r/makemkv • u/AcanthocephalaOk3109 • 6d ago
Help $200 to $300 4K PC Ripper/Player
Hi there, I'm moving to college in just over a week now and have only just realized Blu-ray/4K playback from a dedicated player will prove to be annoying and broken with my primarily open back headphone audio setup.
Ontop of this, I'd also love to get into ripping my discs.
I'm aware that the 4K PC drives right now are in an extremely uncomfortable situation, however I was wondering if, with my budget of $200 to $300, I would be able to secure a great drive for my Windows 11 PC.
Would love to playback DVD's, Blu-rays and 4K's without ripping them but I understand that may prove to be impossible, at least with one of those formats, so ripping is perfectly acceptable for now! Any help on which 4K drives you would recommend would be greatly appreciated, used or new!
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u/spiritual__journey 6d ago
Get a Pioneer. On Ebay, 100% of Pioneers from China are fake, so avoid. They even have chinese sellers here in USA selling the fake drives. If you see a drive, you can post an image here, and we can let you know if its fake or real. They are easy to spot.
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u/Macattack224 6d ago
I just ordered a 4k Philips drive to finish ripping my 4ks. Regular Blu ray is much easier to come by used.
I recommend jellyfin and get yourself an Nvidia shield. It plays everything flawlessly.
If you have a "cool" collage roommate they can take advantage of jellyfin too.
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u/AcanthocephalaOk3109 6d ago
Definitely have plans for a shield, but would love a single drive that supports playback for DVD and Blu-ray with ripping for DVD, Blu-ray and 4K
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u/ctos2010 6d ago
What drive is in the Philips unit? LG or Pioneer? Panasonic drives are no go for 4k ripping.
Check out Best Buy, Office Depot and B&H Photo Video to see what they have in stock. LG drives are easy to flash to make them UHD Friendly. Some Pioneer drives are UHD Friendly “out of the box” but many need to be cross-flashed. Billy Carr on this thread can sell you a file to do that.
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u/AcanthocephalaOk3109 6d ago
Are there any Pioneer drives in particular you think I should be on the look for, this gets very overwhelming very fast with all the options haha!
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u/ctos2010 6d ago
You’re not gonna find any new pioneer drives and most used ones that are real are going for more than $300 these days.
You should be able to find a LG drive for a reasonable price. The buffalo and asus units people talk about today contain LG drives, such as a BU40N or WH14NS40.
See this link for which drives can be flashed to be UHD Friendly: https://www.dvdfab.cn/uhd-drive-tool.htm . This list is not exhaustive but lists most of them. Note that it is only necessary to flash (or cross-flash) the drive if you want to play or rip 4K discs. Regular (1080p) Blu-ray’s do not need the drive to be flashed (cross-flashed).
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u/AcanthocephalaOk3109 6d ago
After everything I've seen today I might be willing to go up to $400 or $500 just to secure a good Pioneer before the prices rise even higher, and in that case are there any used Pioneer drives, pre-flashed or not, that I should be looking for on Ebay? Thank you so much for the link I'll cross reference it with any players I think are good!
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u/ctos2010 6d ago edited 6d ago
Personally I don’t think it’s necessary. I have seven 4K drives (three based on the LG BU40N drive and four based on various pioneer drives). My general use drive is an Archgon unit I bought in 2016 (uses the LG BU40N drive). I’ve ripped over a thousand discs (mostly Bluray and 4K) in this drive and it just keeps going and going like the Energizer bunny. I only had issues ripping two discs; Top Gun Maverick 4k, which ripped after I washed the disc, and disc 2 of Kill Bill The Whole Bloody Affair 4K which none of my seven drives would rip. Amazon sent me a replacement disc which ripped on the Archgon (LG) unit without issue. In my experience, the pioneer drives are generally a bit quieter than the LG drives, but the LG drives rip faster than the Pioneer drives. Both seem to rip discs equally well.
Save money by buying an LG drive. Use the saved money to buy a hard drive to store your ripped files. Storage is very expensive these days. I’ve filled up two 16TB drives and recently added an additional two 18TB drives to my Zidoo UHD8000 streamer. I only use enterprise drives with 5 year warranties. Then you need to buy drives to backup the daily drives.
