Innternal Blu Ray Drive

[Jeff Gaines]

I have been cleaning up my DVD collection and converting several to MP4 so
I can stream them over my home network.

DVD drives always seem to me a bit sensitive and temperamental and VLC
always seems unhappy about playing them. I have been looking at Blu Ray
drives and they seem to range in price form £85 to £300 from what I've
seen so far.

Any suggestions for a make/model robust enough to read/play anything
that's chucked at it without getting into a hissy fit?

[Sump]

Post by Jeff Gaines
I have been cleaning up my DVD collection and converting several to MP4 so
I can stream them over my home network.
DVD drives always seem to me a bit sensitive and temperamental and VLC
always seems unhappy about playing them. I have been looking at Blu Ray
drives and they seem to range in price form £85 to £300 from what I've
seen so far.
Any suggestions for a make/model robust enough to read/play anything
that's chucked at it without getting into a hissy fit?

I have an Asus BW-16D1HT with v3.11 firmware - bought via Amazon/from Amazon direct circa £90.

It will rip Bluray's with makemkv under linux Mint for each title, but needs to be flashed with modded firmware to rip 4K discs which I haven't done. Inserting a 4K disk just seems to be ignored and the drive appears "empty" I presume the patched
firmware resolves this issue.

I've used DVDfab13 under WIndows 10 via virtualbox to rip disks without issue - but map the optical drive directly to the guest with "passthrough" and "hot-pluggable" enabled.

And DVDfab is trialware - so I don't use it now.

Can't see any native Blueray player software for Linux anywhere - probably DRM "issues"

ruby-ripper for CD audio works fine too.

And I haven't burnt any DVD or Blueray (or MDISC) discs on the Asus - so can't attest to reliability etc.

In terms of DVD rips and burns, I've never had any issues using an external USB slimline optical from Lite-on. Using either xfburn; dvdbackup, vobcopy (now obsolete) or DVDfab as above.

And, have plenty of disc space!

[Jeff Gaines]

Post by Sump
In terms of DVD rips and burns, I've never had any issues using an
external USB slimline optical from Lite-on. Using either xfburn;
dvdbackup, vobcopy (now obsolete) or DVDfab as above.

Many thanks for all the advice!

On win 10 the best option seems to be:

AnyDVD
https://www.redfox.bz/en/anydvdhd.html

with

MakeMKV
https://www.makemkv.com/

MakeMKV does work on its own but just seems smoother with the help of
AnyDVD. I think the quality is better than mp4 but that's just a
subjective judgement. It also finds the chapters so I have separate files
for each episode, the other method I tried only produced one file for the
disk and then only seemed to have the first episode, anyway fine now.

Only problem I have found is one of the DVDs has an extra file, it should
only have 2 episodes but has found 3!

I'm OK for disk space but copying them over the network from the working
machine to my main machine is a killer!

I've ordered the Asus BW-16D1HT, it's on its way.

As part of my trying to make life easier I decided that I would use a
spare PC next to the HiFi cabinet and plug it into the only unused HDMI
port on the AV Receiver and control it via RDP. Unbuilt the study, rebuilt
the lounge and, of course, realised that although you can output the sound
from the remote PC the picture is on the machine you are controlling it
with. There must be a way round but playing these videos via the Roku is
much easier. Oh, Mellow Magic is coming through on the AV receiver 100%
now. I emailed Yamaha and they replied by return saying they would check
via their radio service supplier, nothing heard since but a couple of day
later it perked up enormously.

All good fun :-)

[SH]

Post by Jeff Gaines

Post by Sump
In terms of DVD rips and burns, I've never had any issues using an
external USB slimline optical from Lite-on. Using either xfburn;
dvdbackup, vobcopy (now obsolete) or DVDfab as above.

Many thanks for all the advice!
AnyDVD
https://www.redfox.bz/en/anydvdhd.html
with
MakeMKV
https://www.makemkv.com/
MakeMKV does work on its own but just seems smoother with the help of
AnyDVD. I think the quality is better than mp4 but that's just a
subjective judgement. It also finds the chapters so I have separate
files for each episode, the other method I tried only produced one file
for the disk and then only seemed to have the first episode, anyway fine
now.
Only problem I have found is one of the DVDs has an extra file, it
should only have 2 episodes but has found 3!
I'm OK for disk space but copying them over the network from the working
machine to my main machine is a killer!

That's your next project, upgrade your network to 10 GbE, that will give
you 1.25 Gbyte/Sec transfer :-)

Alternatively you could use the SneakerNet standard, the fastest ever
network possible using your portable DAS unit.... :-)

Post by Jeff Gaines
I've ordered the Asus BW-16D1HT, it's on its way.
As part of my trying to make life easier I decided that I would use a
spare PC next to the HiFi cabinet and plug it into the only unused HDMI
port on the AV Receiver and control it via RDP. Unbuilt the study,
rebuilt the lounge and, of course, realised that although you can output
the sound from the remote PC the picture is on the machine you are
controlling it with. There must be a way round but playing these videos
via the Roku is much easier. Oh, Mellow Magic is coming through on the
AV receiver 100% now. I emailed Yamaha and they replied by return saying
they would check via their radio service supplier, nothing heard since
but a couple of day later it perked up enormously.
All good fun :-)

[SH]

Post by Jeff Gaines
Oh, Mellow Magic is coming through on the
AV receiver 100% now. I emailed Yamaha and they replied by return saying
they would check via their radio service supplier, nothing heard since
but a couple of day later it perked up enormously.

