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Asus or LG UHD drive for playback, ripping, and burning discs?

HTPCNN

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I am new to the forum so I may have posted this in the wrong place at first, so will try here as well. I would like to post it wherever is both on topic but also where people may actually see it and be able to help, since I am already flirting with passing the deadline to return the drive. Here is the situation, I appreciate any help given the deadline!

I shopped for preflashed UHD drives. I told the seller I needed a drive that can playback the discs "live" as well as rip them and burn them. There was a miscommunication, and they told me the best drive they sell that does what I wanted is the the Asus BW-16D1HT with LG firmware, so that's what I bought. But now after I got it, they told me it can't play UHD discs, that you have to rip them first, and that the reason they sold me this one is because only the LGs can playback the UHD discs and there are quality problems with the LGs (they often die within a year). However they said they will swap the LG WH16NS60 for the Asus BW-16D1HT if I want if I pay the price difference, and as long as I don't turn on unlimited read speed on the LG, it should be fine.

But the plot thickens. A third party end user with the Asus told me it actually will play discs live if I use AnyDVD or DVDFAB or maybe PowerDVD. I'm not clear if the LG can do it without these extras, or what the difference is there why the seller would say the LG can playback discs but not the Asus, and I'm also unclear if the Asus can do it with the LG firmware that was pre-flashed on it already, or only the Asus regular firmwares (maybe only the older ones) and if not, how complicated for the PC-user equivalent of a media expert (see my account name) it would be to have to install a different firmware. In other words, I'm not knowledgeable with this stuff and I was hoping the drive would at least be plug and play even if setting up makemkv, anyDVD, madvr, etc, is not. If the LG will come "plug and play" without having to fix these issues, and the Asus will not, then maybe it's worth swapping for me, but there are so many variables that I would like you guys who know about this stuff to advise me on the whole picture, not just one or the other. There is not only Asus + anyDVD vs LG + anyDVD to think about, there is also Asus + powerDVD vs LG + anyDVD, and Asus + anyDVD vs LG + powerDVD, and every other combination (dvdFAB), to where we not only have to compare the drives themselves, but the software combinations also, and I have even less experience with these different softwares than I do with PC UHD drives.

Bottom line, my choices choices are keeping the Asus BW-16D1HT with the LG firmware (or installing the older Asus firmware on it that the person using AnyDVD, DVDFab, etc, used successfully with it uses), or, swapping the Asus out for an LG WH16NS60. Do you know if there's there any advantage to one or the other? My use case is to play live, rip and play, and burn UHD discs and 3D blurays on an HTPC. I want to play these with madvr and MPC-HC, and possibly use VideoProcessor also.

I'm not sure the seller ever clarified if either, both, or neither the Asus and LG drives can burn discs, either. If the LG can do burn discs and not the Asus, that would be a reason worth swapping for sure. But if not, would there be any other reasons?
 
You are a noob and you are confused. Read my guide. After flashing the firmware your drive will be just fine.

https://forum.redfox.bz/threads/guide-for-flashing-uhd-drives-for-anydvd.79023/

My Asus drive is already pre-flashed with LG firmware. The drive can definitely already rip with makemkv, meanwhile the seller says it can't playback discs period while the LG drive can, whereas someone else already proved that wrong that by using anyDVD, the Asus drive can playback discs as well. I am trying to parse what the seller told me. Does he mean to imply the LG can play back discs without anyDVD or any extra software? Is there some advantage there?

Based on the other end user's experience, the Asus can playback UHD discs using anyDVD. So it's not a question of can it do it, but a question of is there any advantage to the LG period, or was the seller mistaken about that? Not "which drive can do these things," but, "which drive is better overall for everything including these things?"

And no one, not the seller, the other end user, or the guide that I saw, has addressed at all whether these drives can burn discs or not? Can one, both, or none of them burn discs?
 
Oh god! This seller confused you totally. So just forget that...

