OWC Mercury BluRay DVD CD Unit No Longer Available - What Is Alternative ??

[Frank-0-Video]

Most Humbled Greetings ....

The OWC Mercury Pro 16X BluRay-DVD-CD Burner Player is no longer available. Neither Amazon or BH Photo are selling it.

I have treasured using the one I bought last November, mainly for ripping. I regret not buying a 2nd one.

So -- what good alternatives are still available?

[geek gift]

i think your best option is to get an external 5.25" case and put the drive of your choice in it.

[aramkolt]

You could probably still find them on eBay, they were fairly common. Seems all blu ray drives that support makeMKV and 4K ripping have gone up a ton in price recently and often sell out. I somehow doubt that everyone is getting into bluray when streaming is so mainstream, so my guess is it is more of a supply bottleneck, but I don't know that for sure.

[usually_quiet]

The production of all types of optical disk drives and burnable optical media is ending. This started a 2-3 years ago. Virtually everything still being sold is old stock.

[geek gift]

"Seems all blu ray drives that support makeMKV and 4K ripping have gone up a ton in price recently and often sell out. I somehow doubt that everyone is getting into bluray when streaming is so mainstream"

aramkolt, and i'm always surprised that in 2026 you have people that are big movie/tv fans and even use streaming services and have 4k tvs.

that will say "what is 4k ?" if you mention 4k to them.

[aramkolt]

Well, I mean, they definitely are still making blu ray drives, just doing a quick googling shows the WH16NS60 is still in production just as an example, but it does seem that several brands are no longer shipping to certain regions including the USA. Scalpers sure seem to have a lot of new drives pre flashed for 4k reading (which they sell at quite a premium), or could be they are importing them from countries where they are still available.

As far as something available now that is known to with MakeMKV (per the comments), it didn't take too long to find this listing, but looks like there are only 10 in stock. https://www.amazon.com/BUFFALO-External-Blu-Rays-Connection-Compatible/dp/B00C8FBBJ4/

[usually_quiet]

Well, I mean, they definitely are still making blu ray drives, just doing a quick googling shows the WH16NS60 is still in production just as an example, but it does seem that several brands are no longer shipping to certain regions including the USA. Scalpers sure seem to have a lot of new drives pre flashed for 4k reading (which they sell at quite a premium), or could be they are importing them from countries where they are still available.

Yes, the WH16NS60 is labeled "discontinued" on LG's US website, https://www.lg.com/us/burners-drives/lg-wh16ns60-internal-blu-ray-dvd-drive. In which countries is the W16NS60 still being sold?

Official 4K drives from LG and Pioneer were the first to disappear. As I recall, this occurred about a year after it was no longer possible to "legally" play UHD Blu-ray discs with a computer. (The security features that were required for licensed software players (Cyberlink Power DVD Ultra and one or two others) to work were disabled after hackers cracked them.)

[ozymango]

Not exactly on topic, but I find it fascinating that in my Facebook feed, because I follow a lot of video stuff, I get posts from time to time from people who collect "physical" media (VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray) and these groups are usually titled something like "Physical Media is Forever!" or "Physical Media Lovers Unite" and I think, yeah, sure, you really want a copy of some rare movie or TV show, you'd better copy it to a hard disk (preferably spinner disk) somewhere, because good luck finding a working VHS or DVD or Blu-Ray player these days!

[aramkolt]

Interesting, those 10 buffalo external drives on Amazon are also now gone it seems.

As for the LG model I mentioned, I was going off of what Google was saying was still in production, so guess that is inaccurate.

It's not hard to get Blu Ray drives including dedicated BluRay players, but it does seem everyone has snapped up the remaining supply of the ones that support MakeMKV's 4K ripping.

You can still find several "new" drives in China, but it'll take a while to receive. But at least eBay being eBay, if it isn't as described, you can return it.

Didn't take too long to find this one, seems to be a reputable seller and is USA based, still under the $200 mark (but maybe not after tax):
https://www.ebay.com/itm/177903987400

[aramkolt]

These also are known to work, I probably wouldn't prefer a slim drive to a full size drive given the choice, but they have plenty fans and are more reasonably price.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/376652795766

Those and the verbatim slim drives are probably the easiest to find at reasonable prices.

[Frank-0-Video]

Greetings ...

Well, I have invested in a Buffalo drive, due to arrive today. I've also ordered a low-cost USB-3.0 burner-player drive.

If they, along with the OWC drive, will stay healthy, then I should be able to rip my current Bluray-DVD collection, converting all to MP4.

Sad that the super rapid advancement of newer technologies is putting optical disc devices out of favor, and I deeply regret not recognizing this sobering fact much sooner.

Ah, well. Best Regards and Thanx-A-Lotte, Frank-0-Video