UHD capable drive - UK based

[Headbanger]

Could someone help confirm which drives are capable of UHD ripping and available in the UK please?

Having looked in the forums here to see what the current recommended drives are I was shocked to read that these drives are no longer being manufactured. My ASUS drive is failing leaving me with just one (much better) Pioneer BDR-212V and I would like to purchase a backup (or two!).

Apologies if I have missed the info posted already on here (there are many, many posts!!) but are there any drives still available in the UK that are UHD compatible (either out of the box or flashable)? Additionally, do I still need to watch the manf date / firmware versions or do the flashers now deal with that problem?

Thanks for any pointers!

HB

[DennisOlof]

As I was crawling on ebay a lot the last two days I have this information for you.

The Verbatim 43888 drive is on sale from a user called "ultrahd-drives" on ebay (UK) site. That drive is pre-patched and works for UHD ripping, looks like they are asking 275£ for a unit. This is external slim drive over USB. There are some 5.52 LG units you can find there as well. It seems possible to still find Pioneer BDR-XD drives, even though I suspect some listings probably are selling fake one.

There are people on for forum also selling hardware, go and have a look there.

Check ebay for LG, Asus as there are still drive out there. For now at least.

[Headbanger]

Thanks Dennis.

There are Verbatim 43888s available on various UK sites for around £100. Are these all flashable or only certain ones (manf date / firmware version)?
I looked here for a UK seller of a pre-configured drive but there only seems to be one https://shop.uhdfriendlydrives.co.uk/ and they seem to be closed atm.

Are any Pioneer drives now flashable if I find one? I've seen some Japanese BDR-S13J-X but old posts on here seem to suggest that they cannot be flashed. There are loads of Ebay listings for various Pioneers but I suspect most are selling fake, cloned drives.

Failing that, are all of the ASUS and LG drives now able to be flashed?

HB

[DennisOlof]

Yes, you can flash some drives on your own. There is plenty of information here on the forums and you can get help from other users. They also offer flashing help where you pay some money and (I guess) they send you what you need with instructions on what to do etc.

The issue now is getting hold of a drive in the first place. Verbatim (who now use LG hardware from what I understand) is possible to flash and also LG drives. Also the Pioneer BDR-XD drives can be patched for UHD, billycar11 in the "drives for sale" subforum have the XD08 pre-patched for sale. It seems that there are more Pioneer slim drives still out there but they have become expensive as well. I have no issue paying a lot of money for a drive as long as I get one that is genuine and that is the issue. To many fake driver out there and sellers in China.

It seems that LG and Asus do have 5.25 drives that you can find on Ebay etc. There are genuine drives out there but I am not sure I can trust sellers from China as there are to many fake drives out there. I would prefer a genuine Pioneer BDR-S11 or BDR-211 or newer as long as it has a decent manufacturing date. I want to use that for creating quality backups of personal information, UHD ripping is not something I am interested in.

Are there not any other second hand electronics site in the U.K. or it it only ebay ?

[Toscaclarinet]

Thanks Dennis.

There are Verbatim 43888s available on various UK sites for around £100. Are these all flashable or only certain ones (manf date / firmware version)?
I looked here for a UK seller of a pre-configured drive but there only seems to be one https://shop.uhdfriendlydrives.co.uk/ and they seem to be closed atm.

Are any Pioneer drives now flashable if I find one? I've seen some Japanese BDR-S13J-X but old posts on here seem to suggest that they cannot be flashed. There are loads of Ebay listings for various Pioneers but I suspect most are selling fake, cloned drives.

Failing that, are all of the ASUS and LG drives now able to be flashed?

HB

The 43888s that are in stock in various UK sites will either be a Pioneer and should work out of the box, or will be a LG BU40N which is flashable using the instructions found on these forums. The person charging £175 for flashing the drive is ripping you off.

There are also still some sites like scan selling 5.25" drives, mainly as external ones in an enclosure. https://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-t ... pportusb30 These will need flashing and could be either Pioneer or LG, but people on the forum will help once you know what model of drive you have.

I would stay away from ebay. Most of the previously trusty sellers seem to have taken advantage of drive scarcity and are charging ridiculously high prices.

[Headbanger]

Many thanks both.

Yeah some of the prices now being charged are ridiculous but that's how supply and demand works; especially with finite stock.

@Toscaclarinet - funnily enough I did look at that drive but was put off by not being 100% sure whether it would work with MakeMKV. I have now ordered one so thanks very much!

I will post again once I receive it next week.

HB

[Headbanger]

Great service from Scan - DPD delivered earlier toady (Sunday!).

So the good news (I think) is that it has a Pioneer BDR-212T internal drive. However, it's not opening UHD BDs and I'm hoping this can be solved with a cross flash? Unfortunately the site will not allow me to attach a screen shot saying 'board attachment quota has been reached'. So here's a copy & paste:

Drive Information
OS device name: \Device\CdRom1
Current profile: BD-ROM
Manufacturer: ASUS
Product: BW-16D1H-U
Revision: E116
Serial number:
Firmware date: 2020-07-21
Bus encryption flags: 1B
Highest AACS version: 82

LibreDrive Information
Status: Enabled
Drive platform: RS8F00
Firmware name: PIONEER BDR-212T
Firmware type: Original (unpatched)
Firmware version: E116/ID71
DVD all regions: Yes
BD raw data read: Yes
BD raw metadata read: Yes
Unrestricted read speed: Yes

No disc inserted

Can someone help and advise which firmware I should flash please? Thnx

HB

[Billycar11]

Great service from Scan - DPD delivered earlier toady (Sunday!).

