Verbatim 43888 and 43889

[DennisOlof]

I want to understand more about the drives.

What is the difference between the drives ?

Is is true that only the 43888 had Pioneer drives in them at some point and that it is the UD03 drive, I think FW 1.14 is the most common one from what I can see on the forums and people posting about this drive?

Is that 43889 LG only, and yes I know 43888 does ship with LG now unless it is old stock or you buy from someone who has used MakeMKV to check what drive is inside the case. There is no way you can distinguish this from the outside of the box it self, is there?

As some of the units has a Pioneer drive, how come they don't have the option for additional DC PSU feeding power to the unit as the XD07 and XD08. Any specific reason for that or was it just that Pioneer gave you this option as a feature on their drives and you don't need a DC PSU unless you have problems with the USB3 connection to the drive.

I know you can remove the Verbatim drive as the case is just a SATA to USB bridge where the Pioneer XD drives are USB only.

Is there anyone here in the forums that could sell me a Verbatim drive that have a Panasonic on the inside ?

[boguslecina]

Old 43888 had Pioneer BDR-UD04, not BDR-UD03, new has Hitachi-LG BU40N

[zittrig]

Old 43888 had Pioneer BDR-UD04, not BDR-UD03, new has Hitachi-LG BU40N

Right, the former 43888 was UHD and Libre Drive ready out of the box. The former 43889 was the drive for flashing from UD03 to UD04. Both USB-C.
Only the third drive 43890 contains USB Micro-B with Y-power-cable and additionally a power supply.

The newer models both contains the BU40N and both must be flashed as far as I know.

[DennisOlof]

Aha.

Any guess to how old a Verbatim 43888 with a UD04 drive would be at least to contain that drive. When did they start switching over to LG drives.

I will assume the only way to get one is if someone is selling a drive second hand (used) one. If I remember there was or is someone on the forums that has one but it was not fun to buy stuff overseas. I did get my XD08 drive and shipping was not that bad, DHL was resonabla fast. The real pain was the tax, that alone set me back 70 GBP, if you ship something outside a business the value is much higher before you have to pay tax on it. But then most people don't ship overseas

From what I heard the Verbatim with Pioneer is a better drive but perhaps the LG is not that bad unless you want to rip UHD. If you are only reading or burning regular BluRay discs both brands should be similar in performance and quality. Even though the Pioneer over all it better, at least that is what people here in the forums say.

[boguslecina]

Mine Verbatim 43888 with Pioneer BDR-UD04 is from June 2024

[MartyMcNuts]

Aha.

Any guess to how old a Verbatim 43888 with a UD04 drive would be at least to contain that drive. When did they start switching over to LG drives.

I will assume the only way to get one is if someone is selling a drive second hand (used) one. If I remember there was or is someone on the forums that has one but it was not fun to buy stuff overseas. I did get my XD08 drive and shipping was not that bad, DHL was resonabla fast. The real pain was the tax, that alone set me back 70 GBP, if you ship something outside a business the value is much higher before you have to pay tax on it. But then most people don't ship overseas

From what I heard the Verbatim with Pioneer is a better drive but perhaps the LG is not that bad unless you want to rip UHD. If you are only reading or burning regular BluRay discs both brands should be similar in performance and quality. Even though the Pioneer over all it better, at least that is what people here in the forums say.

Jan 2025 they switched the 43888 over to the BU40N. There were a few older stock 43888's with the UD04 available until around mid 2025.

[DennisOlof]

That is not bad, then the hardware is recent. They probably had a lot of Pioneer drives for the Verbatim drive and that was the right call, seems like these BluRay capable drives are selling like crazy now even though production is no more, or at least on hiatus. There are plenty of Verbatim drives it seems but finding one that has the Pioneer is hard, there is no way of knowing unless you check with MakeMKV and if the drive is new they don't want to open the box and check. I don't blame them because a new product is what a business want to sell, unopened.

