(Asmcom:) Pioneer UHD 4K Drives, MakeMKV Discounted Software £39.99, Worldwide Service, Excellent Service!!!

[BlackWizard]

Hi, a couple of questions from a newbie:

1. Would these drives allow me to rip 4K UHD blurays in original quality on Linux?
2. Seeing as the website is currently closed for business, is anyone else selling flashed UHD friendly Pioneer drives that ship to Europe?

[Batman&throbbin]

Hi, a couple of questions from a newbie:

1. Would these drives allow me to rip 4K UHD blurays in original quality on Linux?
2. Seeing as the website is currently closed for business, is anyone else selling flashed UHD friendly Pioneer drives that ship to Europe?

Try eBay UK look for 4K-friendly he has various Pioneer both install/USB interface.
Shipping to Europe

[nicholfd]

Hi, a couple of questions from a newbie:

1. Would these drives allow me to rip 4K UHD blurays in original quality on Linux?
2. Seeing as the website is currently closed for business, is anyone else selling flashed UHD friendly Pioneer drives that ship to Europe?

In answer to question 1:
Yes - the drives sold here will allow you to use MakeMKV on Linux to rip DVD/Blu-Ray/4K/UHD discs.

If you're in the US, I have drives available for sale.

Thanks,
Frank

[asmcom]

All have been answered. Happy Christmas.

From Asmcom

[laudrupn10]

@Hi Asmcom,

I would like to purchase a Pioneer BDR-X13E-S. Could you please let me know if you have this unit in stock and if you can ship it to Spain?

[nicholfd]

@Hi Asmcom,

I would like to purchase a Pioneer BDR-X13E-S. Could you please let me know if you have this unit in stock and if you can ship it to Spain?

PLEASE - Always start at the first post of any thread online, especially if you are new.

His store is closed until after the first of the year. Details are in the first post.

[asmcom]

UHD Friendly Drives – Industry Position & Outlook for 2026

Hello everyone,

As we approach the end of the year, we would first like to thank all our customers and members of the MakeMKV community for their continued support and trust. Your feedback, discussions, and engagement are what allow this ecosystem to continue to exist. We would also like to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year.

This post is shared purely as an industry update and market outlook. It is not intended to claim credit for technical breakthroughs, nor to promote products, but to help forum members understand where the optical drive market now stands, what choices realistically remain, and how to plan going forward.

Before going further, it is important to be absolutely clear on one point:

All credit for LibreDrive, PC UHD Blu-ray playback, and the ecosystem we have today belongs entirely to Mike Chen and the MakeMKV project.
Without Mike’s work, there would be no LibreDrive, no viable UHD ripping path, and no community like this. This is his forum and his software, and it is only proper to recognise that.

UHD Friendly Drives is simply posting this update as a long-standing participant in the ecosystem, with visibility into hardware supply and lifecycle trends.


1. The manufacturing reality

In 2025, the consumer UHD Blu-ray drive market has crossed a critical threshold.

This year alone, the following HLDS (Hitachi-LG Data Storage) models have reached End of Life (EOL):

Hitachi BH-16NS40

Hitachi BH-16NS55

Hitachi BU40N

These are not random SKUs.

They Represent:

The last reliable internal SATA UHD-capable drives

The last truly viable slimline UHD laptop drive (BU40N)

Well-understood firmware families that underpin much of the MakeMKV ecosystem

Crucially:

There are no announced successors

No silent OEM refreshes

No new consumer UHD optical silicon appearing

From our perspective, this is controlled contraction, not normal product lifecycle behaviour.

As of today, HLDS appears to be the only remaining large-scale optical drive manufacturer, and even that output is clearly winding down rather than evolving.

2. Pioneer did not simply shut down, it was sold

When Pioneer exited the optical drive market, an important detail is often overlooked. Pioneer did not just close the division.

Its optical drive business (Pioneer Digital Design and Manufacturing) was sold outright to Shanxi Lightchain Technology Industrial Development Co., Ltd.

3. Why we believe Shanxi Lightchain bought Pioneer’s optical business

From an engineering and industrial standpoint, we do not believe this acquisition was about reviving consumer Blu-ray drives.

The real value Pioneer brought was optical R&D capability, not retail products:

• Multi-wavelength laser decoding (CD / DVD / BD / UHD).

• RF signal extraction at the analog boundary

• Error behaviour modelling on marginal media.

• Servo control algorithms.

• Precision opto-mechatronics.

• Decades of optical-storage failure analysis

• Engineers with deep understanding of optical physics

This expertise is Rare and Extremely difficult to recreate.

Highly transferable to industrial, medical, scientific, sensing, and metrology applications

There has been:

• No new Pioneer-branded drive roadmap.

• No re-entry into consumer channels.

• No indication of UHD-capable successors.

All signs point to capability and knowledge acquisition, not consumer product continuation.

