Watch movies off external USB blu-ray drive

Solution 1:

I would avoid using a USB Blu-Ray drive. The problem is that though the theoretical max of USB 2.0 is 480 Mbits/sec, it hardly anywhere near that max when sustaining a stream. You will experience choppiness from time to time when watching movies through the USB Blu-Ray drive. If you can get your hands on a USB 3.0 enclosure and are able to pop a Blu-Ray drive into that, you might be fine.

Solution 2:

Blu-ray movies are read with a bandwidth between 36 and 72 Mbit/s, USB 2.0 has a data rate of 480 Mbit/s. So I think it should be possible if the reader/USB host both support at least 36/73 Mbit/s throughput.