OWC’s Mercury Pro external 16x Blu-ray & Optical Storage
SOFTWARE
Software for Blu-Ray falls into two major categories – software for movies and software for recording and archiving. Archiving large amounts of data to Blu-ray has become very inexpensive on either 25GB or 50GB disks. And it is far more reliable than either cloud, flash, or hard disk storage.
REWIND
REWIND is by DIGISTOR who sent us 6X 25 and 50GB Blu-ray disks. Stand out features include ease of use and that it offers automatic file and folder tracking. It also has the ability to update existing archives, span multiple discs and pause an archive in the middle of a burn or restoration. REWIND features an embedded restore application to restore archived files to any PC or Mac without having to install software.
The Start tab is for creating a new archive or continuing an existing one. To create a new archive, enter a name and then click the Next button. The Select Files tab allows you to choose what you want archived. You can drag and drop them into the file browser or use the shortcuts to go to documents or where your music and video files are stored. Check a box to include files or folders.
The Preview Files tab displays the files selected for archival so y0u can review your choices. You can back up all the folders and files on the entire C drive if you wish.
Finally there is the Create Archive which is mostly automatic.
You can verify the data which takes a little longer, but it is safer. And if you have more data to be burned, you can use multiple disks. Clicking Finish Later allows you to pause your archive at any point and continue with the process at a later time. 
To restore the archive, just insert the last disk and the restore application will start automatically. Restored files will by default be restored to desktop.
One of its best features is that REWIND automatically keeps track of all files and folders selected for archive. When updating an archive, it will scan to see if any new files or folders have been modified or added to the archived files. It’s a very good easy to use Blu-ray based archival program for $49.99
BLURAY MOVIES
One of the most important uses of the Blu-ray drive is for watching and creating Blu-ray movies. To do so, you must have licensed software. There are many programs available including Nero and Roxio Toast 11 Titanium.
One of the very best is the latest version of PowerDirector 14 Ultra which we received for evaluation from Cyberlink. It is on sale for $84.95 on Cyberlink’s site bundled with Media Espresso 7, and PowerDVD Remote, and is considered the standard.
We will have a future article that is devoted to movie making and playing software, but our suggestion is to use the 30-day time-limited demos available from each of the vendors before you decide on a program for you.
For the budget minded, and for those who do not require the very latest movie-making features, often older versions of the same software is available for purchase at substantial discounts and often they qualify for upgrade discounts.
Ripping Blu-ray
Ripping Blu-ray for movies that you own is useful as many netbooks and lower performance notebooks cannot play Blu-ray due to hardware requirements. There is no licensed movie playing software for OSX, or perhaps the user wishes to view the movie on an Android device. A 50GB Blu-ray movie disk often contains a 25GB movie, and many parents are unwilling to give their young children a Blu-ray movie to play in their own players. Blu-ray disks are very durable compared to DVD, but they are not indestructible.
There are many programs available for copying Blu-ray and it is always recommended to try the program for 30 days before making a purchase. Some programs are easier to use than others, some are more fully-featured, and they may be updated often to support the latest decryption.
One of the best programs available is MakeMKV. It is freeware while it is in beta, and it has been in beta for many years. It’s simple to use, and it rips the video to a very high quality 1080P MKV file for easy encoding.
The Three Muskateers is used as an example and it was transferred from a commercial Blu-ray movie disk to a high definition MKV movie for viewing on a notebook that could not otherwise play Blu-ray.
First you choose the main movie file which is well under 25GB after being converted to MKV. The rest of the Blu-ray movie has commentary, extra scenes and even alternate viewing angles.
The the ripping of the Blu-ray disk and the encoding is mostly automatic although it takes awhile.
When it is done, the MKV files are saved to hard disk and they may be watched as a movie with a MKV player. 
Blu-ray is now used much the same way as DVD, but with all of the advantages of its higher storage capacity. At this point, the movie can be encoded with Handbrake, further compressed, copied to Blu-ray, and then played back on any device
Let’s head to our conclusion.
