What is the best optical drive in 2023?

[asmcom]

Quick questions, but very specifically and 3 parts are required for one answer:

P1. What is the best optical drive currently on the market here in 2023?
What I mean specifically, which drive has the latest capabilities and all of them in one drive?

P2. Does that drive have firmware available to actually make it work to read/write/copy anything optically available?

P3. Which drive then is best of the best currently available with changeable firmware?

I'm currently running a pair of LG WH14NS40, ready to purchase the newer LG WH16NS40, but I really want a working Pioneer BDR-S13UBK. I recent sent back my BDR-S13UBK because no firmware is yet available. Is there anything as good or better than the Pioneer BDR-S13UBK that can be made to truly work?

Thanks in advance

Yes, we have plenty of Pioneer drives that are pre-December 2022.

viewtopic.php?t=19387

Asmcom

[Johnqmalapert]

OP, I buy and rip a ton of discs still. Probably around 50/month. You'll keep hearing that Pioneer drives are the best. Which is true to an extent. They're also the most expensive (if you want quality) and the slowest. Well, I have finally figured out the problem with my Pioneer S12UHD. Although it is the best of my 6 drive lot for UHD discs (lowest failure rate), it is the worst ripper (by far) of 1080p blurays. Sure, it's nice and shiny and well built, but if a drive can't read discs, then what's the point? I rip entire TV series using 4 different drives simultaneously, and the Pioneer is consistently the most troublesome for me.

The best "OVERALL" drive that I own is the ASUS BW-16D1HT. I actually own two. Yes, it's not as good at ripping UHD as my Pioneer, but it almost never fails on any bluray. And all of our catalogs still contain significantly more BDs than UHDs. Especially if you love buying/ripping TV Series.
Long story short, there is no best drive to "rip all types of optical media available." One drive to rule them all?
I would never limit myself to one drive or even one maker of several drives. Sometimes, my LG(s) will rip a disc (or one episode on a certain BD) that my Pioneer and ASUS fail on over and over and with cleaning between each attempt. It's why many of us own several optical drives.

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

This is interesting. My 2 BD drives are fine for BD rips. But my LG UH12NS40 flashed to WH16NS60 works about 50% of the time for UHD rips. It usually spits out "logical unit not ready, timeouts, and read errors. I'm looking to get a better quality drive. Out of the 3 units below, can anyone recommend THE BEST one for just ripping UHD discs?

Buffalo BRUHD-PU3-BK
ASUS BW-16D1HT
LG BP60NB10

[t3t4-]

This is interesting. My 2 BD drives are fine for BD rips. But my LG UH12NS40 flashed to WH16NS60 works about 50% of the time for UHD rips. It usually spits out "logical unit not ready, timeouts, and read errors. I'm looking to get a better quality drive. Out of the 3 units below, can anyone recommend THE BEST one for just ripping UHD discs?

Buffalo BRUHD-PU3-BK
ASUS BW-16D1HT
LG BP60NB10

Yep, that's where I'm at too. It's the 4K disks giving me trouble here lately. I just got my new LG WH16NS40 today and just finished copying my first bluray disk, easy peasy. No firmware song and dance, just out of the box plug and play and it just worked. I'm about to copy a 4K disk next. But I expect no issue. So I now have 3 drives total , I will know soon what has been causing my troubles here lately.
Bad media or just old drives? My money is on some B grade crap media...

[Billycar11]

This is interesting. My 2 BD drives are fine for BD rips. But my LG UH12NS40 flashed to WH16NS60 works about 50% of the time for UHD rips. It usually spits out "logical unit not ready, timeouts, and read errors. I'm looking to get a better quality drive. Out of the 3 units below, can anyone recommend THE BEST one for just ripping UHD discs?

Buffalo BRUHD-PU3-BK
ASUS BW-16D1HT
LG BP60NB10

Yep, that's where I'm at too. It's the 4K disks giving me trouble here lately. I just got my new LG WH16NS40 today and just finished copying my first bluray disk, easy peasy. No firmware song and dance, just out of the box plug and play and it just worked. I'm about to copy a 4K disk next. But I expect no issue. So I now have 3 drives total , I will know soon what has been causing my troubles here lately.
Bad media or just old drives? My money is on some B grade crap media...

