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Thursday, February 25th, 2021 07:18 am
flashing drives and ripping things
So among my accomplishments this year, I have successfully flashed my new bluray drive back to older firmware to gain unlimited read/write speed and also to rip 4Ks. My old drive is starting to be quirky, and as my pandemic sanity project is ripping and encoding movies, I went ahead and did some budget magic to upgrade it. Now I did not--at the time--realize that the winter storm had quite literally killed all my refrigerated/freezer food, granted, but I can't say that would have actually mattered; in fact, it getting here for me to play with is kind of helping me deal with replacing everything.
(Note: I still haven't cleaned out the fridge and refrigerator, but that's because until yesterday afternoon, all the dumpsters in my complex were overflowing as no one had done pickup in a week and change and I will not, not, not make the horror worse by putting two trash bags of dairy, meat, and assorted to the nightmare when temperatures are normalizing into the sixties--a week ago single digits, that really happened--and make everyone live with that kind of hellscape. I don't blame people who did--their power was completely out and stayed out longer than mine--but I would have been a lot less prissy if I had to deal with that smell in my apartment, too.)
MakeMKV added speed control to their software, but it has to be set in the settings, not GUI. This drive isn't quite getting the same speeds, but a.) it's a new drive, b.) I just flashed it so I may need to do some finagling, and c.) every disc is different, even accounting for DVD/Blu-Ray/4K Blu-Ray. I tested Ant-Man and the Wasp 4K yesterday and got the rip up to 6.2X, but today with The Stand 1994 bluray (not 4K) it only went up to 5X (at best). And yes, there is a difference in speed reading toward the edge (faster) and the interior (slower).
Notes on Movies
It occurs to me that I haven't actively watched a disc in over a year, but that's only an escalation. Before that, a disc was removed virgin from the case and ripped first; only then did Child or I put it in the X-Box for watching. This is because discs are goddamn fragile and I've had to replace them way too many times (hi, Iron Man II and III and X-Men Apocalypse and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, you fuckers).
And not just fragile as in "looked at it too hard'; I mean, invisible errors that are there when I get them out of the box. Catching one of those in rip means a 75% chance it's going to be a problem watching and a 25% chance of an unplayable disc, as in, it will not play movie at all. If the rip starts debugging weirdly, it's a warning--not necessarily 'here be dragons', but something I need to watch for in the main movie. If the rip stops dead--and to make sure, I have retry set to 51 times when MakeMKV is running, so it will keep trying past sanity--it's either Error That I Will See When Watching Disc or Unplayable. Sometimes--sometimes--it's in the extras, but not often.
Yes, I know that some ripping software can be caught on errors that don't show when playing, but I've used MakeMKV for roughly a decade--and paid for it this year when I realized that while yes, they provide it for free, this is literally the best ripping software in the world--and I made it as sensitive as possible to errors for that reason. If MakeMKV can't read it (and usually correct it) we're talking losing five/ten minutes of a movie to unplayable. If it can't even image it, it's a return; that's a manufacturing error.
Say what you want about VHS, short of throwing it in an acid bath, they were very hard to entirely kill. The ribbon might get messed up--you just skip through it. Ribbon torn? Tape. If you got desperate to save the X-Files episode "Never Again", you could find a way. Even if the tape got twisted and it looked messed up, you could usually fix even that; a few (careful) fast forwards and rewinds to use the weight of the rest of the tape would flatten the tape and smooth it.
Discs? There are workarounds, yeah. If you know someone who has the thing that can resurface? Yes. Toothpaste when you're really desperate? Yes. I do know many (some horrifying) methods, but there are stop points where nothing can be done, and then there's invisible errors that make you want to die that kill an entire disk. A tiny fuckup on the edge can kill an entire disc. Not 5:10 to 5:20 but the entire goddamn movie. In theory you can image it and use a program to fix the image, and I did get that to work a few times, but a.) depending on the software it was incredibly difficult, b.) there was no guarantees even if you did fix it (you think?) it would work, c.) and that's only when it would image, which with invisible flaws it would not, and d.) I say this as someone who enjoys that kind of thing: it was not worth it. I sat on the floor with scissors and tape hand-piecing VHS tape together for $10 X-Files episodes; I do not say 'not worth it' lightly. It was first season with the tapeworm guy; I loved that episode.
VHS? Acid bath or (maybe?????) a nuke. I was sitting here trying to think if I ever had an unrecoverable, and no. There were a few I threw away back in the day and replaced but usually Wal-Mart had a sale and it was like, $5. They were still watchable if you ff'd through that bit at 5:13 that was messed up.
For Your Ripping Needs: MakeMKV
This is my semi-annual shill for MakeMKV, which is as of 2021 still the single best ripping software I've ever used. If it is possible for the disc to be read, it can read it; if it can be ripped, it can rip it;if it can be imaged, it can image it. It works on Windows, Macs, and Linux (I primarily use it on Ubuntu but I keep a copy on my laptop now for testing). It's incredibly simple to use, the settings are straightforward.
Settings:
1.) You can set it to only show files depending on how long they are timewise to get the extras but skip the other stuff. I set mine to exclude files shorter than five minutes.
2.) In each file it automatically selects everything--all audio streams, all video, all subtitles. You can manually uncheck the streams you don't want, or in settings under Language you can set 'all English streams' or 'all [your language] streams'. It will then automatically only select English language audio and subtitle streams and deselect French, Greek, Hungarian, etc.
3.) You can set retry count when it runs into problems.
What It Can Do
MakeMKV is ripping and imaging software only; that's all it does, but it's flawless doing it, and generally, I recommend avoiding all-in-one-software because from experience, putting all your eggs in one basket rarely ends well. When I want to encode, I use Handbrake; if I want to cut and paste and manipulate and merge streams, mkvtools; when I want to rip, MakeMKV.
It has both GUI and command line options; the command line has a lot of useful functionality that doesn't appear in the GUI but you really don't need unless you have some very specific needs, you want to batch, or if you want to do disc imaging. There's also certain settings that aren't in the GUI that you can set in the registry (Windows) or in settings.conf (Mac and Linux) for certain functions; one of those is the ability to set your read/write speed with compatible bluray drives.
Yes. With certain drives, you can set the read/write speed. Yes, even with 4K dics. Because yes, MKV can rip 4K gloriously. But we'll come back to that.
Among the advantages of this is that if you have more than one optical drive you can set MakeMKV to batch mode from command line and leave it to rip on its own.
MakeMKV can read through most cosmetic and even mild scratching and problem discs, especially if the damage isn't near the edge. It can even recover some damaged discs, even unplayable ones. It can do it while ripping with the GUI--see three under Settings about setting the retry count. In command line, there are even more options for ripping as well as an option to simply get an image of a disc.
The retry count option is really useful with damaged or scratched disks that are still readable; the default retry count is 5, but I set mine to 51 and that can and does work to get through problem areas and even result in watchable media.
