Drew 590 Posted August 9, 2022 Share Posted August 9, 2022 Looking for recommendations for an external blu-ray drive. Not wanting the price range to be more than the $100 range. 4K UHD Blu-Ray support would be nice but is not mandatory. And it obviously needs to have ripping capabilities (I hear that some of the 4K drives try to prevent ripping). On a similar note, why on earth haven't the prices for these things gone down at all? Blu-Ray is 15+ years old now! Is Sony's licensing fee responsible for this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jay 37,373 Posted August 9, 2022 Share Posted August 9, 2022 Just get whatever has good reviews on Amazon or New Egg and is around $60-$70. They're all the same Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manakin Skywalker 4,897 Posted August 9, 2022 Share Posted August 9, 2022 If you want a 4K drive that can rip, it needs to be flashed with old firmware or the disc cannot be read. Some useful info here: Ultimate UHD Drives Flashing Guide Updated 2022 - www.makemkv.com If you don't want to flash your own drive, you can always buy one pre-flashed like I did a few years ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
filmmusic 1,839 Posted August 9, 2022 Share Posted August 9, 2022 I have this one: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264849119450 It plays 4k discs fine (with VLC and menu support, or MPC without menu support). I have it for over a year and no problems so far... Disco Stu 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manakin Skywalker 4,897 Posted August 9, 2022 Share Posted August 9, 2022 ^Yep that seems to be the most popular external 4K drive. It seems to be a good price, plus it's already pre-flashed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drew 590 Posted August 9, 2022 Author Share Posted August 9, 2022 130 bucks...ouch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drew 590 Posted August 9, 2022 Author Share Posted August 9, 2022 I honestly don't have a use for ripping 4K discs right now though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bollemanneke 3,350 Posted August 30, 2022 Share Posted August 30, 2022 I stopped looking for one. Every time I'm in a hardware store, they have everything but Blu Ray drives. DVD it remains. They clearly don't want to make this accessible to the general public. DVD drives are 100 times easier to find. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faleel 5,359 Posted September 1, 2022 Share Posted September 1, 2022 I have an LG I picked up from Amazon. Pretty close to this I think: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B011327QXC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disco Stu 15,495 Posted September 26, 2022 Share Posted September 26, 2022 On 09/08/2022 at 12:14 AM, filmmusic said: I have this one: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264849119450 It plays 4k discs fine (with VLC and menu support, or MPC without menu support). I have it for over a year and no problems so far... I bought this drive BTW, thanks for the rec. Well, I haven't actually gotten it yet, so maybe I shouldn't thank you yet! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
filmmusic 1,839 Posted September 26, 2022 Share Posted September 26, 2022 44 minutes ago, Disco Stu said: I bought this drive BTW, thanks for the rec. Well, I haven't actually gotten it yet, so maybe I should thank you yet! I hope you don't have any problem. Do you want it for just Blu-rays or UHDs too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disco Stu 15,495 Posted September 26, 2022 Share Posted September 26, 2022 1 minute ago, filmmusic said: Do you want it for just Blu-rays or UHDs too? I hope to use it for both filmmusic 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
filmmusic 1,839 Posted September 26, 2022 Share Posted September 26, 2022 4 minutes ago, Disco Stu said: I hope to use it for both Check also this video for direct UHD playback: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disco Stu 15,495 Posted September 26, 2022 Share Posted September 26, 2022 I'm only planning to use this drive to rip my HD and 4k blu rays, not to play them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faleel 5,359 Posted September 26, 2022 Share Posted September 26, 2022 2 hours ago, Disco Stu said: I'm only planning to use this drive to rip my HD and 4k blu rays, not to play them. To be fair, being able to play them helps with cataloging and identifying the rips. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disco Stu 15,495 Posted September 26, 2022 Share Posted September 26, 2022 1 hour ago, Roll the Bones said: To be fair, being able to play them helps with cataloging and identifying the rips. That makes sense. This is all new to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Disco Stu 15,495 Posted September 30, 2022 Popular Post Share Posted September 30, 2022 I received the drive a couple of days ago and got to test it this morning. I used my UHD blu-ray copy of ET and MakeMKV and, well, it all just worked with basically zero effort or trouble! Marian Schedenig, Faleel and filmmusic 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disco Stu 15,495 Posted October 1, 2022 Share Posted October 1, 2022 So... now that I'm in the business of ripping 4K blu-rays.... is it possible to make that enormous file size smaller without noticeably sacrificing video/audio quality? (bearing in mind I'm especially not an audiophile) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faleel 5,359 Posted October 1, 2022 Share Posted October 1, 2022 Time to buy a 12 TB hard drive! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disco Stu 15,495 Posted October 1, 2022 Share Posted October 1, 2022 I made a promise to myself that I was never going to spend money on an HDD again, that I was solid state from now to eternity. Few more years yet before external SSDs with that kinda capacity are affordable! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
filmmusic 1,839 Posted October 2, 2022 Share Posted October 2, 2022 I don't understand why do you rip your movies, and you don't just play them. Would you care to explain? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disco Stu 15,495 Posted October 2, 2022 Share Posted October 2, 2022 For the same reason anyone rips a music CD: convenient access without having to bother the with the physical disc as well as being a backup of the discs. I put all my video files on my Plex server so I can stream them to my TV from the computer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marian Schedenig 8,208 Posted October 2, 2022 Share Posted October 2, 2022 52 minutes ago, Disco Stu said: For the same reason anyone rips a music CD: convenient access without having to bother the with the physical disc as well as being a backup of the discs. I put all my video files on my Plex server so I can stream them to my TV from the computer. Problem is, for 600+ films on Blu (not counting the various TV series!), I'd already need up to 30 TB of hard drive space (calculating with 50 GB per Blu, which is surely more than most of them use, but then many release have two or more discs). And considering how many weeks (or probably months) it'd take to rip everything, I'd want a RAID setup to make sure I don't lose everything when the drive becomes faulty. (Even my ripped FLACs take up 832 GB already) It would help protect against dying discs though. I already got a couple that went faulty on me. Super annoying when it affects (persumably) the lower layer and everything works fine until you're halfway or two thirds into the film and it suddenly freezes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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