To do 4k you need to do a fw song and dance please don't mislead people

[t3t4-]

To do 4k you need to do a few song and dance please don't mislead people

What people were mislead? My new drive worked right outta the box, I don't recall my other two drives working so effortlessly. And yeah I had flash the drive to read 4K, but there were no issues just as I expected. I didn't mislead anyone about anything

[Billycar11]

To do 4k you need to do a few song and dance please don't mislead people

What people were mislead? My new drive worked right outta the box, I don't recall my other two drives working so effortlessly. And yeah I had flash the drive to read 4K, but there were no issues just as I expected. I didn't mislead anyone about anything

out of the box means it works for 4k without flashing in stock form that misleads people thinking they can buy that drive and rip 4k without flashing.

[t3t4-]

out of the box means it works for 4k without flashing in stock form that misleads people thinking they can buy that drive and rip 4k without flashing.

Oh I see what you mean. Yes the dive definitely needs to be flashed to read 4K disks. I think I had to flash my other two drives just to rip bluray's though. It's been a quite a while now and my memory is questionable, but I had a lot of trouble with my WH14NS40 drives getting them to work. But my new WH16NS40 was just easy, it played/ripped bluray's right out of the box and a quick and easy firmware change had it doing the same with 4K disks as well. That's all I was trying/failing to say.

[audiom3]

OP, I buy and rip a ton of discs still. Probably around 50/month. You'll keep hearing that Pioneer drives are the best. Which is true to an extent. They're also the most expensive (if you want quality) and the slowest. Well, I have finally figured out the problem with my Pioneer S12UHD. Although it is the best of my 6 drive lot for UHD discs (lowest failure rate), it is the worst ripper (by far) of 1080p blurays. Sure, it's nice and shiny and well built, but if a drive can't read discs, then what's the point? I rip entire TV series using 4 different drives simultaneously, and the Pioneer is consistently the most troublesome for me.

The best "OVERALL" drive that I own is the ASUS BW-16D1HT. I actually own two. Yes, it's not as good at ripping UHD as my Pioneer, but it almost never fails on any bluray. And all of our catalogs still contain significantly more BDs than UHDs. Especially if you love buying/ripping TV Series.
Long story short, there is no best drive to "rip all types of optical media available." One drive to rule them all?
I would never limit myself to one drive or even one maker of several drives. Sometimes, my LG(s) will rip a disc (or one episode on a certain BD) that my Pioneer and ASUS fail on over and over and with cleaning between each attempt. It's why many of us own several optical drives.

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

This is interesting. My 2 BD drives are fine for BD rips. But my LG UH12NS40 flashed to WH16NS60 works about 50% of the time for UHD rips. It usually spits out "logical unit not ready, timeouts, and read errors. I'm looking to get a better quality drive. Out of the 3 units below, can anyone recommend THE BEST one for just ripping UHD discs?

Buffalo BRUHD-PU3-BK
ASUS BW-16D1HT
LG BP60NB10

I don't really care for my BP60 as it has a higher failure rate than either of my LG 16NS40s and/or my ASUS BW-16D1HT. But for strictly 4k, Pioneer is king without a doubt. That said, it isn't perfect either. I've had it fail on 4k discs that my ASUS ripped fine.
But it's a rare exception... Adding in a 4k-capable Pioneer will give you lots of flexibility since you have two BD drives already.

[asmcom]

OP, I buy and rip a ton of discs still. Probably around 50/month. You'll keep hearing that Pioneer drives are the best. Which is true to an extent. They're also the most expensive (if you want quality) and the slowest. Well, I have finally figured out the problem with my Pioneer S12UHD. Although it is the best of my 6 drive lot for UHD discs (lowest failure rate), it is the worst ripper (by far) of 1080p blurays. Sure, it's nice and shiny and well built, but if a drive can't read discs, then what's the point? I rip entire TV series using 4 different drives simultaneously, and the Pioneer is consistently the most troublesome for me.

The best "OVERALL" drive that I own is the ASUS BW-16D1HT. I actually own two. Yes, it's not as good at ripping UHD as my Pioneer, but it almost never fails on any bluray. And all of our catalogs still contain significantly more BDs than UHDs. Especially if you love buying/ripping TV Series.
Long story short, there is no best drive to "rip all types of optical media available." One drive to rule them all?
I would never limit myself to one drive or even one maker of several drives. Sometimes, my LG(s) will rip a disc (or one episode on a certain BD) that my Pioneer and ASUS fail on over and over and with cleaning between each attempt. It's why many of us own several optical drives.