If the damage is too bad, it won't work at all; this is a plus, btw, that tells me immediately either the disc is unplayable or there are serious unwatchable spots and generally, we're talking ten seconds to minutes. If it does work--but requires a lot of debugging--there's about a 75% to 80% it's perfectly watchable and if there are errors, you won't notice them unless you're watching for them or they'll be under three seconds.
(Note: all the above occurred while playing in X-Box. This is because from experience, X-Box can and does play almost anything. I've had cheap and ridiculously expensive bluray players of several brands that did better at many things (audio, video, etc) but X-Box is where you go when you just want to play the fucking thing. If it's playable by any definition, it will do it. This is why since I learned to rip movies, I haven't bought a stand-alone blu-ray player. Like, maybe at a certain (high) price point I can get both all the bells and whistles along with X-Box's raw 'will play this shit come hell or high water' but I'd want a gold-plated rec before I'm willing to invest again and it better be able to do everything Plex can (like skip the bullshit) and also be compatible with everything and even then I'd need someone to explain how it is in any way superior to streaming from Plex.
Bluray players are also fragile as hell and get cranky easily, which also does not endear them to me.)
Then there's X-Men Apocalypse: the disc that taught me hate.
The only time I had a serious problem with a completed rip of a brand new disc was this goddamn movie, part of one of the boxed sets. It was removed untouched from the case and slid tenderly into the X-Box by clean hands that are kind of paranoid (very paranoid). Two thirds through, there was a massive ten to twenty minutes that went horribly wrong (not incuding about three minutes on either side weirdness), both audio and video, and you couldn't even fast forward through it while playing (it would freeze up) but it might--might--eventually get past it on its own (though multiple tries confirms not always).
MakeMKV finally did rip that--I think this is when I changed the default retry to 51--and while it couldn't correct most of the problems--though it did try--it was (slightly) smaller, the audio was (a little) better, but you there was still at least a five to eight minutes that was a hard nope nope nope. However, you could easily skip through it and watch the rest of the movie. I'm actually planning to do a rerip and make sure the logs are verbose so I can watch what happens and keep the dump and error logs for the future.
Now, finally; Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the disc that refused to work.
It was part of a bluray set of Lord of the Rings, removed pristine from case and gently inserted into the X-Box. At some point--I don't remember where but I think near a visual of a tower--it got weird and noped out while playing. Worse, you got to that point and it just stopped playing and froze the X-Box and people, it is not easy to do that to an X-Box. After multiple tries ripping it and endless rage, just to see what happened, I set retry to like 100 or something; eighteen hours, MakeMKV could not get past that point in the disc. I couldn't even image the damn thing.
Which is why now I rip first; if you can bring MakeMKV to a halt with that many retries, that's a refund that disc, it cannot be played.
What It Can't Do
MakeMKV is a ripper; that's what it does and it's very, very good at it. It cannot differentiate which file is the right one when Disney feels frisky about people ripping their discs and gives you five thousand files and only one is correct. There are some problems it cannot fix. Among the things it does automatically is sync audio to video when it sees a problem but there are also some problems it can't see.
It cannot tell you if the audio streams themselves were synced wrong on the disc itself. For example, in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in the 1080p bluray version, the second audio stream (5.1) is about fifteen to twenty seconds ahead both on the disc and in the rip. The 7.1 was fine, the others were fine, but at the time, my TV couldn't handle the 7.1 stream so I needed the 5.1. Even weirder, the audio was also offsync to captioning, which I always use. The captioning was perfectly synced to video, by the way; that's how I caught it right when it started happening. It was surreal.
This was upsetting as MakeMKV never failed me, so I went to Handbrake and did some fast and dirty comparisons and I think--THINK being the operative word--that I know why, and it's basically the equivalent of an audio stream unrecoverable. I'm going to try to explain what I saw, but maybe a vidder could tell me if I'm saying this right.
MakeMKV can see a sync problem using the timecodes of the audio and video; they should match, but for reasons, they don't on the disc, so it fixes that automatically by shifting the audio (or video) so they come together. This is fairly common, actually; when watching the debug log sometimes (I make my own fun), I've seen a one second, three second, even a five to eight second shift. I never noticed while watching anything off.
This was dramatically noticeable.
With this disc, from what I saw in Handbrake--and the operative words here are "I think", the timecodes were a perfect match between that specific audio stream and video; the only way I could fix it was to use another program, the mkv tool, to--I think--pull out that one audio stream, manually add in a delay of exactly the time that was off right before the movie starts, cut that same amount of time from the end so the audio stream time matches the other streams, then remerge it all, which--I might one day experiment with that, actually, but just thinking about taking apart a movie by stream, adding a delay, cutting the end, rematching the timecodes, then merging all those streams back together....that day is not today.
More on MakeMKV
It's free in beta--you can get the new code every two months from the forum where Mike posts it and add it to settings--but the price is $50 (+tax) if you want to support it and I very much encourage anyone who likes it to do so. I'm purchased one license that I use on my Ubuntu machine, and while I could in theory use it on my Windows laptop, when I emailed Mike for clarification if it was a single copy license or general license, he said single copy (but couldn't stop me because that's not a check the software was doing), I'm using my license only on my Ubuntu copy and getting one for Windows because seriously, this is incredibly good software with actual, literal, does fix shit tech support.
If your new disc can't be read due to security (you'll know by the error in the window doing lots of BD dumps or just put the error in google and it'll tell you), you email Mike with your dump attached (it's created automatically in a folder); twenty-four to forty-eight hours later, he'll email you to try again, you open the program, and the fix is automatically downloaded from the repository (to everyone who has MakeMKV, btw), and you get your rip. I know this is not just theoretical because I emailed Mike and got a response the next day. And then I bought the program
If you have a new disc that has five billion versions of the movie (hi Disney!) and you can't figure out which one? Google Makemkv 'moviename' and someone in the forums can tell you which one in which version of the disc. You got the bluray made in Quebec (you'll know by the fact all the secondary audio is French, all French, even the lossless is in French)? Someone knows. Hong Kong? Someone knows. The one made in 2020 and not 2015? Someone knows.
Note: this is not someone watching all five billion copies, btw, though I wouldn't be surprised. There was a superlong thread when I was hunting down The Hunger Games: Catching Fire where they talked about methods, and one is using AnyDVD, but I never really followed up too far because a.) someone had the right version for my Quebecois-made version and b.) the instructions I could find weren't very clear. I do plan to follow up on that, though; I'm curious how it's done.
If you read the above, now I explain.
Okay But What About that Thing You Said About Bluray Drives and Unlimited Speed
To rip a movie, you need an optical drive that can do that. This is not as easy as it used to be--assuming it was ever easy--and we're at a place where it requires active effort.
First: I never recommend what I haven't done myself when it comes to sketchy shit like flashing your drives. SO I would not be posting this at all if this wasn't both successful and almost anticlimactically easy to the point I was almost disappointed.
