily gotten by with USB2 for less money -- and since its a tray-loader I can load "odd shaped" discs in it and generally use it without caring if it breaks down/fails like I would the slot-loader.

Bottom line: removing the optical drive was a smart move on Apple's part IMO. The few who still need a drive can get an external for cheap-cheap, but the built-in one is REALLY NOT FUN to fix/get a stuck disc out of. I used to have to do that ALL THE TIME, it was a VERY common problem with slot-loaders. Good riddance to em, I say.

RadDave said:

Well, there are many 'personal' reasons and rationales for owning 'physical media', i.e. LPs, CDs, DVDs/BDs etc, such as looking at one's collection, perusing the cover, reading the booklets (at least on the musical recordings), etc., AND plenty of reasons for just wanting audio & video stored on a computer/external drive, in the cloud, and/or as a streaming option.

But I tend to be in the former category - now entering my late 60s and having collected optical discs since 1984 - currently own about 4000 CDs and 1500 DVDs/BDs (nearly 200 of the latter) - I was caught in the middle of this transition of switching from one type of collection to another (now my son has ALL of his stuff stored electronically).

SO, at this point in my life, there is no way (or interest) for me ripping all of this optical collection - just too many other things that I rather be doing, like going to Wrightsville Beach - Dave

Click to expand...

Oh there certainly are reasons to prefer/need physical media, and that's OK, no matter what the reason. To each their own. But the reality is the world is moving fast away from them. The people who insist it's "not time yet" are increasingly in the minority, no matter what they may think. Apple is moving forward, as they have LONG been inclined to do. For people who don't want to keep up, there are alternatives, but it won't necessarily be Apple who is providing them.