www.makemkv.com

hi,
i am a novice, so please excuse my ignorance. and pardon my english, coz i am not a native speaker.

i am living in India. i am planning to buy a Blu-ray burner and some BD-R SL media through my friend in the USA. my friend has amazon prime membership, so i am planning to buy these on prime day (october 13 - 14) on amazon. i came across makemkv forums in google search.

price and successful burns are the main concern - the lower the price of the drive, the better. so i definitely DONT NEED bundled software as it will increase the price further. i don't have a desktop PC and my laptop PC does not have provision (space) for an internal drive, so i am going to use the drive through USB only; either an external (slimline or thick) drive OR an internal (slimline or thick) drive fitted with an enclosure / SATA to USB adapter would be fine. the drive should be good at making successful burns, and can read and write all latest types of CD, DVD and Blu-ray (SL, DL, TL, QL) media. in my country power-cuts are common, so optionally it would be great if the drive does not need a separate power-supply. and it would be better if it was futureproof, i.e., capable of playing as well as ripping UHD disks (though i don't have any UHD disks right now, but maybe buy some in the far future). and official UHD drives are too costly.

what drive(s) would you recommend? what can be the best price range for my specifications?

i am planning to buy a UHD-friendly drive and flash the firmware to make it capable of ripping UHD disks. but i don't want to take the risk of flashing the firmware myself, so i would rather prefer getting it done by someone like you for a charge. so please quote your charges for (online) remote-flashing.

i heard that pioneer drives make the best burns, but they cannot rip UHD disks. is this true?

also please suggest some MEDIA-ID codes for blank BD-R discs meant for archival purposes. the discs should be good at making successful burns. skip the M-DISCS, they are way too costly. i heard that PANASONIC discs are great but i could not find them online at a competitive price.

best-price-links for buying in online stores in USA, especially amazon would be additionally helpful, but not mandatory.
thank you.

Using optical media for long-term data storage is not a good choice. Unless stored in optimal conditions, even M-Disk has no real track record to prove it is anything more than "longER term" than other writable media.

And "best for reading UHD" and "best for writing" disks are not necessarily the same drive. Pioneer drives have good reputations for WRITING, but they are not, as yet, "UHD friendly" for reading UHD disks.

And take some time to read and pay attention to the guides/pinned info posts currently present around the forum. They are there to answer and help with these very common questions. You can start here:

https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic ... 16&t=19634

https://www.makemkv.com/forum/viewforum ... 78e20bf65d

Ultimately finding a external drive that can stably rip BDs/other media without external power could be a stretch. As without one they may occasionally not get enough power while in the process and some rips could consistently fail. Same when it comes to writing media.