I did it yesterday, it was both anticlimactic and easy to the point of almost disappointed.
Until this week, this wasn't a problem for me; the bluray drive I used was the LG WH14NS40, and when I bought it in 2017, it was still running the 1.02 firmware (I got in under the wire), which allows MakeMKV (and other programs) to rip 4K movies. It's actually the second time I got that drive; by sheer chance, back in 2010ish when I first got my server, that's the drive I chose and it turned out it was the best for sketchy ripping things. Even better, LibreDrive--which MakeMKV uses--finally unlocked unlimited read/write speeds and as my firmware was 1.02 (the old firmware), I got that and lets just say whoooaaaa.
However, all good things become slow and quirky, and my LG WH14NS40 was getting to that. So I needed to get a new drive, and as one does, I went to MakeMKV forums to get the list of drives that are compatible with ripping 4K/UHD movies and decide which to buy.
Ultimate UHD Drives Flashing Guide Updated 2021
When you read that, it looks terrifying. It's not--I'm going to break it down in this entry.
It's now 2021, not 2017, and manufacturers patched their firmware on all drives now being sold to stop people ripping their own movies from their own discs because that's--bad? So this was now a two-step process: I needed to pick a drive and then flash it to downgrade the firmware to the latest unpatched--and also, unencrypted, thanks for that shit--firmware. And while yes, I am comfortable flashing my routers (perhaps too much so) to DD-WRT and back again, the routers I flashed were either old ones I don't use or ones I bought used on Amazon for under $20 and also for fun. This I'd be investing a minimum of $60ish plus external USB enclosure to hold them because my new server case doesn't have space for an optical drive (I knew that when I bought it, so that's on me).
Being me, I decided instead of getting the LG WH14NS40 again, since I'd be flashing anyway, I'd try something new. The slim drives were tempting, but their max speed would always be slower than a 5.25 drive; after reading the forums, the ASUS BW-16D1HT was actually in my cart when I stumbled over the fact that you could get the LG WH14NS60 up to 16X read/write on blurays and sure, it was twice the price of the Asus, but potential 16X read speed.
From the list of enclosures, I picked the OWC Mercury Pro 5.25 case. My LG WH14NS40 is actually using the Vantec NST-536S3-BK 5.25 case, but it was a pain fitting everything correctly and fought me; the OWC Mercury was effortless.
I got it yesterday, put it gently into the enclosure, connected it to Windows, opened MakeMKV, and checked the settings to assure the drive hit all the criteria, carefully read the requirements, downloaded the zip file with all the firmware and unzipped it, then opened youtube and watched the video how to flash it. Twice.
Note: the youtube video is incredibly reassuring. What you see there is literally exactly what happens, especially since it was done with a LG WH14NS60, which was also somewhat influential in me choosing that drive. It also walks you through double checking that your drive meets requirements.
The actual process of flashing took about three minutes. To wit:
1.) Open Windows Powershell in Admin Mode (Start Menu, Windows Powershell folder, right click on Windows Powershell, under Tasks click Run as Adminstrator)
2.) Enter C: and hit enter to make sure you're in C
3.) Enter cd.. and hit enter, then repeat to get to root of C as needed.
4.) Enter cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\MakeMKV" to get to the MakeMKV program folder (if you're in a 64 bit system, otherwise you can leave off the (x86))
5.) Paste .\makemkvcon64.exe f --all-yes -d [Drive Letter of Bluray Drive]: rawflash enc -i "[Drive Letter]:\[Path To Firmware]\HL-DT-ST-BD-RE_WH16NS60-1.02-NM00100-211810291936.bin" and hit enter.
6.) Watch the entire less than thirty second process.
Yeah, it was pretty low-drama.
7.) Opened MakeMKV and verified settings. Everything was fine.
Now, about flashing a drive and that terrifying page.
That Page Is A HellPage of Information and Terror
...yes, it's a lot of information and very quickly goes from 'overwhelming' to 'terrifying'. Here's why.
This is a MasterPage of All UHD Drive Things
First: don't think of this as Huge Ass Page of Terrifying Stuff. Think of it as very, very thorough documentation that covers everything that might happen.
The page is a master page; by design, it's one stop shopping for all your UHD drive needs so the information isn't fractured through multiple threads leading to confusion and getting things wrong or missing updates to the information. It's putting everything here so updates can be done once and immediately. You may not need all of it; you probably need only 10% of it, but there's no way to know what 10% you need. What you definitely need is the very latest information--what new firmware has appeared on drives, if it's encrypted, if x was working but isn't now so switch to y--and it doesn't fuck around with making sure everything is there so you don't fuck up your drive.
Now, let's break this down section by section.
The Drive List aka Recommended UHD Drives to get
You'll notice it's very short.
Different drives have different requirements; the list of drives you see is drives that people in the forum--multiple people--have used and done all this with and therefore these drive are all known to definitely work. These are not 'maybes' or 'happened once at my brother's'; results have been reproduced multiple times--and probably documented in this thread's pages--and part of what you see are the workarounds after failures.
There's forty+ pages in the forum thread with multiple verifications and breakdowns of the failures and the workarounds and validation No This Really Works; to get on this list, the flash to that drive has not only been done multiple times and is therefore reproducable, there are clear instructions on how to do it and the firmware (or firmwares) is available for download on this page. And those instructions are updated when something changes.
Terrifying can sometimes be called 'thorough', is what I'm saying.
You Can Also Buy It Flashed For you aka Recommended Pre-Flashed Drive Sellers
Want to skip the rest? Click on the link by each and read the comments of satisfied consumers. There's also the option of remote assistance; you get your drive and get online and someone checks your drive and walks you through it/does it for you at what I assume are reasonable prices.
Firmware List? aka Recommended Firmware to flash for MakeMKV
This is just informational; it's telling you the recommended firmware for each drive as of this day. You can nod and read on.
Other Things To Buy aka Enclosures/SATA
AKA USB enclosures/sata adapters that work with optical drives and flashing and USB enclosures/sata adapters that work with optical drives but don't support flashing
If this is going to be an external usb, stick with the list and make your life easier. I really love the Mercury; incredibly easy but yes, does have screws. Worth it.
What the Fuck aka Sleep Bug/Sleep Bug Fix
This is just informational; it's telling you about a known issue with some drives. You can nod and read on.
The Requirements List aka IMPORTANT Before you flash in VERY BRIGHT RED aka Oh God What
There's also the list of requirements for the drive you must check even if you get one of those listed models, just to be sure before you start the flash. This is checkable by opening MakeMKV and looking at the drive info in the GUI: super easy. Do not flash--DO NOT FLASH--before checking this.
This is important; read it. But breathe, because it's really not a big deal.
