Which is a good blu ray burner

[stevieboy]

Hi, im wanting to back up my blu rays to blu rays as my nephew borrows them and some have come back damaged which is getting expensive to keep replaceing them.
Somethink half decent but not top of range (im not exactly rolling in the cash lol)

And is there any special program i need ?

[Kerry56]

None of the Blu-ray burners are going to be as cheap as the DVD burners. Most people recommend Pioneer burners for quality of burns. LG would be the second choice. Lite-on seems to have stopped making full sized burners, and Samsung only has slim drives. Everyone else is rebadging LG drives now, like Asus.

So, first recommendation: Pioneer 209

second: LG WH16NS40

If you want to watch Blu-ray movies on the computer, you will need PowerDVD or WinDVD. Neither come with the bare-bones OEM drives, but you could spend a bit more and get a retail drive like the Pioneer 2209. The versions of PowerDVD that come with drives tend to be slightly crippled.

To backup your Blu-ray movies, you'll need something to decrypt them. MakeMKV is free while in beta, you just need to update the beta key from their forum once a month or so. Use Backup mode to get the entire movie onto your hard drive. Then use BD Rebuilder to compress to fit onto a blank 25gb disc. Or you can buy the expensive double layer discs and not have to compress anything.

To do the actual burn to the disc, use ImgBurn.

All three of these programs used to backup your movies are free.

[usually_quiet]

Assuming you are in N. America, the Pioneer BDR-209DBK is a good burner, and not overly expensive. If that isn't available, the LG WH16NS40 is another relatively inexpensive option, although the Pioneer is likely a better product. (It appears kerry56 is of the same opinion.)

One thing you should be aware of is that your nephew may have trouble playing the backups if his Blu-Ray player is Cinavia compliant. Cinavia compliant players only play the original commercial discs, not back-up copies. If his player is Cinavia compliant, but can play mkv files from Blu-Ray discs, converting the movie to mkv with MakeMKV may work better.

[stevieboy]

GREAT !!! thanks people the answer are most helpful, oh and from the UK.. Thanks again

[usually_quiet]

GREAT !!! thanks people the answer are most helpful, oh and from the UK.. Thanks again

For future reference, knowing the country where someone lives can be a significant help in answering their question, even when recommending PC components. Sometimes the selection of available products varies depending on location.

[Edit]One more thing. I should have mentioned in my previous post that Cinavia copy protection isn't common. Your nephew may only encounter problems once in a great while when playing a backup copy on a BD-R rather than an mkv file on a BD-R.

[stevieboy]

i think i would have prob bought nero burning rom 2014 haha good job i asked first lol

[stevieboy]

is anyone else from the UK ?

[dfisher052]

How about NOT letting your nephew borrow your discs until he learns how to take care of other peoples property. That's a lot cheaper than buying a blu-ray burner and blu-ray discs and going through the bother of converting and burning them just so he can destroy them.
If someone borrowed a disc from me and brought it back in bad condition I don't think he would be borrowing anymore discs.

[stevieboy]

Because its not his fault he is disabled

[DB83]

Well since you are in the UK, Amazon does have a Pioneer burner

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pioneer-BDR-209DBK-SATA-Internal-Burner/dp/B00H2GTXKS/ref=sr_1...1338942&sr=1-3

Whether what you are doing is legal, or whether asking advice in here of how to do it contravenes the rules of the forums, I will leave others to judge on that.

[stevieboy]

i thought as long as i own the original i can back it up, plus i dont buy copies or sell them . Is this right ?
But beginning to have second thoughts anyways lol its not a simple task by the sounds of it and not cheap either

[Kerry56]

Laws in the UK are changing on backing up media that you own. It is now permissible, though the question of encryption is one that they have waffled on badly. In general, if you are backing up Blu-ray that you own and are making your copies for yourself and your family, you are on safe ground. No one is going to come hunting you down for this.

It is not particularly cheap to do backups, in equipment, blank media or time. But it isn't really very difficult. The software I mentioned earlier makes it something that anyone can pick up and do successfully. Read a guide or two on BD Rebuilder, and you should be good to go. Edit: Just remember to decrypt and rip to the hard drive first, using MakeMKV in Backup mode.

And burning with ImgBurn is simple enough...just stick to 4x speed and use good media like Verbatim. Though I personally avoid the Verbatim discs that have the LTH designation. Those are made using a different manufacturing process than what is normally seen in BD-R discs.

[classfour]

Does the UK have Cinavia protection on Blurays?

If so - his copy will stop in 20 minutes and show an error code on most Bluray players.

[Kerry56]

Cinavia applies to all countries. Most Blu-ray movies do not have Cinavia in them however. Cinavia is mostly found in movies released by Sony Pictures, and the vast majority of those only have Cinavia on the English soundtrack.

If you have an older Blu-ray player, released before the deadline in April of 2012, then you won't have an issue with Cinavia detection.

[stevieboy]

I`m not sure tobe honest ive never heard of it or seen it cime to that......I took alook at that BD Rebuilder and you have todownload 2-3 other programs for it to work, in all honesstie it sounds like to much hard work lol then there`s the disk media i was going to use Ritek
But like i say it sounds like to much trouble lol

[usually_quiet]

I`m not sure tobe honest ive never heard of it or seen it cime to that......I took alook at that BD Rebuilder and you have todownload 2-3 other programs for it to work, in all honesstie it sounds like to much hard work lol then there`s the disk media i was going to use Ritek
But like i say it sounds like to much trouble lol

I don't know what your nephew's physical and mental capabilities are or what kind of Internet service is available to him at home, but maybe a Roku and a subscription to Netflix or another streaming rental service would be an easier option for you, even if it isn't likely to be less expensive. Some services offer parental controls, if that is an issue.

[dfisher052]

It's too bad you did not mention in your first post that your nephew was disabled. As a parent of a disabled son I would not have made the comment I did. My apologies.

[OllieTSB]

Kerry's Post #2 gives the steps to use. The Pioneers are a "209" series, by the way. "2209" is the retail box version of the "209" series, and you may see other "209" series packaging offered. These are the same hardware model.

BluRay copying IS a lot of trouble. It will take some time to get it right, but it's also a process that - other than exasperating - can be viewed as an experiment. "This time, I'll try THIS option" and "Didn't like that result, so I'll try this other checkbox..."

All of these result in a set of files that can be played first, on your computer, and then burned to a BluRay blank. So, if the first file-set isn't like I want, I try another set of options and create another File-Set. Then play that back and see how I like it. Rinse and repeat. It CAN be exasperating, but if you'll do it 10 times, I know you'll feel 20 times more experienced. It DOES pay off in the end.

In a few months, you won't think twice about 'the time'.

[usually_quiet]

Kerry's Post #2 gives the steps to use. The Pioneers are a "209" series, by the way. "2209" is the retail box version of the "209" series, and you may see other "209" series packaging offered. These are the same hardware model.

That is not accurate. The Pioneer BDR-209DBK is actually different hardware than the drive in the 2209 retail package. If you look at the specs, the drive in the 2209 package has write support for some additional media types. Now, the extra media types are uncommon ones, and not what most people would ever use, although I guess DVD-RAM may be more popular in the UK than in the USA.