I did find two people selling used 43888 Verbatim but they had no technical skills, did not care or knew nothing when asking them about this issue. I will have to hope there is someone on Ebay selling this drive as I want to use that mostly as a main drive, reading burned BD-Rs and if possible getting my hands on a drive that works with MakeMKV and is UHD friendly without having to mess with the FW (patching etc).

[MartyMcNuts]

That is not bad, then the hardware is recent. They probably had a lot of Pioneer drives for the Verbatim drive and that was the right call, seems like these BluRay capable drives are selling like crazy now even though production is no more, or at least on hiatus. There are plenty of Verbatim drives it seems but finding one that has the Pioneer is hard, there is no way of knowing unless you check with MakeMKV and if the drive is new they don't want to open the box and check. I don't blame them because a new product is what a business want to sell, unopened.

I did find two people selling used 43888 Verbatim but they had no technical skills, did not care or knew nothing when asking them about this issue. I will have to hope there is someone on Ebay selling this drive as I want to use that mostly as a main drive, reading burned BD-Rs and if possible getting my hands on a drive that works with MakeMKV and is UHD friendly without having to mess with the FW (patching etc).

The 43887 stil has a UD03 inside which can be cross-flashed to UD04 firmware for UHD compatibility. It is essentially the same drive minus the AACS 2 chip.

[science-nerd]

That is not bad, then the hardware is recent. They probably had a lot of Pioneer drives for the Verbatim drive and that was the right call, seems like these BluRay capable drives are selling like crazy now even though production is no more, or at least on hiatus. There are plenty of Verbatim drives it seems but finding one that has the Pioneer is hard, there is no way of knowing unless you check with MakeMKV and if the drive is new they don't want to open the box and check. I don't blame them because a new product is what a business want to sell, unopened.

I did find two people selling used 43888 Verbatim but they had no technical skills, did not care or knew nothing when asking them about this issue. I will have to hope there is someone on Ebay selling this drive as I want to use that mostly as a main drive, reading burned BD-Rs and if possible getting my hands on a drive that works with MakeMKV and is UHD friendly without having to mess with the FW (patching etc).

I bought a stack but haven't checked all of them yet, those that I have had the LG BU40N in them.

Looking at Verbatims own failure statistics, they should last you long enough. I could sell you a pre-flashed drive with nearly 2 years warranty.

Are you within Europe? Or better yet Germany?

[DennisOlof]

@science-nerd I have not decided what I am going to do. I can buy brand new Verbatim with the LG BU40N inside. I am in Europe so shipping, taxes etc is not a big issue. I did order something else from Ebay a few weeks ago and it seems that all the costs for shipping and handling are included with the fee to Royal Mail. As a buyer I only had to retrieve the parcel when it arrived.

I can also still buy a LG BP55EB40 SVC EB52 but if that is better than the Verbatim I don't know. They also have the external ASUS Extern BDWriter BW-16D1X-U There are no other options here, unless you order from somewhere in or outside Europe.

For now I will wait and see what happens.

Thanks for posting the information I needed in this thread.

[science-nerd]

@science-nerd I have not decided what I am going to do. I can buy brand new Verbatim with the LG BU40N inside. I am in Europe so shipping, taxes etc is not a big issue. I did order something else from Ebay a few weeks ago and it seems that all the costs for shipping and handling are included with the fee to Royal Mail. As a buyer I only had to retrieve the parcel when it arrived.

I can also still buy a LG BP55EB40 SVC EB52 but if that is better than the Verbatim I don't know. They also have the external ASUS Extern BDWriter BW-16D1X-U There are no other options here, unless you order from somewhere in or outside Europe.

For now I will wait and see what happens.

Thanks for posting the information I needed in this thread.

I also got one BP55EB40 (SVC EB52), it is faster than the BU40N according to the spec sheet (up to 8x vs 6x read speeds), but I haven't really noticed that big a difference during rips. I don't like the micro USB Y-cable and prefer the USB-C one from the Verbatim enclosure, it's easier to replace.