1.) It's actually not that common that you get the right drive from that list and it doesn't match those requirements (trust me, I read), but--as I learned with routers--when manufacturers release the same model multiple times, sometimes there's something slightly different in a certain batch. Most of the time--so far, every time, again, learned this with routers--it shows up in comments on Amazon, New Egg, etc. The people buying these models for ripping will almost always leave a comment if it seems to match and doesn't and they'll use all-caps to make sure you see it. Sometimes, a dozen people or more, even.
I can't prove that most people who buy these models are alwasy rippers, but they show up disproportionately in comments, so if you pick a model and skim down and don't see an issue, I wouldn't bother wasting time worrying. But I can say it really doesn't happen often; I barely skimmed comments before buying and that was just habit. You can easily double check this by googling Makemkv and the drive name (example: ASUS BW-16D1HT) and see what comes up as a warning; if it happened recently to someone--and odds are, it happened on Amazon or Newegg--they will be yelling about it for all to hear.
2.) The worst that will happen if you get the right model but it has the wrong platform--again, the requirements are very clear and tell you exactly where to look--you just pack it up and return it and try a different model or a different page with the model you want.
Don't overthink this, seriously.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! aka Crossflashing and Crossflashing Warnings
Yeah, fair. But--and just know this part--very avoidable. Just don't pick a drive that needs that.
Being on that list does not mean the drive is easy, quick, or takes the least work to flash; it means if you follow the steps for that drive exactly, it will work. This list is to give you all the options, because truthfully there aren't many options out there. Some of the drives require crossflashing; you flash it to firmware of a different drive first, then flash it to the one you want. If you have a drive preference (you like slim, or Asus, or etc), it's worth the extra work.
It's not necessarily hard, but if you're already sketchy on a single flash to downgrade your firmware, flashing twice--and to the firmware of some random other drive for Reasons Unclear But Important first--might hit your nope and I get that. Just pick a drive that doesn't require crossflashing, and next section, I"m going to tell you exactly how to do that.
That was another reason I picked the LG WH14NS60; it required nothing but a single flash. Even better, on Page 44, February 11th of this year, someone had literally just done it with that drive, so I didn't need to worry too much. The steps I outlined above are literally all I needed to do. But--it wasn't my primary reason for choosing it; that 16X was. So if it turned out I needed to do more steps to get it working, that wouldn't have been a dealbreaker for me.
Encrypted????? aka Newer OEM Firmwares and encrypted
You will need to read this carefully. Starting from the top:
This is a list of drives that ship with encrypted firmware and the firmware number. So once we have chosen our drive from the list, we need to check and see if our drive is on there, then check what the firmware number is. So when you get here, paste the full name of your chosen drive--from the list of drives in the first section--in a sticky or textpad or something so you can look at it.
We're going to use my drive as our example.
My Drive: LG WH16NS60, UHD Official Internal 5.25 <--exactly as it appears in the drive list in the first section.
Looking at the list in the textbox, we see only one entry that mentions WH16NS60.
HL-DT-ST-BD-RE_WH16NS60-1.03-N000600-212005081010.bin
Let's break down that line.
Drive: HL-DT-ST-BD-RE_WH16NS60
Firmware: 1.03
Other Stuff: N000600-212005081010.bin (not relevant for the purposes of this breakdown)
I now know the firmware that comes standard on my drive is encrypted. This applies to me. Keep reading.
Now we go to the worrying text just below the textbox list.
Text: LG 1.04+ / BU40N 1.03 / Asus 3.10+ and similar
So this applies to LG drives, BU40N drives, and Asus drives; lets start with that. When I picked this drive from the list in the first section, the HL-DT-ST-BD-RE_WH16NS60 did have the letters 'LG' in front of it.
This is an LG drive. This applies to me.
Wait, we're still reading that line of text.
The next part after "LG" is 1.04+. That indicates the firmware version that is shipped on the drive that all this worrying text applies to. Looking at the firmware number, I see my drive is shipped with 1.03, not 1.04 or anything greater.
This does not apply to me. This section is now informational for people not me. Nod and read on.
If your answer is 'this does apply to you', we have now entered Crossflashing Territory. Read it, nod, and decide if you want to do the crossflash. It will give you very exact instructions on what to do if you want to flash this particular drive. If you aren't in, go back to the list and pick a different drive.
Paydirt aka Unlocked Flashers, Downgrade Enabled Firmware and MK Firmware
First link: a zip containing every firmware for every goddamn drive. Download it.
Your ideal firmware is in there. That's it.
As I said; this is a MasterPost of All UHD Things. The informational parts above weren't irrelevant; they tell you the current status and history of your drive and what to check, so yes, read them so you understand what's going on. They tell you what is current--the firmware right now recommended--and why. They tell you some models can be dicks and double check that your drive also checks these requirement boxes. They tell you if your drive comes with encrypted firmware; they tell you if this firmware requires you to need flash twice, once with one firmware, then with the firmware you really need.
Again, this is documentation, good documentation, they're showing you their work and why you can trust what they say. When you download that folder, you know what's in there is the best available because it's been tested like a lot and they know.
When you unzip that folder, you should see the firmware recommended for your drive in there, ready and waiting. If you need to crossflash first, that firmware is there, too. Feel reassured: those informational bits did not lie, there it is.
Here you also see the tools people have created--including one with a GUI!--to get this done. Click and read the threads and find out if it's right for you. No, this does not have to be command line, I'm just weird like that. We can point and click this shit.
How To Flash Videos and commands
Watch the video right now and relax; it really is that easy.
The rest is a breakdown of the steps I gave earlier. These are pretty much identical whether you need to flash once or twice.
RECOVER WHAT??? aka NS40 Recovery Image
Don't do that and you won't need this. If you did do that, here's how to fix it. Trust me, if you followed the instructions, you'll be fine.
Useful Links:
Some stuff you may or may not need. Probably not if you're online and have MakeMKV downloaded.
I hope for those who were interested this demystified the process for you. I've ripped one 4K and one bluray with the new drive and no complaints at all.
(Note: I still haven't cleaned out the fridge and refrigerator, but that's because until yesterday afternoon, all the dumpsters in my complex were overflowing as no one had done pickup in a week and change and I will not, not, not make the horror worse by putting two trash bags of dairy, meat, and assorted to the nightmare when temperatures are normalizing into the sixties--a week ago single digits, that really happened--and make everyone live with that kind of hellscape. I don't blame people who did--their power was completely out and stayed out longer than mine--but I would have been a lot less prissy if I had to deal with that smell in my apartment, too.)
MakeMKV added speed control to their software, but it has to be set in the settings, not GUI. This drive isn't quite getting the same speeds, but a.) it's a new drive, b.) I just flashed it so I may need to do some finagling, and c.) every disc is different, even accounting for DVD/Blu-Ray/4K Blu-Ray. I tested Ant-Man and the Wasp 4K yesterday and got the rip up to 6.2X, but today with The Stand 1994 bluray (not 4K) it only went up to 5X (at best). And yes, there is a difference in speed reading toward the edge (faster) and the interior (slower).
