Rusty P.
Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2025
Works as advertized.
Christian
Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2025
I bought this to rip dvds and blurays to back up my library. this player is literally plug and play. i think the majority of users rating it poorly are frustrated because they're trying to use it as playback rather than for ripping. the connection is USB-A and provides an adaptor if you wish to utilize your computer's usb-c port. so it is not true usb-c. worth the price.
Anonymous Femboy
Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2024
It's read every single disc I've ever put in it
Customer
Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2023
I have multiple Blu-ray drives capable of ripping UHD discs, but they are all LG or other brands that are built with the same mechanism as the LG drives. Although they mostly work well, they are known to have issues with some triple layer UHD discs or some slightly warped Blu-rays. I was directed to this Pioneer drive as a possible solution.This drive usually a completely different mechanism than most other drives (i.e. LG and others) on the market. That is a good thing because it means it can potentially read discs that the other drives cannot. The build quality of the drive is great - it doesn't feel cheap. I like the pop-open cover and top loading rather than the slide-out drawer - this feels like the originally Playstation type loading!I had some very warped Blu-ray discs that I was not able to rip with my other LG drives (I tried 5 or 6 other drives) and this drive was able to read them all perfectly. However, I have some user-burned dual layer DVD's that this drive could not read but my LG's can. So it's not a perfect world.As for UHD discs, I was hoping to be able to use this drive with DVDFab, however, DVDFab says it is not a UHD friendly drive. My drive has firmware 1.03 and as of this review, 1.04 is available but I have not upgraded. DVDFab Drive Tool does not have a UHD friendly firmware option for this drive at the time of this review (March, 2023). However, MakeMKV is able to use this drive to rip UHD's, and I understand that it is OK to upgrade to 1.04 and MakeMKV will still work. I don't use MakeMKV so I cannot say that this drive will handle some of those troublesome triple layer UHD discs that the LG's seem to have trouble with, but I have had a positive experience with the warped Blu-rays so I think the UHD's might work better if DVDFab will ever support this drive. Remember to only back up discs that you own according to the laws in your country!Ultimately I like the form factor and build quality of this drive. Unfortunately, it is quite a bit more expensive than the other options out there.PROS: * Good build quality, form factor * USB C based connection means you don't need two USB A ports for full power (as other portable drives do) * Reads warped Blu-ray discs better than other brands * MakeMKV will rip UHD with this drive (firmware 1.03 or 1.04 as of March 2023)CONS: * Not UHD friendly (firmware 1.03 or 1.04 as of March 2023) for DVDFab * Price is high
Johnathan Swee Kok Lee
Reviewed in Singapore on August 4, 2022
I am using this product to watch 4K UHD Blu-Ray movies.
Saturnjie
Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2022
Love this burner. I am running it with MakeMKV without issue. After running a few 4k Blu Ray discs through it, I did purchase the full version of Cyberlink's PowerDVD 21 & things improved in speed and how smoothly MAKEMKV was able to read. I break em down to a smaller size with Handbrake & even the quality in those improved. Just my observation. Im running this burner on an i9 16-core 128GB DDR5 Board. I'd definitely recommend this. I purchased an LG of lesser quality, about the same price @9 months ago and the eye burnt out of it already. Spend the little extra and buy QUALITY!
Truman
Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2022
I bought this to back up my collection before bit-rot sets in (should be a few years, but you never know with some of these discs). This drive is completely awesome. I've been able to get get most of mine backed up, although there has been a title her or there that hasn't been recognized.I'm not a windows guy, so everything has to work on some form of linux/BSD, which this one is working great on my current desktops which have been kernel 4.15+, so if you are running something 2018 or so+, it should work out for you.On to the click worthy title: MakeMKV- it does work, and it works great. I have the lifetime license, which if you install it, you will see the warning that the free version won't do all formats. Read that first, and then register the product.. It's not much, and you are supporting a great product. After that, you may want to consider a plex media server, and some nvidia shields, which will take your home library to a whole new level.
Khevin P.
Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2022
If you are planning on buying this drive for ripping 4K Blu-rays, MakeMKV has recently updated to support a ton of Pioneer drives including this one out of the box. Works fantastic for what I need because of this, incredibly reliable, small in size, and very quiet. I'm also happy it comes with a detachable USB cable as well as a USB-C cable for whichever is your preference. I haven't personally used it with any of the video players out there, but I've never liked most PC software for watching Blu-rays because of heavy DRM, performance, and compatibility; you're better off buying an actual player if you're just planning on watching straight off the disc. For somebody who rips discs, this does everything I need with no complaints.
Antonio Priego Soberano
Reviewed in Mexico on February 14, 2022
En una laptop con procesador i7 4a generación, tajeta de video Nvidia 2 GB y 32 gb en Ram, al instalar el software Cyberlink que viene incluido, introducir un disco 4K, me indicó que no se contaba habilitado el sistema SGX, revicé en bios, nunca encontré como habilitarlo, igual probé en otra laptop procesador Xeon tarjeta de video Nvidia de 4gb en ram, 32 gb de ram, y el software me indicó que mi tarjeta no estaba configurada para ver 4K, aunque tengo un monitor 4k y la laptop no tiene problemas para producir 4k en linea.Conclusión, NO EN CUALQUIER COMPUTADORA SE PUDE VER BLURAY 4K, antes de compra tiene que investigar bien que su computadora tenga la capacidad de ver bluray en 4K, referente al bluray normal el producto los leyó sin problemas.
Rafael Vega Chapa
Reviewed in Mexico on March 29, 2021
Ya tengo un modelo anterior pero este drive me servirá para la lectura y grabación de Bluray y discos M-DISK para los próximos años, estoy muy satisfecho con su desempeño.
Rob Hadley
Reviewed in Canada on March 25, 2021
This unit is great... ripped all my dvd and blueray movie collection very quickly. Nice and easy... I don't care for the software that came with it and all that registration crap... but this unit is the best.
Luke Pegg
Reviewed in Australia on December 7, 2020
Good read and write speeds