Post your Makemkv info here, please. As you saw in my guide.

It doesn't matter LG or ASUS firmware. For the LG BH16NS55 the ASUS 3.10 firmware just works better and faster.

You can burn with this drive but that's a completely other story if you want to burn BD-R 50.
 
Oh god! This seller confused you totally. So just forget that...

Post your Makemkv info here, please. As you saw in my guide.

It doesn't matter LG or ASUS firmware. For the LG BH16NS55 the ASUS 3.10 firmware just works better and faster.

You can burn with this drive but that's a completely other story if you want to burn BD-R 50.

Thanks a lot for your help. Sorry for the delay. What do you mean by MakeMKV info? Until I know for sure to keep this drive instead of swap for the LG, I have to keep it unopened and unused so he will accept it as return. This means I never hooked it up, I never installed MakeMKV, I am at the beginning of the whole thing and ran into this bump in the road and that's where Im at. Luckily in terms of this situation, my media room is not going to be ready to use for awhile anyway, so I don't have a rush except that I told the seller I would ask around and figure out what to do by early January and it already bled past that. Most likely I am just keeping the Asus now and hopefully you guys can help me get it working, but probably he would still accept a swap if I asked him so is there any advantage to the LG drive compared to the Asus as far as playing, ripping, or burning discs?

That's the key question at this point. Any advantage, yes or no? Any reason to swap or should I just keep the Asus? Once I get the final answer on what drive to keep/get, then I can open it/get it and open it, plug it in, download mkv, and start figuring out how to set it up. That's step 2 after I know what to do about the drive in the first place.
 
BTW - you seem to have that ignored by reading your new questions. Now do your work and don't post blah-blah....
 
BTW - you seem to have that ignored by reading your new questions. Now do your work and don't post blah-blah....
Read the guide... or talk to the hand as Arnie uses to say....

https://forum.redfox.bz/threads/guide-for-flashing-uhd-drives-for-anydvd.79023/

Just getting to this. Coopervid, you should use the quote function because I don't know which specific issue I brought up that you think is answered in the guide but isn't. I already read the guide before I responded last time, so my next post was specifically there to ask about info that is not in the guide, however then you just responded telling me to go read the guide again...

There's nothing in the guide about burning discs or a clear answer about the Asus drive with LG firmware vs the Asus drive. The only times LG is mentioned in the guide are the LG BH16NS40 and the BH16NS55. My post is asking about the BH16NS60.

If you're not sure that's fine. I'll probably stick with the Asus drive at this point since I couldn't find anyone who could tell me whether I should swap it or not.
 
If you care about burning discs, do not cross flash the firmware. E.g. if you have an Asus drive and want to use it to burn discs don't flash an lg firmware to it. It might work but many of us who tried it back in the day watched it kill many discs. But worth the risk. If you're burning, stick with the firmware versions for your native drive.

Sent from my SM-G998U1 using Tapatalk
 
Just getting to this. Coopervid, you should use the quote function because I don't know which specific issue I brought up that you think is answered in the guide but isn't. I already read the guide before I responded last time, so my next post was specifically there to ask about info that is not in the guide, however then you just responded telling me to go read the guide again...

There's nothing in the guide about burning discs or a clear answer about the Asus drive with LG firmware vs the Asus drive. The only times LG is mentioned in the guide are the LG BH16NS40 and the BH16NS55. My post is asking about the BH16NS60.

If you're not sure that's fine. I'll probably stick with the Asus drive at this point since I couldn't find anyone who could tell me whether I should swap it or not.

The guide tells you to run Makemkv to check if your drive has been flashed successfully.

And if you want to burn 25GB discs all is fine. I haven't made the experiences SamuriHL has made. My LG BH16NS55 flashed to ASUS just burns fine. Burning 50GB discs is a different animal. These drives are not good burners for 50GB discs. Read this:

https://forum.redfox.bz/threads/bd-50gb.80418/
 
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