Notes on Movies
It occurs to me that I haven't actively watched a disc in over a year, but that's only an escalation. Before that, a disc was removed virgin from the case and ripped first; only then did Child or I put it in the X-Box for watching. This is because discs are goddamn fragile and I've had to replace them way too many times (hi, Iron Man II and III and X-Men Apocalypse and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, you fuckers).
And not just fragile as in "looked at it too hard'; I mean, invisible errors that are there when I get them out of the box. Catching one of those in rip means a 75% chance it's going to be a problem watching and a 25% chance of an unplayable disc, as in, it will not play movie at all. If the rip starts debugging weirdly, it's a warning--not necessarily 'here be dragons', but something I need to watch for in the main movie. If the rip stops dead--and to make sure, I have retry set to 51 times when MakeMKV is running, so it will keep trying past sanity--it's either Error That I Will See When Watching Disc or Unplayable. Sometimes--sometimes--it's in the extras, but not often.
Yes, I know that some ripping software can be caught on errors that don't show when playing, but I've used MakeMKV for roughly a decade--and paid for it this year when I realized that while yes, they provide it for free, this is literally the best ripping software in the world--and I made it as sensitive as possible to errors for that reason. If MakeMKV can't read it (and usually correct it) we're talking losing five/ten minutes of a movie to unplayable. If it can't even image it, it's a return; that's a manufacturing error.
Say what you want about VHS, short of throwing it in an acid bath, they were very hard to entirely kill. The ribbon might get messed up--you just skip through it. Ribbon torn? Tape. If you got desperate to save the X-Files episode "Never Again", you could find a way. Even if the tape got twisted and it looked messed up, you could usually fix even that; a few (careful) fast forwards and rewinds to use the weight of the rest of the tape would flatten the tape and smooth it.
Discs? There are workarounds, yeah. If you know someone who has the thing that can resurface? Yes. Toothpaste when you're really desperate? Yes. I do know many (some horrifying) methods, but there are stop points where nothing can be done, and then there's invisible errors that make you want to die that kill an entire disk. A tiny fuckup on the edge can kill an entire disc. Not 5:10 to 5:20 but the entire goddamn movie. In theory you can image it and use a program to fix the image, and I did get that to work a few times, but a.) depending on the software it was incredibly difficult, b.) there was no guarantees even if you did fix it (you think?) it would work, c.) and that's only when it would image, which with invisible flaws it would not, and d.) I say this as someone who enjoys that kind of thing: it was not worth it. I sat on the floor with scissors and tape hand-piecing VHS tape together for $10 X-Files episodes; I do not say 'not worth it' lightly. It was first season with the tapeworm guy; I loved that episode.
VHS? Acid bath or (maybe?????) a nuke. I was sitting here trying to think if I ever had an unrecoverable, and no. There were a few I threw away back in the day and replaced but usually Wal-Mart had a sale and it was like, $5. They were still watchable if you ff'd through that bit at 5:13 that was messed up.
For Your Ripping Needs: MakeMKV
This is my semi-annual shill for MakeMKV, which is as of 2021 still the single best ripping software I've ever used. If it is possible for the disc to be read, it can read it; if it can be ripped, it can rip it;if it can be imaged, it can image it. It works on Windows, Macs, and Linux (I primarily use it on Ubuntu but I keep a copy on my laptop now for testing). It's incredibly simple to use, the settings are straightforward.
Settings:
1.) You can set it to only show files depending on how long they are timewise to get the extras but skip the other stuff. I set mine to exclude files shorter than five minutes.
2.) In each file it automatically selects everything--all audio streams, all video, all subtitles. You can manually uncheck the streams you don't want, or in settings under Language you can set 'all English streams' or 'all [your language] streams'. It will then automatically only select English language audio and subtitle streams and deselect French, Greek, Hungarian, etc.
3.) You can set retry count when it runs into problems.
What It Can Do
MakeMKV is ripping and imaging software only; that's all it does, but it's flawless doing it, and generally, I recommend avoiding all-in-one-software because from experience, putting all your eggs in one basket rarely ends well. When I want to encode, I use Handbrake; if I want to cut and paste and manipulate and merge streams, mkvtools; when I want to rip, MakeMKV.
It has both GUI and command line options; the command line has a lot of useful functionality that doesn't appear in the GUI but you really don't need unless you have some very specific needs, you want to batch, or if you want to do disc imaging. There's also certain settings that aren't in the GUI that you can set in the registry (Windows) or in settings.conf (Mac and Linux) for certain functions; one of those is the ability to set your read/write speed with compatible bluray drives.
Yes. With certain drives, you can set the read/write speed. Yes, even with 4K dics. Because yes, MKV can rip 4K gloriously. But we'll come back to that.
Among the advantages of this is that if you have more than one optical drive you can set MakeMKV to batch mode from command line and leave it to rip on its own.
MakeMKV can read through most cosmetic and even mild scratching and problem discs, especially if the damage isn't near the edge. It can even recover some damaged discs, even unplayable ones. It can do it while ripping with the GUI--see three under Settings about setting the retry count. In command line, there are even more options for ripping as well as an option to simply get an image of a disc.
The retry count option is really useful with damaged or scratched disks that are still readable; the default retry count is 5, but I set mine to 51 and that can and does work to get through problem areas and even result in watchable media.
If the damage is too bad, it won't work at all; this is a plus, btw, that tells me immediately either the disc is unplayable or there are serious unwatchable spots and generally, we're talking ten seconds to minutes. If it does work--but requires a lot of debugging--there's about a 75% to 80% it's perfectly watchable and if there are errors, you won't notice them unless you're watching for them or they'll be under three seconds.
(Note: all the above occurred while playing in X-Box. This is because from experience, X-Box can and does play almost anything. I've had cheap and ridiculously expensive bluray players of several brands that did better at many things (audio, video, etc) but X-Box is where you go when you just want to play the fucking thing. If it's playable by any definition, it will do it. This is why since I learned to rip movies, I haven't bought a stand-alone blu-ray player. Like, maybe at a certain (high) price point I can get both all the bells and whistles along with X-Box's raw 'will play this shit come hell or high water' but I'd want a gold-plated rec before I'm willing to invest again and it better be able to do everything Plex can (like skip the bullshit) and also be compatible with everything and even then I'd need someone to explain how it is in any way superior to streaming from Plex.
Bluray players are also fragile as hell and get cranky easily, which also does not endear them to me.)
Then there's X-Men Apocalypse: the disc that taught me hate.
The only time I had a serious problem with a completed rip of a brand new disc was this goddamn movie, part of one of the boxed sets. It was removed untouched from the case and slid tenderly into the X-Box by clean hands that are kind of paranoid (very paranoid). Two thirds through, there was a massive ten to twenty minutes that went horribly wrong (not incuding about three minutes on either side weirdness), both audio and video, and you couldn't even fast forward through it while playing (it would freeze up) but it might--might--eventually get past it on its own (though multiple tries confirms not always).
