Confused as to which Pioneer drive I should buy

[arhame71]

As the topic states, I am confused as to which would be the best pioneer drive for UHD as of Dec 2023. My Old LG WH16NS40, after about 7 or 8 years of GREAT service, has stopped reading UHD discs to use with MakeMKV.

So, I want to invest in hopefully a Pioneer unit that MIGHT work right out of the box with MakeMKV?

after going through post after post, I'm not sure if I still need to be careful as to which drive to buy, with what firmware, etc. etc....

Please, any information / suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

[Billycar11]

S13UBK is pretty good the ux is overkill to be slightly quieter and be black and gold.
But I have both available
212 is also good if your on a budget but it's louder and a last gen drive

[arhame71]

With either of those, will the firmware have to be changed/downgraded/upgraded to be compatible with MakeMKV ?
I was looking at the BDR-X13UBK since it is an external drive but wanted to make sure it was good to go out of the bos.

Thanks for the reply.

[dcoke22]

If you buy a Pioneer drive from a regular retailer it will almost assuredly come with new firmware that will NOT work with MakeMKV.

Pioneer firmware update February 2023

Eventually, hopefully, this new firmware will be supported, but at the moment drives on this newer firmware are stuck.

There are sellers on this forum that have some Pioneer drives with the older firmware that still works with MakeMKV. If you want a Pioneer drive, at the moment, buying from a seller is the best option.

[Billycar11]

With either of those, will the firmware have to be changed/downgraded/upgraded to be compatible with MakeMKV ?
I was looking at the BDR-X13UBK since it is an external drive but wanted to make sure it was good to go out of the bos.

Thanks for the reply.

sadly For now you need to buy a pioneer from a seller that guarantees old fw I have them
You can make my pioneer external with the cases on my page
no flash pioneer support is being worked on but it may be a while.