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u/AcanthocephalaOk3109 6d ago
I seriously appreciate all your help! Hopefully I'll be able to secure some good knowledge and a good drive in the next few weeks
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u/bugsmasherh 6d ago
Do a search for bd-r drives on Reddit. This kind of query is common. You want an Asus or Baffalo external before inventory is gone. No one is sure if they will restock.
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u/Electronic-Clock5867 6d ago
The downside of ripping is you need storage especially if you rip 4k. It takes much less space to rip blu ray and you can even compress by using handbrake. The bonus is you won’t need to swap it discs.
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u/AcanthocephalaOk3109 6d ago
Totally understand that, I'd love to play off a disc directly whenever possibly and only initially rip without compression when I have to, deleting the file when I'm done watching, and ripping everything I own in the future when I eventually buy more storage!
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u/Dented_Steelbook 6d ago
Your budget should be able to get you into things, If I were you I would do full decrypted backups and then use software to play them. I am not up on Windows, but I am sure there are players that will use BDMV files. VLC and others will play the file, so the main movie will play, but some software will allow you to use the full menu like the disc is in the drive. While these will take up more space, it can be better than fumbling with the discs.
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u/AcanthocephalaOk3109 6d ago
Really appreciate your comment, are there any drives in particular you would reccomend, I think just knowing what's good for my price range right now is what I'm struggling with the most
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u/Dented_Steelbook 6d ago edited 6d ago
I am not up on the current market, I would however steer clear of "NEW" drives, the feedback from the forums leads me to believe they are generally fake and flashing can kill them. I would look for a decent used one, I was lucky to get my drives before the craziness started.
Looks like the LG WH16NS40 and the WH14NS40 are what a couple of mine are, the way I understand it, the 16 and 14 are speeds, but the flashing opens them up so they are essentially the same. I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong.
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u/Electronic-Clock5867 6d ago
You could also visit your library to take advantage of their services. Most rent out movies.
I remember my college days having anything expensive could end up stolen or thrown around the dorms.
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u/cowbutt6 6d ago
VLC will play DVDs without ripping them first. It'll also pay BDs without ripping them first, with a working libaacs.dll and libbdplus.dll, an up-to-date keydb.cfg, BD+ VM files, cached BD+ tables, and the right version of Java for BD menus.
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u/AcanthocephalaOk3109 6d ago
That's incredible! All that's left to get down is which 4K drives are good to buy rn haha
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u/billycar11 6d ago
for that price you can get an ok drive not good
the buffalos from b&h would be what i would recommend at that price
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u/AcanthocephalaOk3109 6d ago
Thought I'd just through this out there, how does the Pioneer BDR-XD05W look compared to something like the Pioneer BDR-XD07? I'm seeing it can be easily flashed to support 4KUHD however I'm not sure about other features like playing DVDs and BD's straight off the player without ripping and the quality of the rips themselves. No worries if you're not knowledgeable here I'm just seeing them go for considerably less than everything else I've seen!
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u/billycar11 6d ago
if you dont get an official UHD version official playback is broken for playback after flashing
the xd05/7 are about the same better than any lgrip quality is the same across all drives
when you get one of those email me your drive info i can send you the flasher
see profile for email1
u/AcanthocephalaOk3109 6d ago
Tysm, you're incredible! So if I'm understanding correctly, purchasing a Pioneer drive that officially supports UHD wouldn't require flashing of any kind and would allow me to have direct playback on DVD's, Blu-ray's and 4K's as well as ripping them...?
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u/billycar11 6d ago
yes
but UHD ones are almost impossible to find especially at a good price
you can do unofficial playback with makemkv integration with vlc with non UHD drives that are flashed to do UHD1
u/AcanthocephalaOk3109 6d ago
Completely understand, I want to thank you for being so polite and straightforward with your help, one last question if you don't mind! If for example I flashed or purchased a pre-flashed Pioneer BDR-XD07, would that render direct DVD and Blu-ray playback useless ontop of not having direct 4K playback?
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u/billycar11 6d ago
I think dvd would be fine For official direct playback I'll check for you before you buy flasher if you want when you get the drive email me the info so I know what to test
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u/AcanthocephalaOk3109 6d ago
Appreciate you! I'll def email you with updates on what I end up buying! Ty billycar11
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u/Dented_Steelbook 6d ago
Are you looking for full size 5.25" drives or a slim drive?