MakeMKV finally did rip that--I think this is when I changed the default retry to 51--and while it couldn't correct most of the problems--though it did try--it was (slightly) smaller, the audio was (a little) better, but you there was still at least a five to eight minutes that was a hard nope nope nope. However, you could easily skip through it and watch the rest of the movie. I'm actually planning to do a rerip and make sure the logs are verbose so I can watch what happens and keep the dump and error logs for the future.
Now, finally; Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the disc that refused to work.
It was part of a bluray set of Lord of the Rings, removed pristine from case and gently inserted into the X-Box. At some point--I don't remember where but I think near a visual of a tower--it got weird and noped out while playing. Worse, you got to that point and it just stopped playing and froze the X-Box and people, it is not easy to do that to an X-Box. After multiple tries ripping it and endless rage, just to see what happened, I set retry to like 100 or something; eighteen hours, MakeMKV could not get past that point in the disc. I couldn't even image the damn thing.
Which is why now I rip first; if you can bring MakeMKV to a halt with that many retries, that's a refund that disc, it cannot be played.
What It Can't Do
MakeMKV is a ripper; that's what it does and it's very, very good at it. It cannot differentiate which file is the right one when Disney feels frisky about people ripping their discs and gives you five thousand files and only one is correct. There are some problems it cannot fix. Among the things it does automatically is sync audio to video when it sees a problem but there are also some problems it can't see.
It cannot tell you if the audio streams themselves were synced wrong on the disc itself. For example, in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in the 1080p bluray version, the second audio stream (5.1) is about fifteen to twenty seconds ahead both on the disc and in the rip. The 7.1 was fine, the others were fine, but at the time, my TV couldn't handle the 7.1 stream so I needed the 5.1. Even weirder, the audio was also offsync to captioning, which I always use. The captioning was perfectly synced to video, by the way; that's how I caught it right when it started happening. It was surreal.
This was upsetting as MakeMKV never failed me, so I went to Handbrake and did some fast and dirty comparisons and I think--THINK being the operative word--that I know why, and it's basically the equivalent of an audio stream unrecoverable. I'm going to try to explain what I saw, but maybe a vidder could tell me if I'm saying this right.
MakeMKV can see a sync problem using the timecodes of the audio and video; they should match, but for reasons, they don't on the disc, so it fixes that automatically by shifting the audio (or video) so they come together. This is fairly common, actually; when watching the debug log sometimes (I make my own fun), I've seen a one second, three second, even a five to eight second shift. I never noticed while watching anything off.
This was dramatically noticeable.
With this disc, from what I saw in Handbrake--and the operative words here are "I think", the timecodes were a perfect match between that specific audio stream and video; the only way I could fix it was to use another program, the mkv tool, to--I think--pull out that one audio stream, manually add in a delay of exactly the time that was off right before the movie starts, cut that same amount of time from the end so the audio stream time matches the other streams, then remerge it all, which--I might one day experiment with that, actually, but just thinking about taking apart a movie by stream, adding a delay, cutting the end, rematching the timecodes, then merging all those streams back together....that day is not today.
More on MakeMKV
It's free in beta--you can get the new code every two months from the forum where Mike posts it and add it to settings--but the price is $50 (+tax) if you want to support it and I very much encourage anyone who likes it to do so. I'm purchased one license that I use on my Ubuntu machine, and while I could in theory use it on my Windows laptop, when I emailed Mike for clarification if it was a single copy license or general license, he said single copy (but couldn't stop me because that's not a check the software was doing), I'm using my license only on my Ubuntu copy and getting one for Windows because seriously, this is incredibly good software with actual, literal, does fix shit tech support.
If your new disc can't be read due to security (you'll know by the error in the window doing lots of BD dumps or just put the error in google and it'll tell you), you email Mike with your dump attached (it's created automatically in a folder); twenty-four to forty-eight hours later, he'll email you to try again, you open the program, and the fix is automatically downloaded from the repository (to everyone who has MakeMKV, btw), and you get your rip. I know this is not just theoretical because I emailed Mike and got a response the next day. And then I bought the program
If you have a new disc that has five billion versions of the movie (hi Disney!) and you can't figure out which one? Google Makemkv 'moviename' and someone in the forums can tell you which one in which version of the disc. You got the bluray made in Quebec (you'll know by the fact all the secondary audio is French, all French, even the lossless is in French)? Someone knows. Hong Kong? Someone knows. The one made in 2020 and not 2015? Someone knows.
Note: this is not someone watching all five billion copies, btw, though I wouldn't be surprised. There was a superlong thread when I was hunting down The Hunger Games: Catching Fire where they talked about methods, and one is using AnyDVD, but I never really followed up too far because a.) someone had the right version for my Quebecois-made version and b.) the instructions I could find weren't very clear. I do plan to follow up on that, though; I'm curious how it's done.
If you read the above, now I explain.
Okay But What About that Thing You Said About Bluray Drives and Unlimited Speed
To rip a movie, you need an optical drive that can do that. This is not as easy as it used to be--assuming it was ever easy--and we're at a place where it requires active effort.
First: I never recommend what I haven't done myself when it comes to sketchy shit like flashing your drives. SO I would not be posting this at all if this wasn't both successful and almost anticlimactically easy to the point I was almost disappointed.
I did it yesterday, it was both anticlimactic and easy to the point of almost disappointed.
Until this week, this wasn't a problem for me; the bluray drive I used was the LG WH14NS40, and when I bought it in 2017, it was still running the 1.02 firmware (I got in under the wire), which allows MakeMKV (and other programs) to rip 4K movies. It's actually the second time I got that drive; by sheer chance, back in 2010ish when I first got my server, that's the drive I chose and it turned out it was the best for sketchy ripping things. Even better, LibreDrive--which MakeMKV uses--finally unlocked unlimited read/write speeds and as my firmware was 1.02 (the old firmware), I got that and lets just say whoooaaaa.
However, all good things become slow and quirky, and my LG WH14NS40 was getting to that. So I needed to get a new drive, and as one does, I went to MakeMKV forums to get the list of drives that are compatible with ripping 4K/UHD movies and decide which to buy.
Ultimate UHD Drives Flashing Guide Updated 2021
When you read that, it looks terrifying. It's not--I'm going to break it down in this entry.
It's now 2021, not 2017, and manufacturers patched their firmware on all drives now being sold to stop people ripping their own movies from their own discs because that's--bad? So this was now a two-step process: I needed to pick a drive and then flash it to downgrade the firmware to the latest unpatched--and also, unencrypted, thanks for that shit--firmware. And while yes, I am comfortable flashing my routers (perhaps too much so) to DD-WRT and back again, the routers I flashed were either old ones I don't use or ones I bought used on Amazon for under $20 and also for fun. This I'd be investing a minimum of $60ish plus external USB enclosure to hold them because my new server case doesn't have space for an optical drive (I knew that when I bought it, so that's on me).