I could not find any durability statistics as detailed as the Verbatim one though, so I can't speak for the long-term reliability.

To use 4k UHD rip capability, the BP55EB40 needs a two step flash process, first to BP55EB40 1.03-MK and then cross-flash BP60NB10 1.02-MK via recovery mode, so flashing this one is a bit more involved. The ultimate UHD flashing guide has a GIF showing how to perform these steps, just got to select the correct firmwares.

[boguslecina]

BP55EB40 is probably very old and harder to find than Pioneer, at least where I live.

[DennisOlof]

Yes, that could be the case that the BP55EB40 is older. I know the place that has them in stock is not a computer place, they sell a lot of other things so the small amount of electronics they have they keep for a long time. If it only has that older mini USB3 connector I guess the Verbatim is a better option because of USB-C connector.

The only reason for trying to get a Verbatim 43888 with a Pioneer is that I prefer that brand, on the other hand I might try and hold out for another XD08 drive. I have tested the XD08 I have today with CD, DVD and I also manage to burn a Traxdata BD-RW 2x disc without any issue. I don't remember but I bought them on sale a long time ago, I think 2010 or something like that but never had any use for them. Printed on the cover that they are made by ritek.

[asmcom]

Yes, that could be the case that the BP55EB40 is older. I know the place that has them in stock is not a computer place, they sell a lot of other things so the small amount of electronics they have they keep for a long time. If it only has that older mini USB3 connector I guess the Verbatim is a better option because of USB-C connector.

The only reason for trying to get a Verbatim 43888 with a Pioneer is that I prefer that brand, on the other hand I might try and hold out for another XD08 drive. I have tested the XD08 I have today with CD, DVD and I also manage to burn a Traxdata BD-RW 2x disc without any issue. I don't remember but I bought them on sale a long time ago, I think 2010 or something like that but never had any use for them. Printed on the cover that they are made by ritek.

Hello Again Denis,

I was offered 200 of the old type Verbatim 43888 with the BDR-UD04 two weeks ago, and I refused because of the issues we have experienced with this drive and also the issues customers have had on the DB poweramp forum. Out of every hundred drives, we had 10% that went faulty within 30 days of purchase, which is poor. On the other hand,d the Pioneer retail drives never really go faulty, unless Pioneer send you a box of BDR-XD08EMB-S faulty lol.

Asmcom

[boguslecina]

Yes, that could be the case that the BP55EB40 is older. I know the place that has them in stock is not a computer place, they sell a lot of other things so the small amount of electronics they have they keep for a long time. If it only has that older mini USB3 connector I guess the Verbatim is a better option because of USB-C connector.

The only reason for trying to get a Verbatim 43888 with a Pioneer is that I prefer that brand, on the other hand I might try and hold out for another XD08 drive. I have tested the XD08 I have today with CD, DVD and I also manage to burn a Traxdata BD-RW 2x disc without any issue. I don't remember but I bought them on sale a long time ago, I think 2010 or something like that but never had any use for them. Printed on the cover that they are made by ritek.

Hello Again Denis,

I was offered 200 of the old type Verbatim 43888 with the BDR-UD04 two weeks ago, and I refused because of the issues we have experienced with this drive and also the issues customers have had on the DB poweramp forum. Out of every hundred drives, we had 10% that went faulty within 30 days of purchase, which is poor. On the other hand,d the Pioneer retail drives never really go faulty, unless Pioneer send you a box of BDR-XD08EMB-S faulty lol.

Asmcom

Do you know when they were manufactured?
My Verbatim 43888 drive with Pioneer BDR-UD04 from June 2024 works perfectly. Maybe you got a defective batch. BTW, these Pioneers don't read C2 errors, maybe that's why people complain about them on the DB poweramp forum? I have no problems ripping CD-Audio to flac in Exact Audio Copy.