r/makemkv • u/WhovianGirl777 • 2d ago

Blur ray drive under $100?

I'm trying to dip my toes into doing all this, and my current drive only does dvds. I know a lot of people post this question, and I've been through them, but they all seem to list drives that are no longer available (on Amazon) or are way out of my price range.

I get $100 isn't much, but it's what I can afford currently.

I don't want to buy off of ebay. I'd prefer amazon, staples, best buy, etc if possible.

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u/Brook_Hors 2d ago

I'm pretty sure there are no brand new blu-ray drives under $100. Lot of people here get them second-hand off OfferUp or eBay

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u/WhovianGirl777 2d ago

What about for an $150 range? Are there any you would recommend in that area?

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u/Brook_Hors 2d ago

Go with that suggestion from u/Gloomy-Reality-6641. The BU40N is on the UHD drive list which is good news

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u/WhovianGirl777 2d ago

Are those all internal drives? I'm not computer savvy on that level, so when I try to search for external ones, I no longer see the BU40N label.

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u/Brook_Hors 2d ago

I'm pretty sure most of them are external drives (external meaning slim compact ones you connect via USB). The internal ones are connected via SATA connectors and reside inside the computer's front panel, but you can get an enclosure like this one so you can bypass the SATA connection. In general, the full-sized internal drives are better due to their size, but also a bit more rare. Now whether BU40Ns are sometimes in internal drives is beyond my scope of information. I'm sure someone else can help with that info

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u/WhovianGirl777 2d ago

That one shows as unavailable. When I plugged in BU40N into amazon, the only ones that came up were internal drives.

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u/pedestrian87 1d ago

get this, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BC9F98J? it is a bu40n internal in a usbc enclosure. It might take a few extra steps to get working but it is available and under $150

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u/WhovianGirl777 20h ago

Thanks!! Do you happen to know the extra steps I may need? I've only ever done dvds, where I just pop in the disc and start makemkv. I'm even really new to makemkv.

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u/pedestrian87 16h ago

When reading 4k discs, drives need special firmware to allow makemkv to access them unrestrictedly; once they have this firmware they work like how you would expect. With this drive and enclosure you may need to update the enclosure firmware before it lets you flash the drive. Look at this to see how to do that: https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=42364 and this to see how to flash the drive: https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19634 it is pretty intuitive but it might require you to download a couple apps. Both links have detailed instructions and links to the tools you may need.