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MakeMKV sounds familiar... Might give it a shot... That isn't the one that requires you to use another tool to rip the audio tracks is it?
 
msgeek said:
MakeMKV sounds familiar... Might give it a shot... That isn't the one that requires you to use another tool to rip the audio tracks is it?
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Not that I know of, but some Sony discs have that weird Cinavia stuff that screws up the audio. I don't think it can handle that, but DVDFab's HD Decrypter definitely could, so maybe you'll have to use some combination of the two.
 
Buzz201 said:
I can confirm it works with my external optical blu-ray drive (I wasn't 100% sure it was optical, but I googled it).

It's making the right noises with my Region A copy of Kick-Ass on blu-ray, I'll see in a minute if it works (It's been running for almost 3 minutes now)...

Edit: Yup, definitely working fine with my optical drive.
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Awesome! Thanks!

By the way, is your optical drive from the UK or did you get it from the US or something?
 
When you get a drive for a computer you can select the region you want it to be when you hook it up, so it doesn't matter where you buy it from. At least I'm pretty sure that's how it works, haven't got one myself but from what I've heard from people on here, that's how it works.
 
Jatz said:
Awesome! Thanks!

By the way, is your optical drive from the UK or did you get it from the US or something?
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My optical drive is a Samsung drive from the UK.

But as Incendiary Lemon said, I think you select it when you first buy. (Although I think the block is software based, and there are tools that help you fiddle with the software to allow more region changes.)

I normally rip the contents to a hard drive and play back from the hard drive, as playing back from the disc uses too much CPU for my liking.
 
msgeek said:
MakeMKV sounds familiar... Might give it a shot... That isn't the one that requires you to use another tool to rip the audio tracks is it?
Click to expand...
I don't really know about nor have I used MakeMKV so I could be wrong, but the only audio tracks that may need re-encoding are PCM.
With MKVMerge you can mux an MKV with DTS HD/DTHD tracks but not PCM.
 
Mangaranga said:
I don't really know about nor have I used MakeMKV so I could be wrong, but the only audio tracks that may need re-encoding are PCM.
With MKVMerge you can mux an MKV with DTS HD/DTHD tracks but not PCM.
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I've been using MakeMKV recently (for entirely legit purposes, I hasten to add) and this rings a bell. Not sure when I'll next get a chance to sit down and tinker with it, but I'll try to remember to check this out and report back on it.
 
I finally managed to test the drive that arrived today, and it works perfectly! I tried it with the Index Movie BD (had the DVD/BD combo), and it worked like a charm. Now I just need a decent software to run the discs, so if anyone knows a good free software, I'd appreciate it :p
 
Did it not come with PowerDVD? It's a bit crap for running things off discs, and it's ropey with subtitles, but PowerDVD seems to have the best performance I've seen...
 
With AnyDVD HD I just navigate to the Stream folder and play the transport streams individually. Older Sentai discs and newer AoA releases don't have the files in episode order though. VLC and MPC-HC with KCP both support Bluray (PGS) subtitles. You can also open the index.bdmv file in the BDMV folder for pretty much every main anime distributor's disc except Sentai to play the episodes back to back in one long stream with chapter markers. (Sentai's discs just play the first episode when you do this.)

Kodi is the only free solution I know of which supports BD Menu's, but even then it's pretty buggy and limited in that regard.
 
I see. The drive didn't come with any software whatsoever (it WAS the cheapest I could find, after all). I used VLC for the test, I think I'll probably stick with it. Thanks for the help, guys!
 
Don't knock cheap BD Drives. My sub £20 Liteon BDROM drive is far better built, more reliable and faster when it comes to showing the files on disc than the £60 LG drive I have (which also came with one of the crappy mainstream programs to play discs). I literally use the LG drive just for dumping discs to the HDD since its 2-3x faster.

Good to hear that you're up and running though. No more having to worry about Region codes or locked subtitles/audio.
 
I just wanted to say thanks for letting everyone know about this. I've got a key now and will keep it for sometime in the future when I actually have a functional DVD drive :p (my current one will only play CDs since the Windows 8.1 update).

Mangaranga said:
Don't knock cheap BD Drives. My sub £20 Liteon BDROM drive is far better built, more reliable and faster when it comes to showing the files on disc than the £60 LG drive I have (which also came with one of the crappy mainstream programs to play discs). I literally use the LG drive just for dumping discs to the HDD since its 2-3x faster.
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You can buy a BD drive for £20? I'll need to hunt one of those down then.
 
I'll just lob in a word of caution, contrary to Mangaranga's earlier comment.

I bought a Samsung USB Blu Ray drive earlier this year for £55.00. I'd looked at a lot of the cheaper drives, and too many of them came with horror stories of limited lifespans and even, in a few cases, damage to discs for my liking.

Just be sure to do your research.
 
I just checked my Amazon orders for 2013 and the drive I have is this one. Whilst not sub £20, I actually paid a measly £24,17 for it. Unfortunately It's been OOP for ages, and I'm not even sure that Liteon still make BD drives.

HdE said:
I bought a Samsung USB Blu Ray drive earlier this year for £55.00. I'd looked at a lot of the cheaper drives, and too many of them came with horror stories of limited lifespans and even, in a few cases, damage to discs for my liking.
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Funnily enough the LG drive in this case is the only one which has ever damaged a disc - scratching it so that a certain scene would freeze on some players and the PC itself. I think there might have been something on the bottom of the disc which caused it though since it was covered in smudge marks when I checked afterwards. My PS3 did technically strip the plastic off of the side of my HOTD disc years ago too, but it's still functional...
I do agree with you though, if you're going for a BD drive definitely do your research. I looked into which drive to buy for a while before picking up the LG one, and did the same when I just wanted a cheap ROM drive.

Shiroi Hane said:
Are they doing them again? I bought a lifetime subscription years ago when they said they would no longer be offering them.
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Yeah they are. Having previously bought a 2 year sub I actually got a discount on upgrading to a lifetime sub too.
 
IncendiaryLemon said:
Looking at eBay there are some external ones for about the £25 mark but they are unbranded. Not sure I'd trust them.
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I bought one last July for around that haven't had any problems at all reads and plays BD's just fine.
 
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