BD-R DL burn reliability across LG-based drives — WH16NS60 1.02-MK vs BU40N 1.03-MK vs BW-16D1HT 3.10-MK

[Razer82]

Hey everyone,

I split my time between two countries, so I've ended up with a small fleet of drives rather than one setup I carry around. Mostly I'm ripping regular Blu-ray, with UHD less often, and I also burn BD-R/BD-R DL discs from the ripped files so my kids can grab a physical movie off the shelf instead of streaming, and to keep the originals protected. So for me, keeping burning solid matters just as much as keeping the ripping side working.

Here's what I've got:

In one country: a Verbatim 43888 (older stock with a Pioneer BDR-UD04 inside, still on stock 1.14, never flashed) paired with an OWC Mercury Pro that came with an LG WH16NS40, which I cross-flashed to WH16NS60 1.02-MK.

In the other: a second Verbatim 43888 (same Pioneer setup, also stock), an ASUS SBW-06D5H-U with its BU40N flashed to 1.03-MK (carry in the backpack), and an ASUS BW-16D1X-U that I cross-flashed with the BW-16D1HT 3.10-MK firmware.

The Verbatim/Pioneer pair I know not to patch — they're staying stock. My plan is actually to keep those two reserved for ripping, especially the tougher/problem discs, and deliberately not use them for burning BD-R DL, since I'd rather not put that kind of laser wear on them. So the LG-based drives are the ones that'll be doing the DL burning duty.

Which is why I really want to nail down BD-R DL (the 50GB dual-layer discs) on those three. I've seen scattered reports around the forum of burns completing but failing verification right at the layer break, on a few different LG/MediaTek-platform drives, and I'd rather sort this out on paper than by burning through a stack of coasters (costly coasters ). So for the three flashed drives above:

- Has anyone gotten clean, verified BD-R DL burns on WH16NS60 1.02-MK?
- Same question for BU40N 1.03-MK?
- And for BW-16D1HT 3.10-MK — is the layer-break issue baked into that platform regardless of firmware, or does 3.10-MK specifically hold up okay?

If DL just isn't reliable on one or more of these no matter what, that's fine, I'll stick to single-layer BD-R on that drive. And I'm also open to just picking up an extra drive dedicated purely to burning, left on completely stock/untouched firmware, if that turns out to be the more reliable route for DL specifically — in which case, is there a drive currently known to handle BD-R DL cleanly out of the box, no flashing involved?

Thanks for reading through all that — happy to report back with results if it's useful for anyone else in the same boat. Also, I already have a MakeMKV license, and honestly this project has been worth it many times over, so I'm planning to pick up a couple more licenses just to support the project further.

[Sayaka]

Sadly, back when people were burning more discs than they do now, I am fairly confident they would have recommended a Pioneer for burning.

Yes, this does mean that nowadays you probably shouldn't be burning discs at all anymore, barring very, very specific circumstances. Storing ISOs or MKV files on things like HDDs is much easier, really (not to mention it's what's recommended given the shortage of Blu-ray drives).

I cannot really give good advice on burning because I have only ever burned one single layer Blu-ray disc (with a BU40N-based drive I believe, with firmware version 1.00-DE - admittedly it worked just fine), but you might want to have a look at this if you wish to disregard my advice and burn some discs anyway : viewtopic.php?p=202658#p202658

Also please note that there are some UHD Blu-rays that are dual layer and can store up to around 66GB of data. This is more than can be stored on a writable dual-layer disc (50GB).

[Coopervid]

Hey everyone,

I split my time between two countries, so I've ended up with a small fleet of drives rather than one setup I carry around. Mostly I'm ripping regular Blu-ray, with UHD less often, and I also burn BD-R/BD-R DL discs from the ripped files so my kids can grab a physical movie off the shelf instead of streaming, and to keep the originals protected. So for me, keeping burning solid matters just as much as keeping the ripping side working.

Here's what I've got:

In one country: a Verbatim 43888 (older stock with a Pioneer BDR-UD04 inside, still on stock 1.14, never flashed) paired with an OWC Mercury Pro that came with an LG WH16NS40, which I cross-flashed to WH16NS60 1.02-MK.

In the other: a second Verbatim 43888 (same Pioneer setup, also stock), an ASUS SBW-06D5H-U with its BU40N flashed to 1.03-MK (carry in the backpack), and an ASUS BW-16D1X-U that I cross-flashed with the BW-16D1HT 3.10-MK firmware.

The Verbatim/Pioneer pair I know not to patch — they're staying stock. My plan is actually to keep those two reserved for ripping, especially the tougher/problem discs, and deliberately not use them for burning BD-R DL, since I'd rather not put that kind of laser wear on them. So the LG-based drives are the ones that'll be doing the DL burning duty.

Which is why I really want to nail down BD-R DL (the 50GB dual-layer discs) on those three. I've seen scattered reports around the forum of burns completing but failing verification right at the layer break, on a few different LG/MediaTek-platform drives, and I'd rather sort this out on paper than by burning through a stack of coasters (costly coasters ). So for the three flashed drives above:

- Has anyone gotten clean, verified BD-R DL burns on WH16NS60 1.02-MK?
- Same question for BU40N 1.03-MK?
- And for BW-16D1HT 3.10-MK — is the layer-break issue baked into that platform regardless of firmware, or does 3.10-MK specifically hold up okay?

If DL just isn't reliable on one or more of these no matter what, that's fine, I'll stick to single-layer BD-R on that drive. And I'm also open to just picking up an extra drive dedicated purely to burning, left on completely stock/untouched firmware, if that turns out to be the more reliable route for DL specifically — in which case, is there a drive currently known to handle BD-R DL cleanly out of the box, no flashing involved?

Thanks for reading through all that — happy to report back with results if it's useful for anyone else in the same boat. Also, I already have a MakeMKV license, and honestly this project has been worth it many times over, so I'm planning to pick up a couple more licenses just to support the project further.

If you want to burn you should use the Pioneers. In any case there might be issues at the layer break. Please check out this new fork of TSMuxer which can add a "layer break guard" to avoid these issues.

https://github.com/teaching-droid/tsMuxer

[Razer82]

Thanks both , I really appreciate it. I will try the tsMuxer fork, might be the right tool.

Just a follow-up, with the layer-break guard handling the defect zone, do you think the LG-based firmware I've got (WH16NS60 1.02-MK / BU40N 1.03-MK / BW-16D1HT 3.10-MK) would be fine for DL burning now, or is Pioneer still the safer bet even with this, or even maybe move the slim BU40N to 1.00 DE?

[Coopervid]

Thanks both , I really appreciate it. I will try the tsMuxer fork, might be the right tool.

Just a follow-up, with the layer-break guard handling the defect zone, do you think the LG-based firmware I've got (WH16NS60 1.02-MK / BU40N 1.03-MK / BW-16D1HT 3.10-MK) would be fine for DL burning now, or is Pioneer still the safer bet even with this, or even maybe move the slim BU40N to 1.00 DE?

You can check yourself. Flash one of the full size drives to WH16NS58 1.V5 and do quality checks with qxptool.

https://github.com/speed47/qpxtool/releases

It might report issues around the layer break but if you have chosen the dummy area large enough it doesn't matter. Look at the quality of the remaining areas.