www.makemkv.com

Sayaka wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2026 5:07 pm I wouldn't recommend it, and in any case you should almost certainly never buy a Blu-ray drive from China (unless you know the Chinese person personally). There is a massive amount of Chinese counterfeit Blu-ray drives.

This : https://www.amazon.com/BUFFALO-Portable ... r=8-2&th=1

Is as good a brand new LG drive as you are likely to get, and this :

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/ ... u_ray.html

Is unreliable in terms of quality, far more so than the slim version it would seem, but if you really want an LG desktop drive, there you go.

But really, it's probably worth checking out the Pioneer sellers on this forum if you plan on doing a lot of ripping. Pioneer drives are so much better than LG drives most of the time, and you are less likely to have to replace them.

One exception where you may want an LG drive is for console disc ripping (PlayStation 3, Gamecube, Wii...). Pioneers cannot read PS3 discs as far as I know, and Omnidrive (which allows you to read Gamecube and Wii discs, for example) is only flashable on some LG drives.

Generally, people seem to agree that it's best to have at least one Pioneer drive, whether desktop or slim (the Pioneer desktop drives are often even better according to many, unlike the LG drives where the reverse seems to be true) and at least one slim LG drive. In that case, people tend to spare the Pioneer any unnecessary effort (since no Pioneer drives are being manufactured anymore) and mostly use it for troublesome discs.

harukane wrote: Wed Sep 09, 2026 12:23 am The title says pretty much everything.

Based on reading viewtopic.php?t=19634, I'm guessing the LG WH16NS60 is the most accessible option for me.

So, my question is: can I just buy any LG WH16NS60 from https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=LG+WH16NS60, flash it to version 1.02MK, and be good to go?

macromark wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2026 1:06 am I bought 2 of these from ebay in Aug 2025 and flashed them both with no issues. The vendor is based in NJ and this is a link to his listing: https://www.ebay.com/itm/187015965302 | There's a 30 day return policy so doesn't seem like a huge risk. That said, the price is definitely a lot higher now than it was a year ago. Obviously YMMV

harukane wrote: Thu Sep 10, 2026 11:52 pm Thank you so much for all the inputs guys. Really appreciate it.

Just a curiosity here. Why did the price hike so much after all?

I mean even for Verbatim 48888 on Amazon was quite affordable when I last purchased back in 2024 or something (which I returned for some reason) and now it is all sold out and even the price is just disgusting :/