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What restrictions (and bad things) do I need to watch out for when buying a BluRay drive for PC?

txrx

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...and what good things should I look for?

I last looked at BluRay drives over a year ago, and I think at that time I found out that some of the slightly older Pioneer drives had some advantages over newer ones. I don't remember exactly what these advantages were, but I remember that the drives were hard to find at a reasonable price.

I've read recently that I may want to avoid Cinavia, but also that it isn't something implemented in the drives. I know from DVD-drives that I probably want to avoid drives that have a region-switching limit that can't be reset.

I probably want a drive that can support as many BluRay modes and layers as is reasonable for a given price. Support for lightscribe and Mdisc would also be cool.

I seem to remember that a few drives had custom firmware available that could read a Wii disc backwards, which is the right way for a Wii disc. That seems like a cool feature, even though I might never use it. Is this considered some kind of raw binary mode? If that exists is it a mode that is useful for other things? What kind of software would be needed to use this kind of feature?

I expect there are other things to be aware of, so I'll stop typing and let people with more knowledge on the subject continue...
 
Restrictions? There are no restrictions on a computer drive other than the drive hardware region and that one only applies to DVD's
cinavia isn't on computer drives no, that's in the playback software like PowerDVD
avoid drives with a region switch limited, that rules out 100% of them then. ALL drives have a drive hardware region limit of 5, except a very few that are actually region free. Region 0 =/= region free. Region 0 = unset. You set the drive region ONCE, then you leave it alone. If you need to play DVD's with another region than the drives you tell anydvd to remove it, no more no less

Bluray modes? There are only 2 modes. Reading and burning, now if you're talking discs types there is only 1 type and thats BD-R (theres no such thing as a BD+R) which comes in 3 varieties. BD-R (single layer), BD-R DL (double layer) and BDXL (triple or quadruple layer, but those arent widely available yet, let alone affordable)

Lightscribe? That's been dead for years, the last lightscribe disc manufacturer quit making them in 2011 i think. Whatever you see in stores is leftover stock, they're no longer being produced.
M-Disc: still very new, not many manufacturers (if any other than LG) support them

Wii discs? Requires specialised hardware (specific typs, which are (near) impossible to find) and modded console.
 
LG all the way all the time. Haven't used any other brand in a decade. And I use 3 of them :)

Verstuurd vanaf mijn Nexus 7 met Tapatalk
 
Check out this LG blu-ray read/write optical drive, fast, cheap, works great, easy to do firmware updates, SATA connetion, should have bought a spare for my other computer when it was on sale.:(

Great for ripping BD-ROM's with AnyDVD HD(y)

Blu-Ray disk writer
LG model WH16NS40
Firmware ROM VER 1.02-A0

Yup, I'm using this one too.
Brilliant drive!
 
I would buy the new LG BH16NS55.

Do you know if the BH16NS55 got a riplock for BD/DVD ? I'm planning to replace my BH10S30 with this one since it starts to fail to read some blu-rays now.
 
It does, from bh14 and up a new chipset is used that isn't supported by mcse to remove it.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn Nexus 7 met Tapatalk
 
Okay, thanks for your reply. So copying a disc means to wait as long as it takes, or is there any other recommendation (another model etc.)?
 
Not really, my bh16ns40 (which also has the riplock) rips a full sized BD50 between 30-40 minutes.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn Nexus 7 met Tapatalk
 
I see. Maybe I should get the S55 and replace my older DVD-Writer and keep the 10LS30 as a second optical drive.
 
Or just keep them both and add a 3rd drive like I do ;-)

Verstuurd vanaf mijn Nexus 7 met Tapatalk
 
Do you know if the BH16NS55 got a riplock for BD/DVD ? I'm planning to replace my BH10S30 with this one since it starts to fail to read some blu-rays now.
From what i read in the official specs there's only has a slight DVD riplock:
TRANSFER RATES - READ
BD-R (SL L to H) 6x CAV
BD-ROM (SL/DL) 12x / 8x CAV
BD-R (SL/DL) 12x / 8x CAV
BD-R (TL/QL) 6x / 6x CAV
BD-RE (SL/DL) 8x /6x CAV
BDMV (AACS Compliant Disc) 12x
DVD-ROM (SL/DL) 16x / 12x CAV
DVD-R (SL/DL) 16x / 12x CAV
DVD-RW(SL) 12x CAV
DVD+R (SL/DL) 16x / 12x CAV
DVD+RW (SL/DL) 12x CAV
DVD-RAM 2x, 3x, 5x CLV
M-DISC 12x
DVD-Video (CSS Compliant Disc) 12x / 8x CAV (SL/DL)
CD-R/RW/ROM 48x / 40x / 48x CAV
CD-DA (DAE) 40x CAV
80mm CD 11.5x CAV
 
Well, today I got the BH16NS55 and it is a real good choice. You are right, 50 GB is about 40 minutes. That is absolutely okay. It is silent and the two BDs my older drive couldn't read are working in my new drive.
 
Hang on, "Rip Lock" sounds like a bad thing (as queried in the OP). I've looked this up now. Are there other bad things or just Rip Lock and Region Lock?

I've had good experience with LG drives too so far and I would be happy to stick with LG :)
 
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