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk

This is interesting. My 2 BD drives are fine for BD rips. But my LG UH12NS40 flashed to WH16NS60 works about 50% of the time for UHD rips. It usually spits out "logical unit not ready, timeouts, and read errors. I'm looking to get a better quality drive. Out of the 3 units below, can anyone recommend THE BEST one for just ripping UHD discs?

Buffalo BRUHD-PU3-BK
ASUS BW-16D1HT
LG BP60NB10

I don't really care for my BP60 as it has a higher failure rate than either of my LG 16NS40s and/or my ASUS BW-16D1HT. But for strictly 4k, Pioneer is king without a doubt. That said, it isn't perfect either. I've had it fail on 4k discs that my ASUS ripped fine.
But it's a rare exception... Adding in a 4k-capable Pioneer will give you lots of flexibility since you have two BD drives already.

Out of interest, what model is your Pioneer drive, as we have not had any read errors or failures with the Pioneer drives that we decided to stock and supply.

It would be helpful if you could tell us the discs it failed on and what edition of the movie title, as we would like to test these discs on our models to see if we can get a failure.

The BDR-S12XLT, BDR-S12UHT, BDR-XS07TS, BDR-XD07T/S, BDR-XD07TUHD and the BDR-XS07TUHD read all 100 discs we stress tested and no failures.

We look forward to you providing the exact version of these failed discs. We are sure Billycar11 will also be interested in these disc titles as he has had the same positive results as us in testing
Asmcom

[audiom3]

This is interesting. My 2 BD drives are fine for BD rips. But my LG UH12NS40 flashed to WH16NS60 works about 50% of the time for UHD rips. It usually spits out "logical unit not ready, timeouts, and read errors. I'm looking to get a better quality drive. Out of the 3 units below, can anyone recommend THE BEST one for just ripping UHD discs?

Buffalo BRUHD-PU3-BK
ASUS BW-16D1HT
LG BP60NB10

I don't really care for my BP60 as it has a higher failure rate than either of my LG 16NS40s and/or my ASUS BW-16D1HT. But for strictly 4k, Pioneer is king without a doubt. That said, it isn't perfect either. I've had it fail on 4k discs that my ASUS ripped fine.
But it's a rare exception... Adding in a 4k-capable Pioneer will give you lots of flexibility since you have two BD drives already.

Out of interest, what model is your Pioneer drive, as we have not had any read errors or failures with the Pioneer drives that we decided to stock and supply.

It would be helpful if you could tell us the discs it failed on and what edition of the movie title, as we would like to test these discs on our models to see if we can get a failure.

We tested some models and decided not to stock them due to stress testing failures. We found the lasers on these models to be inferior to the other models. One of these models was the BDR-212DBK which failed on 12 x BD100 discs out of 100 tested.

The BDR-S12XLT, BDR-S12UHT, BDR-XS07TS, BDR-XD07T/S, BDR-XD07TUHD and the BDR-XS07TUHD read all 100 discs we stress tested and no failures.

We look forward to you providing the exact version of these failed discs. We are sure Billycar11 will also be interested in these disc titles as he has had the same positive results as us in testing
Asmcom

I listed the exact model in my original post on page 2. I didn't skimp on the model because 'normally' you pay for what you get...

[audiom3]

I didn't keep a log. I am just an end user, so why would I?? Could you please PM me the 100 discs that you stress tested my drive with? I am fairly skeptical there were many regular 1080p BD discs used!

[asmcom]

I didn't keep a log. I am just an end user, so why would I?? Could you please PM me the 100 discs that you stress tested my drive with? I am fairly skeptical there were many regular 1080p BD discs used!

We are sorry you feel skeptical. They were all 4k UHD discs. Looks like you have a nice selection of drives.

As a direct seller we have to be precise in out testing methods. Please see screenshot of one drive models that we sell. Multiply this by 50 and then imagine how much testing we do before a drive is tested and released to the public.



Bye for now.

