I own a pioneer external Blu-ray drive. Sad to see that pioneer has ended its production of optical drives.

End of an Era, sadly even have noticed LG drives not being easy to purchase in retail these days.

To be fair, most computers can't even playback a 4K Blu-ray, because the instruction set to decode the DRM has either been canned by intel, or never interested AMD/Apple/ARM, so it's a bit hard to justify buying a blu ray player for a computer when all digital got a better IQ on that platform.

dyonoctisTo be fair, most computers can't even playback a 4K Blu-ray, because the instruction set to decode the DRM has either been canned by intel, or never interested AMD/Apple/ARM, so it's a bit hard to justify buying a blu ray player for a computer when all digital got a better IQ on that platform.

Internet streaming sucks 4k streaming quality is worse than 1080p DVDs, many PC users will be going to end up on high seas thanks to lack of option for blu ray drives. I personally do use optical drives to backup important files on archival grade media so will stock up on blu burners just in case they start vanishing from market(which seems to be the case here in India).

main reason I paid extra for a disc drive ps5 recently was the 4k movies

dyonoctisTo be fair, most computers can't even playback a 4K Blu-ray, because the instruction set to decode the DRM has either been canned by intel, or never interested AMD/Apple/ARM, so it's a bit hard to justify buying a blu ray player for a computer when all digital got a better IQ on that platform.

Except all digital has horrible artifacts, terrible crushing in the blacks, unreliable audio, etc. UHD disks are the only legal way to get video worth watching on a 4k OLED tv imo. And of course, these aren't just used for playback.

My first pioneer optical drive was an external SCSI requiring a PCI card and a thick D cable

The Internet contains solutions for all our problems, eventually:

Petabyte Disc: www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06980-y

Blu Software: github.com/anomous/RedFox-Slysoft?tab=readme-ov-file

ChaitanyaInternet streaming sucks 4k streaming quality is worse than 1080p DVDs, many PC users will be going to end up on high seas thanks to lack of option for blu ray drives. I personally do use optical drives to backup important files on archival grade media so will stock up on blu burners just in case they start vanishing from market(which seems to be the case here in India).

You mean 1080p Blu-ray ? DVD tops out at 480p (576p in some areas). 1080 rips always looked blurrier on native 4k vs 4k streaming for me. But of course that depends on how robust the network infrastucture is.
You can also buy movies in 4K UHD Dolby vision on some platforms like Apple TV. IIRC, the file is around 25Gb. Things are more complicated for shows though.

(yay! dark mode!)

200 TB disc storage is waiting for the drives capable to writing on your old CD/DVDs, but the same problem of re-write ability still looms.

www.pcgamer.com/researchers-have-developed-a-very-big-disctm-that-can-store-up-to-200-terabytes-of-data-and-may-represent-a-return-to-optical-media-for-long-term-storage/

Or Blu ray player is dead.
Repair shop probably would try to replace motherboard, and 15 euro for just looking on it.
Newer played any movie with it.

The last disc I burnt was a Windows 7 .iso in 2014 I think.. I have no need for optical media anymore.. but I have a few just in case haha.

My 128GB Samsung Bar is my install media..

I just buy movies that are on sale from Apple now.. looks ok :D

dyonoctisYou mean 1080p Blu-ray ? DVD tops out at 480p (576p in some areas). 1080 rips always looked blurrier on native 4k vs 4k streaming for me. But of course that depends on how robust the network infrastucture is.
You can also buy movies in 4K UHD Dolby vision on some platforms like Apple TV. IIRC, the file is around 25Gb. Things are more complicated for shows though.

I was talking about the high seas version where you could get 1080p movies on DVDs, they were quite popular here. Apple TV is quite wierd when it comes to pricing structure and quite unpopular.

Last year I bought a high end Sony Blu Ray player and started purchasing my favorite movies/shows. Just in case they get censored or made unavailable from any streaming site. So that I can show my kids the good stuff.

mtosevI own a pioneer external Blu-ray drive. Sad to see that pioneer has ended its production of optical drives.

Pioneer barely exists at all, I'm surprised they were able to hold onto this part of their business as long as they have.

Erratic4^2Except all digital has horrible artifacts, terrible crushing in the blacks, unreliable audio, etc. UHD disks are the only legal way to get video worth watching on a 4k OLED tv imo. And of course, these aren't just used for playback.

The best quality is going to be on the disc but even if its not, if you want to own anything your only option is to buy the disc. There is growing discontent with all the BS associated with streaming from the shit quality, ever rotating catalog and inability to own anything. Its been several years now since we've reach peak steaming and this sentiment is only going to increase. Streaming isn't going to end but I could see Blu-ray coming back the same way CD and vinyl has and being a fairly substantial market for anyone that doesn't want to watch whatever piece of shit low effort Netflix or Amazon production the algorithm is recommending.

This is very bad news for JRiver, Cyberlink and other Windows htpc users who enjoy using their pc as BD players-and the surround sound from those discs decoded by those players. I just hope the entire desktop BD drive industry is not on the brink of being razed.