Being me, I decided instead of getting the LG WH14NS40 again, since I'd be flashing anyway, I'd try something new. The slim drives were tempting, but their max speed would always be slower than a 5.25 drive; after reading the forums, the ASUS BW-16D1HT was actually in my cart when I stumbled over the fact that you could get the LG WH14NS60 up to 16X read/write on blurays and sure, it was twice the price of the Asus, but potential 16X read speed.
From the list of enclosures, I picked the OWC Mercury Pro 5.25 case. My LG WH14NS40 is actually using the Vantec NST-536S3-BK 5.25 case, but it was a pain fitting everything correctly and fought me; the OWC Mercury was effortless.
I got it yesterday, put it gently into the enclosure, connected it to Windows, opened MakeMKV, and checked the settings to assure the drive hit all the criteria, carefully read the requirements, downloaded the zip file with all the firmware and unzipped it, then opened youtube and watched the video how to flash it. Twice.
Note: the youtube video is incredibly reassuring. What you see there is literally exactly what happens, especially since it was done with a LG WH14NS60, which was also somewhat influential in me choosing that drive. It also walks you through double checking that your drive meets requirements.
The actual process of flashing took about three minutes. To wit:
1.) Open Windows Powershell in Admin Mode (Start Menu, Windows Powershell folder, right click on Windows Powershell, under Tasks click Run as Adminstrator)
2.) Enter C: and hit enter to make sure you're in C
3.) Enter cd.. and hit enter, then repeat to get to root of C as needed.
4.) Enter cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\MakeMKV" to get to the MakeMKV program folder (if you're in a 64 bit system, otherwise you can leave off the (x86))
5.) Paste .\makemkvcon64.exe f --all-yes -d [Drive Letter of Bluray Drive]: rawflash enc -i "[Drive Letter]:\[Path To Firmware]\HL-DT-ST-BD-RE_WH16NS60-1.02-NM00100-211810291936.bin" and hit enter.
6.) Watch the entire less than thirty second process.
Yeah, it was pretty low-drama.
7.) Opened MakeMKV and verified settings. Everything was fine.
Now, about flashing a drive and that terrifying page.
That Page Is A HellPage of Information and Terror
...yes, it's a lot of information and very quickly goes from 'overwhelming' to 'terrifying'. Here's why.
This is a MasterPage of All UHD Drive Things
First: don't think of this as Huge Ass Page of Terrifying Stuff. Think of it as very, very thorough documentation that covers everything that might happen.
The page is a master page; by design, it's one stop shopping for all your UHD drive needs so the information isn't fractured through multiple threads leading to confusion and getting things wrong or missing updates to the information. It's putting everything here so updates can be done once and immediately. You may not need all of it; you probably need only 10% of it, but there's no way to know what 10% you need. What you definitely need is the very latest information--what new firmware has appeared on drives, if it's encrypted, if x was working but isn't now so switch to y--and it doesn't fuck around with making sure everything is there so you don't fuck up your drive.
Now, let's break this down section by section.
The Drive List aka Recommended UHD Drives to get
You'll notice it's very short.
Different drives have different requirements; the list of drives you see is drives that people in the forum--multiple people--have used and done all this with and therefore these drive are all known to definitely work. These are not 'maybes' or 'happened once at my brother's'; results have been reproduced multiple times--and probably documented in this thread's pages--and part of what you see are the workarounds after failures.
There's forty+ pages in the forum thread with multiple verifications and breakdowns of the failures and the workarounds and validation No This Really Works; to get on this list, the flash to that drive has not only been done multiple times and is therefore reproducable, there are clear instructions on how to do it and the firmware (or firmwares) is available for download on this page. And those instructions are updated when something changes.
Terrifying can sometimes be called 'thorough', is what I'm saying.
You Can Also Buy It Flashed For you aka Recommended Pre-Flashed Drive Sellers
Want to skip the rest? Click on the link by each and read the comments of satisfied consumers. There's also the option of remote assistance; you get your drive and get online and someone checks your drive and walks you through it/does it for you at what I assume are reasonable prices.
Firmware List? aka Recommended Firmware to flash for MakeMKV
This is just informational; it's telling you the recommended firmware for each drive as of this day. You can nod and read on.
Other Things To Buy aka Enclosures/SATA
AKA USB enclosures/sata adapters that work with optical drives and flashing and USB enclosures/sata adapters that work with optical drives but don't support flashing
If this is going to be an external usb, stick with the list and make your life easier. I really love the Mercury; incredibly easy but yes, does have screws. Worth it.
What the Fuck aka Sleep Bug/Sleep Bug Fix
This is just informational; it's telling you about a known issue with some drives. You can nod and read on.
The Requirements List aka IMPORTANT Before you flash in VERY BRIGHT RED aka Oh God What
There's also the list of requirements for the drive you must check even if you get one of those listed models, just to be sure before you start the flash. This is checkable by opening MakeMKV and looking at the drive info in the GUI: super easy. Do not flash--DO NOT FLASH--before checking this.
This is important; read it. But breathe, because it's really not a big deal.
1.) It's actually not that common that you get the right drive from that list and it doesn't match those requirements (trust me, I read), but--as I learned with routers--when manufacturers release the same model multiple times, sometimes there's something slightly different in a certain batch. Most of the time--so far, every time, again, learned this with routers--it shows up in comments on Amazon, New Egg, etc. The people buying these models for ripping will almost always leave a comment if it seems to match and doesn't and they'll use all-caps to make sure you see it. Sometimes, a dozen people or more, even.
I can't prove that most people who buy these models are alwasy rippers, but they show up disproportionately in comments, so if you pick a model and skim down and don't see an issue, I wouldn't bother wasting time worrying. But I can say it really doesn't happen often; I barely skimmed comments before buying and that was just habit. You can easily double check this by googling Makemkv and the drive name (example: ASUS BW-16D1HT) and see what comes up as a warning; if it happened recently to someone--and odds are, it happened on Amazon or Newegg--they will be yelling about it for all to hear.
2.) The worst that will happen if you get the right model but it has the wrong platform--again, the requirements are very clear and tell you exactly where to look--you just pack it up and return it and try a different model or a different page with the model you want.
Don't overthink this, seriously.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! aka Crossflashing and Crossflashing Warnings
Yeah, fair. But--and just know this part--very avoidable. Just don't pick a drive that needs that.
Being on that list does not mean the drive is easy, quick, or takes the least work to flash; it means if you follow the steps for that drive exactly, it will work. This list is to give you all the options, because truthfully there aren't many options out there. Some of the drives require crossflashing; you flash it to firmware of a different drive first, then flash it to the one you want. If you have a drive preference (you like slim, or Asus, or etc), it's worth the extra work.