4.Direct communication with Shanxi Lightchain

We would also like to clarify something based on direct communication rather than speculation.

UHD Friendly Drives has been in direct contact with Shanxi Lightchain Technology to understand whether there were any plans to restart or continue consumer optical drive manufacturing.

We were clearly advised that:

• There are no plans to manufacture new consumer optical drives.

• The former Pioneer optical business is not being positioned for consumer Blu-ray products.

We specifically enquired whether a limited production run could be considered for UHD Friendly Drives and a third party partner in Taiwan.

Their response was that they would only consider a production run if there was a minimum order quantity of approximately 50,000 units.

This is far beyond what is financially realistic or commercially viable for a specialist market such as ours, and therefore not something we could pursue.

We share this information so forum members understand that this avenue has been explored directly, and that the lack of new drives is not due to lack of interest, but to industrial-scale constraints.

5. Why PC UHD playback was abandoned deliberately.

It is important to address a common misconception.

PC UHD Blu-ray playback did not fail because it was technically impossible.

Early PC UHD playback relied on:

• Intel CPUs with SGX.

• Licensed AACS 2.x software stacks

• Host authentication enforced by CPU and OS vendors.

When Intel removed SGX support from newer processors, and Microsoft stopped positioning Windows as an AACS host platform, licensed UHD playback on PC effectively ended.

This aligned with:

• Reduced platform liability.

• Streaming-first priorities.

• Removal of ownership-based playback paths.

In short, PC playback was abandoned by vendors, not defeated by technology.

6. LibreDrive and the MakeMKV ecosystem

What survived and continues to thrive is the MakeMKV ecosystem, entirely due to the work of Mike Chen.

LibreDrive:

• Removed dependence on fragile licensed playback stacks.

• Restored direct, reliable access to optical media.

• Made long-term UHD preservation possible on PC.

This post does not claim otherwise.
LibreDrive, MakeMKV, and the current state of PC UHD playback exist because of Mike’s work, and the community built around it.

7. Streaming didn’t kill discs it starved them

Streaming services require:

• Revocable access.

• No permanent ownership.

• Centralised control.

• Geo-restriction and removal capability.

Physical media does the opposite. Rather than banning discs, the industry:

• Tightened AACS rules.

• Abandoned PC playback support.

• Reduced hardware investment.

• Allowed manufacturing capacity to wither.

The decline appeared natural, but the ecosystem was deliberately starved.

8. The vinyl parallel

This situation mirrors vinyl almost exactly.
Vinyl:

• Should have disappeared decades ago.

• Was abandoned by mass manufacturers.

• Survived through specialists and enthusiasts

• Became a preservation format rather than a convenience format.

UHD Blu-ray is now in the same phase:

• Smaller market.

• Highly knowledgeable users.

• Finite hardware.

• Long lifespan through care, expertise, and preservation.

[/bManufacturing ends. Playback does not.

9. What this means going forward

We want to be clear and factual:

• No new generation of consumer UHD Blu-ray drives is coming.

• Existing drives are finite.

• Once HLDS fully exits consumer production, manufacturing will not restart.

• Optical media has entered a preservation era.

This is the same pattern seen with:

• DAT.

• MiniDisc recorders

• Broadcast tape mechanisms

10. Why are we posting this?

UHD Friendly Drives is sharing this information solely to help forum users make informed decisions:

• Understanding hardware availability

• Understanding long-term risks

• Planning preservation strategies realistically

This post is not about claiming credit, nor about promoting any solution over another.
The technical foundation of this ecosystem is MakeMKV, and that credit belongs where it is due.

Final thoughts

UHD Blu-ray is not dead. But consumer optical drive manufacturing effectively is.

What survives now is:

• Knowledge

• Careful hardware stewardship

• File-based preservation

• Communities like MakeMKV

We hope this perspective is helpful, and we welcome informed discussion.

Once again, thank you to Mike Chen for MakeMKV, and thank you to the community for another year of support.

Kind regards,
Asmcom
UHD Friendly Drives Team

[Coopervid]

Great post, Asmcom!

Merry Christmas to you and your family!

[asmcom]

Great post, Asmcom!

Merry Christmas to you and your family!

Merry Christmas to you too and your family. Thank you for the kind words throughout the year.

Kind Regards

Asmcom

[MrPenguin]

In 2025, the consumer UHD Blu-ray drive market has crossed a critical threshold...

Yikes!

But if no-one is manufacturing drives any more, is anyone still making dedicated standalone UHD players? Because such players must obviously contain some model of OEM UHD drive.

[nicholfd]

In 2025, the consumer UHD Blu-ray drive market has crossed a critical threshold...

Yikes!

But if no-one is manufacturing drives any more, is anyone still making dedicated standalone UHD players? Because such players must obviously contain some model of OEM UHD drive.

"Consumer" UHD drives are not necessarily the same as what is Mfg. for Blu-Ray/4K/UHD players, or what is OEM'd for gaming consoles.

