does the iMac only take apple super drive for dvd?

Other drives should work, but you might have trouble booting from one that is not Apple branded. Some folks try to make macOS installers on a DVD for setting up or restoring new machines or for troubleshooting. Some third party drives might be finicky about booting the Mac. I would check with OtherWorldComputing and ask them about compatibility with the Mac of the third party DVD drives that they sell.

No. I personally have two LG DVD/CD drives that I use with my Mac's. 1 is an older LG desktop DVD/CD drive and the other is a newer LG portable DVD/CD drive. I play DVD movies, import music from my CD collection and occasionally burn wedding photo CDs for friends and family.

glady22 wrote:

No one at Apple customer servicseems to know the answer

Open-ended hardware-support questions are unanswerable without testing. Not with any certainty.

Devices are not totally compatible, nor completely interchangeable, nor does everything always work as documented.

If you cannot afford to make a mistake here, purchase a supported device.

If you already have the device, try it.

Some well-known vendors have had products with problems, and others have been remarkably consistent and functional, too. I’ve had good success with Plextor optical devices over the years, but few of us are chasing optical as much as we used to...

woodmeister50 wrote:

I have had very good service from LG drives. Basically, if you

stick with major brand drives like LG, Samsung, Sony, etc.

you will not have any issues.

I’ve met optical devices from major computing vendors with buggy firmware. One had a wonderful bug in its write path.

I’ve successfully used third-party DVD drives with Mac. Your mileage may vary, of course. Depends on the particular drive.

Any other DVD Player would be better.

Because they are focused on supporting and selling Apple products.

I have had very good service from LG drives. Basically, if you

stick with major brand drives like LG, Samsung, Sony, etc.

you will not have any issues.