My Leopard MacBook happily burns data to an external Blu-ray drive without the need for extra software, but why won't Apple let me watch Blu-ray movies?

Right now I've got LG's BE06 "Super Multi Blue All Format Drive" external Blu-ray player sitting between my Leopard MacBook and my Vista Media Centre. It's slow and clunky on Windows using the bundled CyberLink Hi-Def Suite, but it seems to play very nicely with the MacBook - burning Blu-ray discs much faster than with the Vista box.

I'm sick of fighting with my bipolar Vista Media Centre and I'm thinking of replacing it with a Mac mini running elgato's eyeTV. LG's BE06 Blu-ray burner would seem to be the perfect companion for a Mac mini and eyeTV. The BE06 Blu-ray burner retails for a mere $AU549 and the icing on the cake is that it also reads HD DVD discs. It happily played both formats on my Vista Media Centre, but it's a different story with the Mac.

The problems are two-fold - there's isn't Mac software available to decrypt commercial Blu-ray movies and there's doubt as to whether the Mac mini handles Blu-ray's annoying HDCP digital rights management requirements. It seems the Intel GMA 950 graphics chipset in the Mini is HDCP-certified, but HDCP isn't implemented in the OS X driver. Rumours would indicate the next Mac mini will feature the GMA X3100 graphics chipset, which is HDCP-compatible and currently used in the MacBook and the MacBook Air. If Apple comes to the party with drivers, it might solve my Blu-ray woes.

All this is bloody frustrating considering Apple was one of the first vendors to throw its support behind Blu-ray. To be fair, Cupertino didn't create this problem - but it's a rude shock to smug Apple lovers that a Vista box can do something their precious Mac can't.

We're stuck with Blu-ray and HDCP whether we like it or not, so Apple needs to bite the bullet and get on board. Don't give me the "Steve Jobs knows downloads are the future" line. It's little consolation to those of us that live in a country like Australia that can't get its act together regarding decent broadband. The fact the Australian iTunes Store doesn't sell movies yet is another slap in the face.

What I really need is a Mac equivalent of SlySoft's awesome AnyDVD HD. Maybe if we sacrifice a goat to the mighty DVD Jon he'll send some DRM-hacking love to the Mac community. Meanwhile I'm reluctant to buy a Mac mini if I eventually want to use it as Blu-ray media centre. Panasonic have just announced Australia's high-def hard drive recorder with a built-in Blu-ray burner, which is great news for suburbanites who previously had to choose between HD tuners and a DVD burner, but it's still no match for a tricked out media centre (when the media centre feels like working).

I'm guessing I should wait until Apple officially supports Blu-ray so I'm not stuck with HDCP-incompatible hardware (or at least driver-less hardware). There's talk of Jobs announcing a new home entertainment product at WWDC, lets hope it's a Blu-ray-enabled Mac mini or true PVR. With my luck it will be a crappy Blu-ray enabled Apple TV which, like most Apple products, will need to be hacked within an inch of its life before you can do anything interesting with it.

I guess I could BootCamp into Windows on the Mac mini and use AnyDVD HD to overcome the software and hardware issues, but it's a less than elegant solution. A better option would be to boot into Windows, use AnyDVD to rip a Blu-ray disc to the hard drive in a format that can be read by software like VLC, and then boot back into Leopard to play the now DRM-less movie file. Again, less than elegant.

The high-def war is over and to the victors should go the spoils. When will the spoils of Blu-ray's victory trickle down to the Mac faithful?