[mrsmith]

In 2025, the consumer UHD Blu-ray drive market has crossed a critical threshold...

Yikes!

But if no-one is manufacturing drives any more, is anyone still making dedicated standalone UHD players? Because such players must obviously contain some model of OEM UHD drive.

"Consumer" UHD drives are not necessarily the same as what is Mfg. for Blu-Ray/4K/UHD players, or what is OEM'd for gaming consoles.

Yeah, the player market still has legs. Let’s hope Netflix don’t get their hands on Warner Brother though. That’s a slippery slope…


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[asmcom]

In 2025, the consumer UHD Blu-ray drive market has crossed a critical threshold...

Yikes!

But if no-one is manufacturing drives any more, is anyone still making dedicated standalone UHD players? Because such players must obviously contain some model of OEM UHD drive.

Hi MrPenguim,

Good to hear from you and I hope the Pioneer BDR-XD08EMB-S, BDR-XD08TG and the Archgon fitted with a Hitachi BU40N drives that you purchased from us are all still running well.

You’re asking a very reasonable question, and the key point is the distinction between consumer PC optical drives and the OEM mechanisms used in standalone UHD players and consoles.

What we were referring to in our post is the consumer PC drive market internal and slimline drives sold into the PC / external enclosure space. That segment is clearly contracting, with multiple HLDS models now EOL and no visible consumer replacements.

Standalone UHD players and gaming consoles do still use optical mechanisms, but these are:

Custom OEM designs built specifically for that platform

• Not sold into the retail PC channel.

• Not firmware-compatible with PC drives.

• Fully locked down for disc playback only.

So while standalone players will likely continue to exist for some time, that does not translate into new consumer PC UHD drives becoming available.

Since the topic has come up elsewhere in the thread, it’s also worth briefly addressing the licensing point around Shanxi Lightchain.

When Shanxi Lightchain acquired Pioneer’s optical drive business, it would have been necessary for them to hold or apply for the appropriate Blu-ray related licences in order to legally own, operate, maintain, or wind down that business. That type of licence is typically corporate or device-holder related, not an indication of a new consumer product roadmap.

Importantly, holding such a licence does not mean:

• New consumer PC drives are planned.

• Production has restarted.

• A Pioneer-style replacement drive is coming.

In our own direct discussions with Lightchain, we were advised that there are no plans to manufacture new consumer optical drives, and that any production would only be considered at industrial-scale volumes, which is not realistic for a niche enthusiast market.

That said, we don’t think it’s the end of the road entirely. There have been early discussions about whether myself and Billycarr11 (another long-standing and well-respected seller on this forum) could potentially work together, possibly alongside a Taiwanese manufacturing partner, to explore whether some form of limited production might ever be feasible.

There are no promises here and nothing concrete to announce, but at the very least dialogue is taking place, and that in itself is a start. In a market like this, even conversations matter.

So our view is that the licence existed to support ownership and industrial continuity, not to signal a return to consumer PC optical drive manufacturing.

Out of interest, we’d also be keen to hear your own experience comparing the Pioneer drives (BDR-XD08EMB-S / BDR-XD08TG) against the Archgon with Hitachi BU40N you purchased from us, particularly in terms of disc tolerance and general behaviour. Community feedback like that is always valuable.

Thanks again for your continued support.

Kind regards,

Asmcom
UHD Friendly Drives Team

[MrPenguin]

Good to hear from you and I hope the Pioneer BDR-XD08EMB-S, BDR-XD08TG and the Archgon fitted with a Hitachi BU40N drives that you purchased from us are all still running well.

They are indeed, thanks . I use the BDR-XD08EMB-S for the actual ripping, and keep the BU40N just for generating dumps for The Powers That KEYDB. The BU40N has only ever struggled to read one UHD disk - "Queen - Rock Montreal & Live Aid", possibly the wide-screen version. The Pioneer reads anything, although I think it also read the problematic "Queen" disk slower than usual.

Curiously, I have been able to run both UHD drives off my PC's USB2 ports without an external power supply. (Obviously not both at once!) I am wondering if this could be because my PC's own power supply is 650W? Plugging a USB hard drive into my PC's (only - it's an old PC ) USB3 port, I can still rip a typical UHD in under 1.5 hours.

The BDR-XD08TG is stored in a cool, dry place as a back-up.

You’re asking a very reasonable question, and the key point is the distinction between consumer PC optical drives and the OEM mechanisms used in standalone UHD players and consoles.

OK, so although it doesn't help us directly, it still means that there will be an ongoing market for releasing new UHD disks. Although not for recordable BD-R XL writable disks, by the sound of it.

[MrPenguin]

1. Would these drives allow me to rip 4K UHD blurays in original quality on Linux?

MakeMKV works fine on Linux. Just make sure your kernel includes the "SCSI Generic driver" (sg).