Why should I have to flash older firmware ?

[jldebert]

Good day to all on this forum.
Forgive me if the question has already been asked somewhere on the forum.
Please excuse my English (if needed), this is not my native language.


My aim is to play commercial Blue Rays (that I bought) on my PC (which happens to have a working 4K environment - screen, HPCD 2.2, DP 1.4, everything works, for videos from Internet, that is).
I have been doing it for years with a blue ray burner LG BH10LS30 and either PowerDVD or VLC as player. This works perfectly for normal blue ray discs, however the LG burner doesn't support UHD discs (or BD-XL discs either).

So I bought an ASUS BW-16D1HT which has BD-XL support and is listed on your forum as being able to recover UHD support, after some flashing of patched firmware.

Now I read in your Ultimate UHD Drives Flashing Guide Updated 2023 (very comprehensive) that for my drive (current firmware is 3.11)
I should first flash "ASUS-BW-16D1HT-3.10-WM01601-211901041014.bin" then "ASUS-BW-16D1HT-3.03-WM00000-211801191558.bin"

My question is: why the second one ? If I read correctly "Custom firmware pack with LibreDrive patches", any "MK" firmware will make my drive a LibreDrive, so why flash an older version ?
(don't tell me that is is to protect the warranty - If I sent back the drive to ASUS to correct a HW problem, they would know from the serial number that it has been re-flashed, this would void the warranty anyway...)

Thank you in advance for your insights.

[Woodstock]

The "Why" is that the drive manufacturers have decided to support a requirement to block you from using the full capabilities of the drive, "without proper software". That proper software imposes limits on what disks you can play on what software.

Changing the firmware in the drive removes those limitations, to do things like rip (as opposed to simply playing) disks on machines that do not have the official hardware (Intel motherboard with certain specifications), software (Windows 10+ and special player), and video plugs. Most people don't own that combination, especially now that the software player no longer supports the special hardware.

My system, for example, lacks everything required to play 4K UHD "officially". But, MakeMKV will still rip that 4K video, with the proper firmware in the drive. And my software will play it, once it's off the disk.

[jldebert]

Changing the firmware in the drive removes those limitations, to do things like rip (as opposed to simply playing) disks on machines that do not have the official hardware (Intel motherboard with certain specifications), software (Windows 10+ and special player), and video plugs.

Okay, I understand this (and thanks, btw, for a quick answer).
But, this was not my question: I simply asked why in my drive's case, your "Ultimate UHD Drives Flashing Guide" suggests I first flash a 3.10 "MK" firmware (which should indeed remove the limitations), only to flash later
a 3.02 or 3.03 "non-MK" firmware. WHY this SECOND flash, that was my question.

Thanks for your advice anyway.

[Billycar11]

Changing the firmware in the drive removes those limitations, to do things like rip (as opposed to simply playing) disks on machines that do not have the official hardware (Intel motherboard with certain specifications), software (Windows 10+ and special player), and video plugs.

Okay, I understand this (and thanks, btw, for a quick answer).
But, this was not my question: I simply asked why in my drive's case, your "Ultimate UHD Drives Flashing Guide" suggests I first flash a 3.10 "MK" firmware (which should indeed remove the limitations), only to flash later
a 3.02 or 3.03 "non-MK" firmware. WHY this SECOND flash, that was my question.

Thanks for your advice anyway.

"Asus BW-16D1HT on any Firmware directly to > Asus BW-16D1HT 3.10MK"
viewtopic.php?t=19634#:~:text=Asus%20BW ... T%203.10MK

The guide does not say that but it would be for greater compatibility with other rippers

[jldebert]

The guide does not say that but it would be for greater compatibility with other rippers

You are right, it was not in the Flashing Guide, I must have found that in another thread (probably older) dealing with my drive.

I found it ! It was in the page "http://wiki.redump.org/index.php?title= ... T_firmware" which does not belong to the MakeMKV forum at all

Thanks for the correction anyway, and apologies for my error.

You can close this thread.