So I went to rip a few Blu-rays I got for my birthday and on the 4th disk I started getting hash check errors in MakeMKV. Looked it up and saw that this error usually means the Blu-ray drive is starting to fail. Which makes sense, since I’ve been using this thing for over a decade now and have ripped hundreds of discs, but
SO, as I try to limp this thing along, I am looking for a new drive to use for ripping. From what I understand from the research I’ve already done, not many manufacturers make BD reader drives anymore, especially not ones that allow for ripping. I figure you guys would know better than most what’s out there and works well.
I would prefer new, but will go with used if I need to.
Reputable seller recommendations would be a nice bonus.
I am not picky between internal and external drives.
Heh I just found that and am poking through it.
It almost feels like an archaeology dig, sadly. Trying to find a vendor that can sell me a properly flashed drive that won’t charge an arm and a leg.
I recommend having at least 2 different drives. It is not uncommon to come across a disc which doesn’t work in one drive, but does alright in the other.
It’s harder and harder to find good, reliable BD drives to rip with, and nearly impossible to find BD drives that will allow you to rip 4K movies. Both are because most people don’t use optical drives anymore, and in the thinning market, the manufacturers left generally put restrictions on 4K/UHD ripping use to please content distributors who don’t like people ripping things (it’s legal to rip your movies for backups/watching in your own way for private use, but that doesn’t mean the content distributors like it and won’t put pressure on hardware manufacturers to make it difficult).
As such, most BD drives that could hold 4K/UHD content were nerfed (that is, crippled) with firmware that did not allow the user to rip said content.
There is open source (I think) software called LibreDrive that MakeMKV uses to rip things, and that was blocked by some firmware as well.
There are wonderful people out there that have developed processes to help users flash (i.e., rewrite the firmware, usually to older versions) compatible BD drives to allow for 4K/UHD ripping. Some of them will even flash compatible drives for you for a small fee, or will sell flashed drives to you.
Good drives that are flashable are increasingly hard to find, but there’s a conversation thread on the MakeMKV forums that includes sources that not only will sell you a drive, but can sell you flashed drives. The most reliable BD drives are Pioneer drives, but Pioneer stopped making them a few years ago. Still, some of the sources linked to on that forum thread have been able to get some of those drives and will sell them, flashed, to you.
It’s not that cheap, which is understandable.
So basically, you can find/use drives from all over, but from what I’ve seen, most still manufactured are complete crap. To get a good drive that will actually rip the best quality disks (4K/UHD), you need to get a flashed one, which can easily run $300+, but if you don’t get something like that, you are limited in what you can rip.
I personally prefer to rip in as high a quality as possible, and I prefer to rip in MKV format because Mp4 doesn’t allow for (non-forced) subtitles and I’m hard of hearing. So I’m going for one of those services and hoping the drive will last me a long time.