So the good news (I think) is that it has a Pioneer BDR-212T internal drive. However, it's not opening UHD BDs and I'm hoping this can be solved with a cross flash? Unfortunately the site will not allow me to attach a screen shot saying 'board attachment quota has been reached'. So here's a copy & paste:

Drive Information
OS device name: \Device\CdRom1
Current profile: BD-ROM
Manufacturer: ASUS
Product: BW-16D1H-U
Revision: E116
Serial number:
Firmware date: 2020-07-21
Bus encryption flags: 1B
Highest AACS version: 82

LibreDrive Information
Status: Enabled
Drive platform: RS8F00
Firmware name: PIONEER BDR-212T
Firmware type: Original (unpatched)
Firmware version: E116/ID71
DVD all regions: Yes
BD raw data read: Yes
BD raw metadata read: Yes
Unrestricted read speed: Yes

No disc inserted

Can someone help and advise which firmware I should flash please? Thnx

HB

yes just email me that info below you can find my email

[Headbanger]

To close this thread, I can confirm that with some help from Billycar11 here I now have a fully functioning UHD capable Pioneer drive (albeit within an ASUS casing).


HB

[DennisOlof]

Not so fast.

Do all the BW-16D1H-U USB3 units have a PIONEER BDR-212T in them, and if so is this drive the same quality as a BDR-212DBK ?

Is it better for me to try and get this driver because it has a genuine Pioneer drive in it, as I am looking for a device that will produce the best possible results when burning BluRay discs for backup, the only brand I can get hold of is Verbatim.

Would this drive be better compared to LG 5.25 drive of LG slim drives ?

It seems you can remove the unit as they have them on Ebay from China so the USB3 case is more for portability and easy of use.

[Toscaclarinet]

Not so fast.

Do all the BW-16D1H-U USB3 units have a PIONEER BDR-212T in them, and if so is this drive the same quality as a BDR-212DBK ?

Is it better for me to try and get this driver because it has a genuine Pioneer drive in it, as I am looking for a device that will produce the best possible results when burning BluRay discs for backup, the only brand I can get hold of is Verbatim.

Would this drive be better compared to LG 5.25 drive of LG slim drives ?

It seems you can remove the unit as they have them on Ebay from China so the USB3 case is more for portability and easy of use.

From what I can glean from various forum postings, the drives in the 2 different ASUS 5.25 externals can either be Pioneers or they can be LGs. I thought I had worked out that one was a Pioneer and one was an LG but then other people were finding that the drive I thought was always a Pioneer contained an LG. So I think it is up to luck which manufacturer you get and the exact drive model, and maybe specific geographical location? But if Headbanger got a Pioneer ordering the pro model from scan, you might be more likely to get a Pioneer if you order that exact model from them? But then again, you might end up with a different manufacturing batch!

As far as I can tell all Pioneers are better than LG, and both desktop and slim drives are good, but LG's slim drives are generally better than their desktop 5.25s. From my experience though some LG 5.25 drives are better than others, even if they are supposedly the exact same internals. One of my LG 5.25 ones will read discs the other won't even touch!

I think the 212T is the same as a 212DBK but you'll have to get someone like Billycar to confirm.

[DennisOlof]

@Toscaclarinet thanks.

So I should try and get a Pioneer because they are in general the better drive compared to LG. The only thing I will use the drive for it backup of important personal data like pictures and videos to Verbatim discs. BD-R single layer discs and DVD-R single layer discs.

Nothing fancy or special but as you say I have also read a lot of issues and random quality problems with different LG drives etc. Also in the imgburn forums they said that Pioneer firmware was horrible when it came to speed of writing to media, it was all over the place but they did not say this caused a quality problem. More of a issue that the drive did not meet the specifications for writing speeds etc.

It would seem that getting my hands on a ASUS BW-16D1H-U Pro is not impossible as I want to try and not have to order drives from China. The hard part is getting a pioneer version. I guess if you buy old stock it should be pioneer drive as they have probably switched to LG now that Pioneer is out.

[Headbanger]

I found this article on the Pioneer 12 series (although not all variants are listed). Looks like they all have an identical drive with differing externals but with different capabilities enabled. Makes sense because as long as they don’t have Pioneer’s latest firmwares installed, they can all be cross flashed.

https://www.cdrinfo.pl/artykuly/artykul ... 12English/

I ordered another pro version from Scan to keep as my last resort backup should both my current 2 fail. It again came with a Pionner 212T drive now flashed as the UHD variant.

HB

[Coopervid]

I found this article on the Pioneer 12 series (although not all variants are listed). Looks like they all have an identical drive with differing externals but with different capabilities enabled. Makes sense because as long as they don’t have Pioneer’s latest firmwares installed, they can all be cross flashed.

https://www.cdrinfo.pl/artykuly/artykul ... 12English/

I ordered another pro version from Scan to keep as my last resort backup should both my current 2 fail. It again came with a Pionner 212T drive now flashed as the UHD variant.

HB

The 212BK and 212DBK have a plastic laser lens instead of a glass lens. Not important for reading UHDs when crossflashed but writing performance on 3 and 4 layer discs is worse according to asmcom who performed tests for comparison.

[Headbanger]

I found this article on the Pioneer 12 series (although not all variants are listed). Looks like they all have an identical drive with differing externals but with different capabilities enabled. Makes sense because as long as they don’t have Pioneer’s latest firmwares installed, they can all be cross flashed.

https://www.cdrinfo.pl/artykuly/artykul ... 12English/

I ordered another pro version from Scan to keep as my last resort backup should both my current 2 fail. It again came with a Pionner 212T drive now flashed as the UHD variant.

HB

The 212BK and 212DBK have a plastic laser lens instead of a glass lens. Not important for reading UHDs when crossflashed but writing performance on 3 and 4 layer discs is worse according to asmcom who performed tests for comparison.

Thanks Coopervid.
What drive(s) are the 212T and 212V variants of? So confusing!

HB