PIO BDRS13UBK or Asus BW16

[flukefanatic]

I am looking to purchase a UHD drive and have narrowed it down to these two - I have read the threads and some recommend the pioneers and some this Asus model. Any recommendations would be welcome. Also, I am looking to purchase a used 5.25" pioneer drive on ebay for regular blu rays for a second system - would anyone be able to recommend a reliable model? I will house both of these in a nexstar DX2 enclosure. Many thanks in advance for you assistance.

[MartyMcNuts]

I am looking to purchase a UHD drive and have narrowed it down to these two - I have read the threads and some recommend the pioneers and some this Asus model. Any recommendations would be welcome. Also, I am looking to purchase a used 5.25" pioneer drive on ebay for regular blu rays for a second system - would anyone be able to recommend a reliable model? I will house both of these in a nexstar DX2 enclosure. Many thanks in advance for you assistance.

The Asus is junk. Just a rebadged LG WH16NS40. The Pioneer models are 1000% superior in every way.

The Pioneer drives are good. Unfortunately new one's in stores all come with new, unsupported firmware. The only place you can get a new one with older UHD compatible firmware is from a seller on this forum. Check the thread: viewforum.php?f=20 for a seller in your region.

[flukefanatic]

I see on your website you sell the verbatim - do you recommend that? I read the thread you linked and am still a bit confused - I am in the US - do you ship to the US or happen to recommend a seller from whom I can purchase a pioneer (or verbatim) drive?

[Billycar11]

I see on your website you sell the verbatim - do you recommend that? I read the thread you linked and am still a bit confused - I am in the US - do you ship to the US or happen to recommend a seller from whom I can purchase a pioneer (or verbatim) drive?

I have the s13ubk with old fw in USA see below for details

[dcoke22]

The Verbatim 43888 has an older Pioneer drive inside it (the UD04). It is generally only sold in Europe (and maybe Asia) and not in the US. It is perhaps the only Pioneer drive that you can buy new in a store and have it work out of the box. It is a reasonable drive if you can find one for reasonable cost.

On this forum, Billycar11 is a seller in the USA that sells new Pioneer drives with the older firmware. I have purchased a drive from Billycar11 and the transaction went smoothly.

A couple of months ago, Billycar11 posted his view of drive rankings: https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=154264#p154264 The UD04 ranks in the middle, better than the LG/ASUS stuff and lower than the newest (and most expensive) Pioneer models.

Personally, I don't have a Verbatim 43888 (Pioneer UD04), but I do have both a Pioneer 212 and a Pioneer S13UBK. Both are very good and generally perform better than my old ASUS or LG drive.

[Coopervid]

The Verbatim 43888 has an older Pioneer drive inside it (the UD04). It is generally only sold in Europe (and maybe Asia) and not in the US. It is perhaps the only Pioneer drive that you can buy new in a store and have it work out of the box. It is a reasonable drive if you can find one for reasonable cost.

On this forum, Billycar11 is a seller in the USA that sells new Pioneer drives with the older firmware. I have purchased a drive from Billycar11 and the transaction went smoothly.

A couple of months ago, Billycar11 posted his view of drive rankings: https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=154264#p154264 The UD04 ranks in the middle, better than the LG/ASUS stuff and lower than the newest (and most expensive) Pioneer models.

Personally, I don't have a Verbatim 43888 (Pioneer UD04), but I do have both a Pioneer 212 and a Pioneer S13UBK. Both are very good and generally perform better than my old ASUS or LG drive.

A couple of thoughts from my side....

The 13 series drives don't burn better than the 12 series. Pioneer is doing a lot of yada-yada but that's understandable since optical drives is a declining market.

Optical BDR disc quality is going south. The last premium discs were made by Verbatim / Mitsubishi in Japan. The manufacturing lines were transferred to Taiwan and since then the quality is much worse. From tests Riteks are still OK. Especially BDR-50 where the layer break is critical.

Pioneer kind of overreacted to the case that their drives could be cross-flashed from non-UHD to UHD and as a second factor that their drives could be used to rip UHD discs. Introducing firmware encryption disabled both the cross-flash and the ability to rip UHDs. The first factor was their business model. Selling an (almost) identical drive regarding firmware for UHD and collecting more money was their business model. But now they introduced a lose-lose model. Cross-flashing is disabled which protects their business model. But revoking the ability to rip UHDs has and will affect the sales or their drives. Nobody wants a drive that can't rip UHDs. I guess their sales volume has declined significantly. So we are limited to some niche products that aren't sold under the Pioneer brand but the drives are Pioneer drives with old firmware. Intentionally I don't list them here.