Asmcom

[t3t4-]

I didn't keep a log. I am just an end user, so why would I?? Could you please PM me the 100 discs that you stress tested my drive with? I am fairly skeptical there were many regular 1080p BD discs used!

Which firmware version are you running in which drive/s?

I just ripped Pacific Rim Uprising 4K in my new WH16NS40 with 1.05 firmware, no problem at all. Then put that same disk into my old WH14NS40 with 1.04 firmware and it failed with read errors. So I updated that drive to v1.05 and tried again, it worked like a charm. That old 2017 drive worked just as well as my new 2023 drive once I updated the firmware.

[asmcom]

I didn't keep a log. I am just an end user, so why would I?? Could you please PM me the 100 discs that you stress tested my drive with? I am fairly skeptical there were many regular 1080p BD discs used!

Which firmware version are you running in which drive/s?

I just ripped Pacific Rim Uprising 4K in my new WH16NS40 with 1.05 firmware, no problem at all. Then put that same disk into my old WH14NS40 with 1.04 firmware and it failed with read errors. So I updated that drive to v1.05 and tried again, it worked like a charm. That old 2017 drive worked just as well as my new 2023 drive once I updated the firmware.

We advise you to use the UHD guide by Billycar11.

viewtopic.php?t=19634

Recommended Firmware to flash for MakeMKV:
WH16NS60 on any Firmware directly to > WH16NS60 1.02MK

WH14NS40 on any Firmware directly to > WH16NS60 1.02MK

WH16NS40 on any Firmware directly to > WH16NS60 1.02MK

BH16NS55 on any Firmware directly to > WH16NS60 1.02MK

UH12NS40 on any Firmware directly to > WH16NS60 1.02MK

Asus BW-16D1HT on any Firmware directly to > Asus BW-16D1HT 3.10MK

BU40N on any Firmware directly to > BU40N 1.03MK

BP50NB40 to > BP50NB40-NB50-1.03MK then to > BP60NB10 1.02MK or 1.00MK
NB52 to > BP50NB40-NB50-1.03MK with enc > BP50NB40-NB50-1.03MK with bootloader/full flash > BP60NB10 1.00_HBD from Marty download/file.php?id=2143
if using command line add "full" after rawflash

BP60NB10 on any Firmware directly to > BP60NB10 1.02MK

[t3t4-]

I didn't keep a log. I am just an end user, so why would I?? Could you please PM me the 100 discs that you stress tested my drive with? I am fairly skeptical there were many regular 1080p BD discs used!

Which firmware version are you running in which drive/s?

I just ripped Pacific Rim Uprising 4K in my new WH16NS40 with 1.05 firmware, no problem at all. Then put that same disk into my old WH14NS40 with 1.04 firmware and it failed with read errors. So I updated that drive to v1.05 and tried again, it worked like a charm. That old 2017 drive worked just as well as my new 2023 drive once I updated the firmware.

We advise you to use the UHD guide by Billycar11.

viewtopic.php?t=19634

Recommended Firmware to flash for MakeMKV:
WH16NS60 on any Firmware directly to > WH16NS60 1.02MK

WH14NS40 on any Firmware directly to > WH16NS60 1.02MK

WH16NS40 on any Firmware directly to > WH16NS60 1.02MK

BH16NS55 on any Firmware directly to > WH16NS60 1.02MK

UH12NS40 on any Firmware directly to > WH16NS60 1.02MK

Asus BW-16D1HT on any Firmware directly to > Asus BW-16D1HT 3.10MK

BU40N on any Firmware directly to > BU40N 1.03MK

BP50NB40 to > BP50NB40-NB50-1.03MK then to > BP60NB10 1.02MK or 1.00MK
NB52 to > BP50NB40-NB50-1.03MK with enc > BP50NB40-NB50-1.03MK with bootloader/full flash > BP60NB10 1.00_HBD from Marty download/file.php?id=2143
if using command line add "full" after rawflash

BP60NB10 on any Firmware directly to > BP60NB10 1.02MK

That guide is terribly confusing! Where even is the flasher anymore? I'm sorry, but that thread is a mess.
Regardless, version 1.02 is where all my problems began. So far so good though with v1.05. But now I have 3 drives to test with so I'll get some statistical facts pretty quickly.