I currently have a Samsung SH-B123L which struggles recognising and ripping some Blu-ray titles off the bat. Just curious what PC Blu-ray drives are available that will do a very good job of allowing me to rip my movies for instant access and do it fast?
The basic thing will be speed. Ripping Blu-rays takes an eternity as it is, so the faster the drive, the faster you get to enjoy your movies on your computer. Most ripping programs have error detection of some kind, so even at higher speeds, the quality of the rips won't degrade. As for a recommendation, I would say something like this would do the job rather nicely if you just wanted a reader, or this if you wanted it to be a writer as well. Both received very favorable reviews.
Thanks for the advice padrejones2001. Currently I'm trying to rip some troublesome Blu-ray discs on my old Samsung SH-B083 and I'm actually succeeding to properly recognise the media with MakeMKV where the Samsung SH-B123L failed with a SCSI error! The older drive is still under the SB01 firmware whereas the SH-B123L has the latest SB04. I'm curious if the drive has been crippled for Blu-ray ripping under this new firmware? Unfortunately the SH-B083 is terribly slow so I might just try the LG CH10LS20.
I am tempted by the older LG drive that also did HD DVD but then again they were slower and are still expensive. Choices choices!
hi, sorry to be off topic, but are you using the ripped content as back-up, or are you using it to stream around your house? or something else? i've been looking into streaming recently and i was wondering if it were possible to stream media ripped from blu-rays
Using the ripped MKV on an ASUS O!Play HD2 upgraded with a 1TB WD drive. It's a pretty good player, unfortunately it has an issue with putting the HDD into standby mode and also waking up from this state. The dirty fix is to power it down completely at the point and then turn it on again, this old trick always works! It's not too much of a problem though as I picked up a figure of 8 power switch designed for use with the PS3, works just as well on the ASUS O!Play HD2 and is more convenient than reaching for the wall socket.
sounds good, the ripped .mkv should be easy enough to stream or transfer across the network. how good is MakeMKV as a ripping tool? is it easy enough to use? also, what kind of rip times are you looking at with your Samsung? just had a look, your Samsung appears to be 12x, whereas the ones suggested by padre both appear to be 10x, would this not be slower?
It's possible, yes, that the firmware is holding you up, but it could also be the ripping method. AACS encryption algorithms change all the time and the ripping program needs to be updated to reflect that. The only program that I know of that updates the encryption algorithms on a regular basis is Make MKV. If that's what you're using and you still can't get it to recognize the media, I would say definitely try a firmware upgrade. Good luck with whichever choice you make.
Under my old Samsung SH-B083 it took a little over 75 minutes to rip a single Blu-ray that wouldn't work with the Samsung SH-B123L. A long time but at least it worked. It did give me an idea however! I've just reverted my Samsung SH-B123L back to its first firmware of SB01 and now it recognises the Blu-ray that previously didn't work. So I'm just doing a rip of that Blu-ray with MakeMKV and it is doing the business as I type this message! Also under the SB04 firmware the Samsung SH-B123L made very strange access noises, exactly as if the media were spinning up and down in quick succession. Now under SB01 firmware the issue has gone which is further convincing me that successive firmware releases has crippled Blu-ray ripping from my SH-B123L drive! At least it has been possible to revert back to the old firmware!
MakeMKV is very simple to use; with one click it analyses the disc and then you simply select which 'titles' to rip from the Blu-ray and click another button to start the extraction. From my experience rip times depend on the media, one blu-ray disc took 20 minutes whilst the one I'm doing right now is estimated to take over an hour. Also the quoted speeds on the box are not really what you'd experience in reality. I dare say the LG and Samsung have comparable read speeds!