Rob_1The Internet contains solutions for all our problems, eventually:

Petabyte Disc: www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06980-y

Blu Software: github.com/anomous/RedFox-Slysoft?tab=readme-ov-file

Neither of those will help much when drives dry up.

News is LGs business is wrapping up too. As a user with ummm, dozens at least of 100GB M-DISC backups, not gonna lie: kinda sucks

dyonoctisTo be fair, most computers can't even playback a 4K Blu-ray, because the instruction set to decode the DRM has either been canned by intel, or never interested AMD/Apple/ARM, so it's a bit hard to justify buying a blu ray player for a computer when all digital got a better IQ on that platform.

Space Lynxmain reason I paid extra for a disc drive ps5 recently was the 4k movies

Erratic4^2Except all digital has horrible artifacts, terrible crushing in the blacks, unreliable audio, etc. UHD disks are the only legal way to get video worth watching on a 4k OLED tv imo. And of course, these aren't just used for playback.

www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/optical-drive-demand-surges-amid-windows-10-retirement-japanese-users-switching-to-windows-11-are-buying-up-blu-ray-drives

While it may seem to make one hopeful it's probably no indication that BD drives are still not headed the way of VCRs. Still, it got me wondering if Buffalo 5.25" tray BD drives really are made in Japan. https://buffaloamericas(dot)com/products/me ... ray-writer If so, then given economic pressures and Japan's reputation for high design and build quality have you heard how that external BD drive compares to this popular ASUS model? https://www.microcenter(dot)com/product/479 ... toreID=171

Or this oddly non-Asian brand. https://www.kanguru(dot)com/pages/contact-us And from where you can apparently buy direct. https://www.kanguru(dot)com/products/kangur ... isk-burner

Note from that report that the big local demand among PC builders was for internal BD drives, which Buffalo, Kangaru nor ASUS make, at least not the 5.25" tray drive kind I prefer. Don't know how popular BD burning may be in Japan but USB limits external drive burning speeds and/or like me they may prefer internal aesthetics and especially not having the added clutter from an external drive.

BTW, my sustaining interest in makeMKV and BD drives is for directly viewing BD and DVD movies and TV shows, and later how they will improve expand the capabilities of the 3.1 system I'm building. makeMKV decrypts my BD movies for VLC, PowerDVD or JRiver, which decodes DTSMA surround sound to output to almost any processor, stereo or multichannel DAC. And if you love to play around with content like I do, VLC has the best slow motion and JRiver and/or PowerDVD have the best zoom control. Only the >$1500. Magnetar is the only currently available BD player with zoom control.

My advice to members of forums where BD optical media matters is to contact brands who clearly feel the same way, particularly Kangaru and Buffalo. Let them know why BD media and a specific kind of drive are important to you and your member communities. Even they don't reply they did get the message and may act on it within the year. If not, then try giant ASUS, who may feel more inclined to market specialty products to niche communities like ours and like these. https://www.blu-ray(dot)com/



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cin5www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/optical-drive-demand-surges-amid-windows-10-retirement-japanese-users-switching-to-windows-11-are-buying-up-blu-ray-drives

While it may seem to make one hopeful it's probably no indication that BD drives are still not headed the way of VCRs. Still, it got me wondering if Buffalo 5.25" tray BD drives really are made in Japan. https://buffaloamericas(dot)com/products/me ... ray-writer If so, then given economic pressures and Japan's reputation for high design and build quality have you heard how that external BD drive compares to this popular ASUS model? https://www.microcenter(dot)com/product/479 ... toreID=171

Or this oddly non-Asian brand. https://www.kanguru(dot)com/pages/contact-us And from where you can apparently buy direct. https://www.kanguru(dot)com/products/kangur ... isk-burner

Note from that report that the big local demand among PC builders was for internal BD drives, which Buffalo, Kangaru nor ASUS make, at least not the 5.25" tray drive kind I prefer. Don't know how popular BD burning may be in Japan but USB limits external drive burning speeds and/or like me they may prefer internal aesthetics and especially not having the added clutter from an external drive.

BTW, my sustaining interest in makeMKV and BD drives is for directly viewing BD and DVD movies and TV shows, and later how they will improve expand the capabilities of the 3.1 system I'm building. makeMKV decrypts my BD movies for VLC, PowerDVD or JRiver, which decodes DTSMA surround sound to output to almost any processor, stereo or multichannel DAC. And if you love to play around with content like I do, VLC has the best slow motion and JRiver and/or PowerDVD have the best zoom control. Only the >$1500. Magnetar is the only currently available BD player with zoom control.

My advice to members of forums where BD optical media matters is to contact brands who clearly feel the same way, particularly Kangaru and Buffalo. Let them know why BD media and a specific kind of drive are important to you and your member communities. Even they don't reply they did get the message and may act on it within the year. If not, then try giant ASUS, who may feel more inclined to market specialty products to niche communities like ours and like these. https://www.blu-ray(dot)com/



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MakeMKV and Jellyfin are wonderful applications. I respect the thoughtfulness of your reply, especially about reaching out to the brands.