With OEMs LG and Pioneer No Longer Manufacturing Drives

[Chris Kelly]

How are we supposed to use our computers and VLC for disc playback once the drive we own dies? Are there ways for PCs to read discs with Blu-ray players, such as the Magnetar UDP-800 or UDP-900, Oppo UDP-203 or UDP-205, Panasonic DP-UB150, DP-UB420, DP-UB450, DP-UB820, or DP-UB9000, Pioneer UDP-LX500 or UDP-LX800, or Sony UBP-X700, UBP-X700U, UBP-X800, UBP-X800M2, UBP-X1000ES, or UBP-X1100ES, such as removing its drive and somehow connecting it via SATA or USB, or a less destructive way such as USB or network connection?

[Billycar11]

when we get desperate we will find out for now we wait and hope someone starts up again

[boguslecina]

Pioneer Digital Design and Manufacturing (PDDM) has been sold to Chinese company Shanxi Lightchain Technology Industrial Development. We must waiting for news...

[BDR_UD03]

Where Hitashi-LG and Pioneer the only OEMs making PC Bluray Drives capable of reading and writing discs? Are the only remaining OEMs creating Bluray drive for consumer electronics Sony and Panasonic?

I might be wrong but given the current market it seems the main thing keeping Blurays alive are the PS5 and Xbox Series X. PC market looks not very promising since Even if the Shanxi Lightchain Technology Industrial Development gets a deal from Sony or Xbox to make drives for their consoles, it doesn't mean they will make PC drives.

Hopefully the next gen consoles get a variant with optical drives keeping Bluray alive for a little bit more. Right now Bluray's are about the only source of getting some decent 4K content without being heavily compressed like with the streaming services, really hoping it stays around for a few more years.

[boguslecina]

I think PlayStation 6 will get the option of an attachable Blu-ray XL drive. Unfortunately, there is a bigger problem with PC drives since Intel abandoned SGX technology. Officially, Ultra HD Blu-ray requires support for DRM, which is not officially available. This raises legal issues. A potential manufacturer of Blu-ray drives would have to create software that would allow such discs to be played without breaking AACS 1.x and 2.x security. The market for recordable optical discs is practically dead, with Verbatim being the only major manufacturer still producing them, and their prices are very high. Sometimes it is much cheaper to buy a USB flash drive than a 50 GB Blu-ray disc.