Blu-Ray Player and BD movies

[larryccf]

not sure which is the best forum for this question, but as it is a storage device, thought i'd try here

i rip movies to keep as archival or backup copies. I've been using a LG WH14NS40 internal 5.25" BD rewriter which went into use when i built this computer november, 2014. The past few month. It's performed flawlessly burning BDs (i've burnt maybe 100 BDs).

Lately, the past few months, i've had BD movie discs that, for whatever reason, the player didn't want to recognize - i'd have to eject it, re-insert and try again, and one in particular, took maybe 10 attempts, but it finally was recognized.

Yesterday i had one that would not recognize, i tried re-inserting 30+ times and it kept indicating "no disc". It didn't appear dirty but i still cleaned it with liquid soap/warm water. Finally, i tried it in a laptop BD writer in an external enclosure - it was recognized but copying it was extremely slow (speed was showing at 1X) and was going to take 3-4 hours to copy the 25 GB actual movie file. 2.5 hours into it, it "errored" out.

I'm not sure why a laptop BD drive would recognize it, when the 5.25" didn't - the laptop drive doesn't burn BDs as accurately as the 5.25" drive does, ie on the lower quality discs, like Optical Quantum, the laptop doesn't "verify" 5 out of 6 discs, where the 5.25" drive verifies on every disc, no failures.

Are the formats on BD discs that varied, or is the 5.25" drive signalling me it's heading south?

any input appreciated.

 

[KingFatty]

Was that an original movie, or one of the discs you burned, that couldn't be read? If it's a new bluray movie, perhaps it's some form of optical copy protection that exploits how the error correction algorithm works on computer blu-ray drives?

 

[larryccf]

sorry, i should have said, it was an original blu-ray movie (warner Bros) - when it wouldn't recognize, i dropped other discs in to see if the writer had gone south - both orig movie discs and some it had burnt - all were recognized with no issues.

and use MakeMKV to copy movie files - it seems to have all the "keys" to reading / copying movie discs. But with this BD, even going into My Computer and just trying to load the BD disc, i got "invalid disc" or "no disc" - it just wouldn't recognize the disc, even to play it

 

[phillyman36]

Or maybe the laser in the blu ray burner is dirty? Every movie I buy know I make a digital copy(got tired of burning media and then find disk, insert and watch then put back over and over again) and watch the file instead of having to insert the disk

 

[JacobBrown]

What player were you using? This problem may be because the player cannot recognize the burned discs. you can have a test with more BD players, recommend you Cyberlink Powerdvd, Macgo or EasyDVD.

 

[larryccf]

JacobBrown - I'm pretty sure the issue isn't with the software (i have CyberLink) - the BD Rewriter won't even recognize the disc - after inserting and closing tray it tries to read it for 2-3 minutes then throws up an "invalid disc" msg. Initially when this issue started, again it was only every 3-4 netflix discs, i would simply open/close tray and try again and on the 2nd, 3rd or even 4th try it would read recognize the disc.

In the interest of anyone behind me researching this or a similiar issue, i figured i'd post the below

Brand & model: LG WH14NS40 Blu-Ray Rewriter, a recently dis-continued model - i chose it on the multiple recommendations from folks that take video archiving to a pretty serious level.

The BD disc i had that it wouldn't read, played fine in the entertainment center's BD player - but i found, on researching, that BD players typically have software coding to assist it in reading scratched discs or reading past corrupted files

Since my last post, i ordered and rcvd a new LG external BLu-Ray Writer (External Blu-ray Disc Rewriter BE14NU40 ) and chose it specifically because it mentioned it's firmware had coding to help it read scratched or abused video discs.

The BE14NU40 recognized and played the disc, however at one point at nearly the mid-point of the disc, it's read rate dropped down to incredibly slow .01x read speed (per MakeMKV) and held that rate for 9-10 minutes, then returned to normal read speed (5-6X). That mid-point in the Bd was also the same place the 12.7MM BD Writer would fail and eject the disc.

I had also tried reverting the LG WH14NS40 to an earlier firmware version, with no luck - i can only assume it's scratched / corrupted discs that i've just been getting a rash of, but when i say scratched, there were only a very few small or minor scratches visible to the eye, and the part that points to the LG WH14NS40 heading south is that it would not even recognize the disc, much less play it. The 12.7MM BD writer would recognize and would read the disc to the midpoint of the video file.

So i now have a collection of BD Rewriters - if the issue with the LG WH14NS40 continues or worsens i'll just replace it.

BTw, if it serves anyone, the BE14NU40 has got to be the quietest player/writer i've ever experienced. Totally silent except when it speeds up to jump to a new track, and even then it's only a slight db increase.

 

[Charlie98]

FWIW, I have a generic BD drive in my main desktop that I use to rip all my movies to storage, I don't know the brand or model (edit: it's a LiteOn.) There are some disks that are so new even Slyfox's AnyDVD won't break them, or, perhaps more to your post, some disks... primarily BDs... just won't read. Some never recognize, some finally recognize but won't rip or play. Usually I can throw these disks in my standalone DVD/BD player and they will play, so I'm guessing the playback software/hardware is much better in a standalone than in a PC drive. I've also found any damage at all on a BD will jack up playback... which was one of the reasons I built my HTPC... rip the BDs once to storage and be done with it. My standalone ruined my BD copy of Star Trek...

 

[larryccf]

THANKS for that input - i suspected something like that might be at play as well but just not computer literate enough to know. It was also confusing that i had not experienced one failure to read/recognize a BD for it's first 7 months of useage, then start to see 1 in every 3-4 discs not recognize, so i wasn't really sure what was going on.

also fwiw, the folks over on the avsforum.com, awhile back i found a thread where a couple of retired video production engineers (TV production) indicated BD writers are much more critical than stand alone players - i took that to mean "picky" in what they'll play

one thing i found out the hard way, the laptop or 12.7mm bd writer is not as accurate in it's ability to write a disk. A lot of folks on avsforum has spoken highly of Quantum Optical bland BD disks (an economy line) but when i tried them with my laptop bd writer, they wouldn't verify, after the burn, 5 out of six times where that same burner did verify 100% of the time with verbatim blank BDs. When i commented that in that forum, one of the responses was that laptop burners, the chassis isn't rigid enough or accurate enough, and to try a 5.25" internal BD writer.

That was when i purchased the LG WH14NS40 burner, and sure enough it would verify Quantum Optical burns 5 out of 5 times.

fwiw