I own an IMAC, and am about to buy a PS3. I would love to take advantage of the blue ray player but also back up the discs on my external hard drive. What software would you suggest I use to rip the disc so I can xfer it to my external? Also, will it deal with any copyright protections on the disc?
You might also search for 'rip' on MacUpdate.com, and see which will work on Blue-ray discs. (Because the players have been around for some time, I doubt the backup-prevention schemes differ much from the usual.)
My understanding is that, if you buy a SonyPlayStation 3 (which is selling itself as a media display center, not just a game machine), you'll be able to boot a 'variety' of Windows with DRM and 'Yellow Dog' Linux without. It's also my understanding that you can replace 'Yellow Dog' with a free, open-source Linux. Your iMac & PS3 could then dual-boot the same Linux. (Just for simplicity. Yellow Dog is for PPC, supported freely by Fedora, Debian, & Gentoo; but many Linux distributions have dropped support for the PPC processor.)
The KDE3 desktop resembles (to me) that on MacOSX, but GNOME became an accidental alternative. Both allow backups of copy-protected optical media. Foreseeing this upon buying a PS3, you could also ask on these forums:
Sony's PlayStation 3 I'm still looking into, after it supports 3.0 Mbit/sec WiFi. It would seem reasonable for someone who has one now, and is experienced with Linux, to try various Bourne-shell scripts in Yellow Dog (unlikely) or a free Linux, and list successful ones in the Video for Linux Users forum.
Yellow-Dog or free Gentoo, Debian, Fedora Linux for the PPC processor
Blu-Ray would be of particular interest. Here are some possible options to the beloved 'dd':
On Macs, it's very easy to momentarily open a port for ftp, though ssh is preferred on an open network. When PS3 supports WiFi, you'll probably build a secure connection immediately. (Regularly I learn & forget how to establish a TCP/ip connection over a normal, twisted-wire ethernet cable.)
Should one have an external Blu-RayDVD writer, here's a strange, little program for MacOSX 10.4:
