LG BU-40N w/ 1.01 FW, no need for flashing?

[johnkol]

I just bought an LG BU-40N to replace a WH14NS40 that died, and from all the comments here I was expecting it to come with 1.04 encrypted FW. To my surprise it came with 1.01 FW, so given the age of that FW I thought I would try it without flashing first; it worked great, I can rip BD discs without any issues, I watched the ripped titles and they look perfect.

I had never read of UHD drives working without flashing, so is there an explanation for this? Am I missing something?

[Woodstock]

Whether or not you NEED to flash depends on what firmware is installed. MakeMKV will even tell you whether or not you need to flash.

It is not unheard off to get drives with firmware that doesn't need flashing, just less and less common.

[johnkol]

As I said, FW is 1.01, and MakeMKV seems to suggest that patched FW is needed:

but works fine as is.

[Billycar11]

I just bought an LG BU-40N to replace a WH14NS40 that died, and from all the comments here I was expecting it to come with 1.04 encrypted FW. To my surprise it came with 1.01 FW, so given the age of that FW I thought I would try it without flashing first; it worked great, I can rip BD discs without any issues, I watched the ripped titles and they look perfect.

I had never read of UHD drives working without flashing, so is there an explanation for this? Am I missing something?

It will always rip regular BD fine without being flashed it's only a problem for UHD and as far as I know 1.01 does not work try a UHD disc and tell us or show us your makemkv drive info section

[johnkol]

It will always rip regular BD fine without being flashed it's only a problem for UHD and as far as I know 1.01 does not work try a UHD disc and tell us or show us your makemkv drive info section

I hadn't realised that patched FW was only needed for UHD discs; the MakeMKV info I posted above seemed to suggest otherwise.

I have ripped over 400 movies without any one of them being UHD, so the probability I get one any time soon is quite remote, which means I don't need to flash.