Comment by HypnoticOcelot a day ago
I've used the Pioneer BDR-XS07UHD[0] and that's worked well with MakeMKV[1]! I've only tried it on normal DVDs, but Blu-Rays should work well too.
[0]: https://usa.pioneer/collections/optical-drives/products/bdr-...
[1]: https://makemkv.com/
Mine was purchased after that date, does that only apply to Blu-Ray?
Yes, and even then only for Ultra HD Blu-ray. Regular BDs should still usually work unless they're uncommon enough to not have a title key known to MakeMKV.
“A LibreDrive is a mode of operation of an optical disc drive (DVD, Blu-ray or UHD) when the data on the disc are accessed directly, without any restrictions or transformations enforced by drive firmware. A LibreDrive would never refuse to read the data from the disc or declare itself ‘revoked’. LibreDrive compatible drive is required to read UHD discs.”
Check your drive anyway. Purchased after that date does not necessarily mean manufactured after that date :)
It sucks that firmware updates used to be a thing to look forward to but now are something to be avoided at all cost. I'd rather buy a second drive if I needed some new feature.
MakeMKV will show you all the relevant drive info when you start it up, including LibreDrive status. Here's my BDR-XS07 for example: https://i.imgur.com/10CGsbm.png
With a combination of MakeMKV, DVDfab Passkey, and a LibreDrive-supporting drive I can rip pretty much anything. Passkey is a driver-level thing like AnyDVD HD. Both of them are available perpetually-licensed but AnyDVD is currently being legaled and is unavailable: https://www.dvdfab.cn/passkey.htm
You can try MakeMKV for free using the beta key posted monthly on their subreddit, but I just went ahead and bought it because it's not that expensive and then I don't have to think about it: https://old.reddit.com/r/makemkv/comments/1jolbsq/the_may_ke...
I'm currently going through and backing up my library with Passkey's “Rip to Image”. Due to the way LibreDrive works, it's common for MakeMKV to be able to make MKVs (lol) directly from a BD/UHD disc in the drive but fail to open a protected ISO of the same title. For this reason I uncheck “Keep Protection” in Passkey for anything AACS (BD, UHD, HD-DVD (yes I have an HD-DVD drive)) so I can run the image through MakeMKV later. I do check “Keep Protection” for DVDs however, because CSS is fully broken and I want to do the most untouched rip possible.
In this case you need a drive with firmware older than February 2023's v1.03 which disabled MakeMKV's LibreDrive. Mine is v1.01. See here: https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30383