Maybe I an a cynical old git but Yamaha will presumably be paying
royalties to the service provider for the "privilege" of hosting the
radio stations.

Perhaps Yamaha or the service provider may have degraded the service in
order to find out if anyone would notice......

no complaints, means either Yamaha can pay less for fewer radio services
or the service provider can make more profit by quietly dropping the
degraded radio stations that Yamaha are paying for?

[Jeff Gaines]

Post by SH

Oh, Mellow Magic is coming through on the AV receiver 100% now. I emailed
Yamaha and they replied by return saying they would check via their radio
service supplier, nothing heard since but a couple of day later it perked
up enormously.

Maybe I an a cynical old git but Yamaha will presumably be paying
royalties to the service provider for the "privilege" of hosting the radio
stations.
Perhaps Yamaha or the service provider may have degraded the service in
order to find out if anyone would notice......
no complaints, means either Yamaha can pay less for fewer radio services
or the service provider can make more profit by quietly dropping the
degraded radio stations that Yamaha are paying for?

You could be right. From the comments in here when I first mentioned
Mellow Magic I suspect I am their only listener :-)

[Sump]

Post by Jeff Gaines
MakeMKV does work on its own but just seems smoother with the help of
AnyDVD. I think the quality is better than mp4 but that's just a
subjective judgement. It also finds the chapters so I have separate files
for each episode, the other method I tried only produced one file for the
disk and then only seemed to have the first episode, anyway fine now.

Yes, MakeMKV is an extractor and image creator (MKV), very much like handbrake (Usually MP4)... It isn't a DVD or Bluray verbatim copier.

So for each title - you'll get a new file. And I think (?) that by default they both just pick the largest title time wise - presuming that would be the main film etc.

e.g. Handbrake: an example DVD containing 4 episodes, you'll have to queue up the four DVD titles with 4 unique output filenames.

DVDfab will copy the disc file structure, either DVD or Bluray, but newer discs (later protections) are only supported on the paid version.

I'll have a look at AnyDVD.

Post by Jeff Gaines
I've ordered the Asus BW-16D1HT, it's on its way.

Excellent, update us all if you ever decide to flash the drive with "libredrive" firmware for 4K blurays. I can't afford the space, given that 4K can be up to a 4 layer BDrom at 128GB..

[Sump]

Post by Sump

Post by Jeff Gaines
MakeMKV does work on its own but just seems smoother with the help of
AnyDVD. I think the quality is better than mp4 but that's just a
subjective judgement. It also finds the chapters so I have separate files
for each episode, the other method I tried only produced one file for the
disk and then only seemed to have the first episode, anyway fine now.

Hi Jeff, apologies..

Post by Sump
Yes, MakeMKV is an extractor and image creator (MKV), very much like handbrake (Usually MP4)... It isn't a DVD or Bluray verbatim copier.
So for each title - you'll get a new file. And I think (?) that by default they both just pick the largest title time wise - presuming that would be the main film etc.
e.g. Handbrake: an example DVD containing 4 episodes, you'll have to queue up the four DVD titles with 4 unique output filenames.
DVDfab will copy the disc file structure, either DVD or Bluray, but newer discs (later protections) are only supported on the paid version.
I'll have a look at AnyDVD.

I've misread your first paragraph... You already know what I've just said above!

Post by Sump

Post by Jeff Gaines
I've ordered the Asus BW-16D1HT, it's on its way.

Excellent, update us all if you ever decide to flash the drive with "libredrive" firmware for 4K blurays. I can't afford the space, given that 4K can be up to a 4 layer BDrom at 128GB..

[Jeff Gaines]

Post by Jeff Gaines
I'm OK for disk space but copying them over the network from the working
machine to my main machine is a killer!

Spoke too soon. Down to 9% free space on drives. Decided to take drives
(collection of spinners ordered at different times from different places
per Jaimie's instructions) out of unused Buffalo and put in the spare
QNAP. Couldn't find key to Buffalo, looked everywhere and was wondering
whether to break in. One last place - tin in bureau marked "keys" there it
was, stupid place to keep it!

Post by Jeff Gaines
I've ordered the Asus BW-16D1HT, it's on its way.

Arrived about an hour ago, OEM version (thought I had ordered retail).
Enclosed DVD has star shaped crack in it and thought do I fit it or don't
I? Anyway fitted it and although light comes on it's dead as a Dodo :-(
Will be collected by postie tomorrow and replacement is on the way.

I think it is the only item I've ever had from Amazon that arrived DOA,
had to happen sometime I guess.