Blu-ray for Your Mac Mini is Here...Sort of

Many of us moaned about Apple's lack of Blu-ray love during the announcement of their latest iMac updates, which resulted in Mac users still being unable to take advantage of not only disc-based HD playback, but extensive backup potential too.  There is now however, a solution, albeit a rather roundabout one. 

First of all, we need to look back at the recent update of another Apple product, the Mac Mini.  Their tiny computer has always looked like a perfect HTPC candidate, and these new, faster machines with more memory are their best yet, especially with a Mini DisplayPort output just itching to have an HDMI adaptor plugged in to it!  So, you've got your Mac Mini sitting next to your TV, the SuperDrive happy to spin DVD's and a hard drive or two for your video files.  Now how about Blu-ray?

Thanks to Amex Digital, this is now possible, but it will take a bit of fiddling.  The BD-UG1 is a replacement drive for your existing SuperDrive and will play and burn Blu-ray discs, while of course still handling DVD writing and CD playing.  Provided your Mac Mini - or even your iMac - has an NVIDIA GeForce 9300M graphics card or better, this is your passport to HD nirvana.

Well, almost.  The trouble begins when you realise that OS X doesn't support Blu-ray, so you'll have to be running Bootcamp and a Windows OS for example, to play with your Blu-ray drive.  It's not the end of the world, but many use OS X so they don't have to use Windows, so this type of setup doesn't even become an option.  The Amex Digital kit retails a $199, so it's a similar price to a standalone player if you're thinking HTPC anyway.

Has anyone installed this in their Mac Mini?  If so, let us know your thoughts.