It's not necessarily hard, but if you're already sketchy on a single flash to downgrade your firmware, flashing twice--and to the firmware of some random other drive for Reasons Unclear But Important first--might hit your nope and I get that. Just pick a drive that doesn't require crossflashing, and next section, I"m going to tell you exactly how to do that.
That was another reason I picked the LG WH14NS60; it required nothing but a single flash. Even better, on Page 44, February 11th of this year, someone had literally just done it with that drive, so I didn't need to worry too much. The steps I outlined above are literally all I needed to do. But--it wasn't my primary reason for choosing it; that 16X was. So if it turned out I needed to do more steps to get it working, that wouldn't have been a dealbreaker for me.
Encrypted????? aka Newer OEM Firmwares and encrypted
You will need to read this carefully. Starting from the top:
This is a list of drives that ship with encrypted firmware and the firmware number. So once we have chosen our drive from the list, we need to check and see if our drive is on there, then check what the firmware number is. So when you get here, paste the full name of your chosen drive--from the list of drives in the first section--in a sticky or textpad or something so you can look at it.
We're going to use my drive as our example.
My Drive: LG WH16NS60, UHD Official Internal 5.25 <--exactly as it appears in the drive list in the first section.
Looking at the list in the textbox, we see only one entry that mentions WH16NS60.
HL-DT-ST-BD-RE_WH16NS60-1.03-N000600-212005081010.bin
Let's break down that line.
Drive: HL-DT-ST-BD-RE_WH16NS60
Firmware: 1.03
Other Stuff: N000600-212005081010.bin (not relevant for the purposes of this breakdown)
I now know the firmware that comes standard on my drive is encrypted. This applies to me. Keep reading.
Now we go to the worrying text just below the textbox list.
Text: LG 1.04+ / BU40N 1.03 / Asus 3.10+ and similar
So this applies to LG drives, BU40N drives, and Asus drives; lets start with that. When I picked this drive from the list in the first section, the HL-DT-ST-BD-RE_WH16NS60 did have the letters 'LG' in front of it.
This is an LG drive. This applies to me.
Wait, we're still reading that line of text.
The next part after "LG" is 1.04+. That indicates the firmware version that is shipped on the drive that all this worrying text applies to. Looking at the firmware number, I see my drive is shipped with 1.03, not 1.04 or anything greater.
This does not apply to me. This section is now informational for people not me. Nod and read on.
If your answer is 'this does apply to you', we have now entered Crossflashing Territory. Read it, nod, and decide if you want to do the crossflash. It will give you very exact instructions on what to do if you want to flash this particular drive. If you aren't in, go back to the list and pick a different drive.
Paydirt aka Unlocked Flashers, Downgrade Enabled Firmware and MK Firmware
First link: a zip containing every firmware for every goddamn drive. Download it.
Your ideal firmware is in there. That's it.
As I said; this is a MasterPost of All UHD Things. The informational parts above weren't irrelevant; they tell you the current status and history of your drive and what to check, so yes, read them so you understand what's going on. They tell you what is current--the firmware right now recommended--and why. They tell you some models can be dicks and double check that your drive also checks these requirement boxes. They tell you if your drive comes with encrypted firmware; they tell you if this firmware requires you to need flash twice, once with one firmware, then with the firmware you really need.
Again, this is documentation, good documentation, they're showing you their work and why you can trust what they say. When you download that folder, you know what's in there is the best available because it's been tested like a lot and they know.
When you unzip that folder, you should see the firmware recommended for your drive in there, ready and waiting. If you need to crossflash first, that firmware is there, too. Feel reassured: those informational bits did not lie, there it is.
Here you also see the tools people have created--including one with a GUI!--to get this done. Click and read the threads and find out if it's right for you. No, this does not have to be command line, I'm just weird like that. We can point and click this shit.
How To Flash Videos and commands
Watch the video right now and relax; it really is that easy.
The rest is a breakdown of the steps I gave earlier. These are pretty much identical whether you need to flash once or twice.
RECOVER WHAT??? aka NS40 Recovery Image
Don't do that and you won't need this. If you did do that, here's how to fix it. Trust me, if you followed the instructions, you'll be fine.
Useful Links:
Some stuff you may or may not need. Probably not if you're online and have MakeMKV downloaded.
I hope for those who were interested this demystified the process for you. I've ripped one 4K and one bluray with the new drive and no complaints at all.
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From:And you nailed it: I don't understand it--best case, I get a hundredth of it and that's assuming a lot because this is some seriously high level math--but I feel like I'm on the edge of understanding it. And the weird part is, I'm not frustrated, either, even a little; it's like my brain is storing it away for that time where it comes together, so yeah, soothing.
I am so glad that's not just me. And thank you! Knowing how it feels, I am thrilled you're getting that feeling reading!
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From:The reason I do these posts is not necessarily I expect anyone to jump up and do it, though yeah, that would be great (I try to do topics I think people on my flist would be interested in). What I want is to demystify the process enough that when someone does want to do something--maybe something that I've never talked about--they're not hit with 'what the hell is this bullshit I can't do this' but are able to pause and try and do a mental breakdown of what they're seeing or know it's possible (though yeah, it's not and never easy to do).
Because honestly, a lot of explanations are needlessly complicated, ridiculously minimal, oblique, use way too much jargon, or assume way too much about the reader's pool of knowledge and often manage more than one of those or all at the same time. And sometimes--like the UHD page--it's overwhelming, which is really unavoidable when you want to do what they want; get you a working drive that you won't brick. I've read enough in the forums that while yes, how they present the information is not unlike throwing a brick in your face, that's also the goal so users will slow the fuck down and read every word before they get to the 'bricked my drive, why' stage. (And in the forums, people are still bricking their drives by doing exactly what the post says--sometimes many times--not to do.
That UHD page hit me like a freight train and I knew most of it.
So thank you for that. I'm a jumper, head first into this kind of thing; failure or success, that's fun for me, I like the learning process itself almost more than the thing I'm learning to do (sometimes, actually, I like the learning more). Some people want to do the thing but having to make so many guesses and googling (and just taking a leap) is utter misery, and why should anyone have to be miserable first to do the fun thing?
So it always seemed reasonable that someone who likes to do it headfirst would come back and make it fun for people who might want to do the thing but would like a a better roadmap and a clearer idea of what is actually happening.
There were a lot of times early on where I would have killed for a straightforward, in ordinary language, on a single page or at least a single thread or website explanation of this Totally Simple Easy Thing I Want to Do and not have to google and guess and take pieces of ten forum posts in ten locations to piece together a working 'maybe' and then trial and error from there. Sometimes, you just want to do the damn thing.
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It me!
From:I'm in exactly the same boat: I find your deep dives fascinating. Also I save 'em in Pinboard because somebody somewhere will need this expertise.
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