LG BU50N - Can this be flashed to play commercial 4K Blu-rays? Help!

[4Kwannabe]

Hello everyone, I am a certified newbie to 4K video. I had a dream... to be able to watch 4K Blu-rays on my new 4K monitor. So with that in mind I bought a 4K optical drive off Amazon thinking, "well it states it's a external 4K optical drive - connecting via USB 2.0, so it should just be plug and play." Right, little did I know the rabbit hole I just jumped into. My Pc is relatively new : i7 core intel 10400F, 32 Gb's Corsair ram, 512 GB SSD & WD Black 2 TB HDD, Nvidia RTX 3070 GPU, Asus B460M+ MB. I down loaded several programs to play those 4K blu-rays, DVDFab, Leawo, VLC and AnyMP4. And some of them recognized the 4K disc, but none would play them. So after some research I came upon MakeMKV via a video I saw on YT. I also installed MadVR per the YT video instructions, but no luck, still could not play commercial 4K blu-rays. I discovered that the current firmware (CC03) on the drive seemed to be at the heart of the issue. After I found this forum, eureka I thought, but there is a considerable bit of information to absorb and I noticed my LG BU50N is not listed among the UHD friendly drives. Although I have seen it listed on other websites where it is considered UHD friendly. I have seen the firmware 1.00 for this drive posted elsewhere in this forum : viewtopic.php?f=16&t=22896&hilit=LG+BU50N&start=60 How would I use the SDF Tool Flasher to down grade my current firmware and would it work? I don't believe the seller on Amazon accepts returns. So I ask is there any hope or is my quest with this drive a lost cause? Thank you for any assistance or guidance!

[Woodstock]

There are two levels of "UHD support". Drives that can be used by officially-authorized software on systems that meet the exacting hardware requirements, and "UHD-Friendly" drives that can be used for ripping UHD disks, so you can play them on everything else.

Drives that are "officially supported" do not need to be flashed to be used with the officially-supported software and hardware; flashing them will actually remove their officially-supported status.

UHD-Friendly drives often need to be flashed to make them that way, because the pool of drives that don't need flashing is pretty much exhausted.

Generally, MakeMKV will tell you if your drive is UHD-Friendly, or can be flashed to it, but yours is not displaying the LibreDrive section in the Info window.

[4Kwannabe]

@woodstock - thank you for your reply. I had hoped that there would be some kind of hope or work around, If anyone else knows of anyway of making this work please let me know. Otherwise I guess I will chalk this one up to a new lesson learned.

[Billycar11]

Amazon always accepts returns in 30 days you might have to pay shipping and a restocking fee since nothing is wrong with it.
But you can make that drive read UHD flash it to BU40N see guide below or for an automated flasher service see my pricing and email me for one with your makemkv drive info that includes the drive letter not cdrom0

[4Kwannabe]

Hi @Billycar11 - thank you for your reply! So I followed the guide, downloaded the GUI SDF tool and the all you need firmware pack. Placed the folder with the firmware in the SDF folder. I attempted to READ the current firmware to create a Dump, SDF did not create a dump. So I decided to attempt using the LG slim BU40N 1.03 firmware to downgrade my drive. The tool failed to WRITE the selected firmware to my drive. Obviously I must be missing something... Maybe - "Drive Platform MT1959<Most important" I was not sure how to check for this?

[Billycar11]

Just flash it to BU50N then from the mk firmware pack

[4Kwannabe]

@billycar11 - Well flashing to BU50N 1.00 from the mk firmware pack, also failed. No error messages, SDF just does not do anything. I will email you about your remote flashing service.

[phantom0308]

My model is BU50N CCT2. I used a method that I don't recommend, but it seems to work.
First use ASUS Modified to flash the BU50N1.00MK firmware into BU50N CCT2, then use the recovery mode of sdftool, select bu50n-1.00mk for the wrong firmware, select DE-bu40n-1.00 for the firmware to be recovered.
After that, I test dvdfab & makemkv, they both can rip UHD discs, and powerdvd can playblack UHD discs.
Remember to make a dump, it can be recovered even if the drive is bricked

[phantom0308]

I have received your private message, I can't send the private message to you because I just joined this forum not long ago.

Perhaps the first step you can use ASUS ODD FW Flasher instead of sdftool

I think this has nothing to do with the external optical drive box, because my operation is done with the external optical drive box