Review on 📀 LG WH16NS60 16x Internal Blu-ray BDXL M-Disc Drive with Ultra HD 4K Playback - Bundle Including Cyberlink Software and SATA Cable by Darren Anderson

Everything is fine with this disk. LG did a good job. So why only 3 stars? Because getting it to work as a 4K Blu-Ray drive is a challenge and solely the result of the draconian digital rights management (DRM) Hollywood has imposed on the computer industry in regards to 4K. blue ray If you want to know why there are only two 4K internal computer drives on the market and both have a bad reputation, read why here. I'll say right away that you CANNOT buy the version that includes the PowerDVD software. It's a waste of money if you don't have the very, very specific specs needed to do it *and* you have everything you need in your computer's BIOS. I bought this version without knowing about these limitations/requirements and of course it doesn't work on my system. Note that half of the DRM involved is software related. Even after I managed to get the drive working on my system myself, the included version of PowerDVD still refuses to play 4K discs. However, there are workarounds. And the workarounds work. How easy they are depends on what drive you get and what firmware it comes with, as you'll need to flash the firmware. I was lucky and got a disc from 2020 but with firmware 1.02 from 2018 - LG has firmware from 2020 and with revision numbers up to 1.05, they are encrypted and require extra steps to flash. So I'm not sure why my drive mixes and matches like this, but that's why I kept the drive, even though the software that came with it didn't work and it was relatively easy for me to use the drive even with 4K discs for to get running. Your mileage may vary. After flashing the drive, you have several other disc playback options besides PowerDVD, or you can just use MakeMKV and view the files yourself. MakeMKV can now also be used as a decryption tool for other players; I set it up to work with VLC and now I can watch my 4K discs directly with it. As usual, DRM encourages people like me who would like to watch my discs with officially bundled software to use things that I'm sure the movie industry won't like. But these are my drives and this is my drive that I paid my money for and I need to be able to use them together. Like the drive in general, this drive is typically LG - meaning it's rugged, quiet, and decent. quickly. To be honest, it's been a while since I've really cared about the speed of my optical drives (it was important in the CD days, but seems less important now) but it seems to be growing fast enough be. 4K discs take a while to be recognized, but so are many standalone players. It picks up other types of hard drives fairly quickly. I also have an old LG Blu-ray rewritable drive and they both work the same and it's one of my favorite drives I've ever had. I will say that the old drive *looks* a little better to me, with a more custom molded design, deeper black on the front and a raised silver LG logo, while this new drive has a more traditional design, is made out of more carbon fiber and only has a painted logo. But it doesn't matter. If you want 4K Blu-Ray on an internal drive, you really don't have many options. It's either Pioneer or Pioneer seems even more problematic based on the reviews I've read.