Upgrade Your Blu-Ray Drive to 4K UHD FOR FREE!

Today, we're going to be looking at flashing the firmware on LG WH14NS40 and Asus BW-16D1HT Blu-Ray drives to become 4K UHD capable. It's so easy, even we optical media using cavemen can do it...

Stuff Links (Affiliated; I earn a small commission on these links):

Video Links

Send me everything... except to jail:
The Broken Life
4000 E. Bristol St.
Suite 3 #253
Elkhart, IN. 46514

[TheBrokenTech]

Be sure to check the top comment if you're having .NET errors.

[paulgaster]

Important note: The tool will give a .NET error and not work unless MakeMKV is already installed. Maybe I missed it, but I did not see that mentioned.

[deltacx]

If I buy hardware I'm definitely going to use it to it's full capabilities regardless of what the manufacturer thinks, they lost control when they decided to sell it to me.

[kilowatt]

Just tried this on a Asus BW-16D1X-U. It’s an internal drive preinstalled with an enclosure. Bought it mainly because my PC had no internal drive bay and I wanted a good quality drive for ripping Blu-rays. I didn’t even know it could do 4K UHDs till I tried flashing it and it just worked. Thanks for this video!

[iamfinky]

This is really cool. I don't use 4K, but I'm not surprised there is an industry wide cartel

[StacyLangenkamp]

You’re the man!! Aside from trying and trying to find drives and figure out how to flash them, little did I know I had my old lg wh14ns40 and didn’t even know it could be flashed! Followed your instructions and worked like a charm! Ripping UHD movies with MakeMKV as we speak! I can’t thank you enough!

[OddOttAllen]

ended up finding the same Asus drive open-box on ebay last week, manufactured only a couple months after the one in the video! picked it up as well as the enclosure and i got my first 4K blu-ray ripping onto my hard drive currently :)

thanks for this dude, you get a sub from me

[paolox]

Great to see this. I just spent too long trying to get an external 4K burner to play 4K movie discs - but after trying every kind of semi-shady software fix I gave up and bought a standalone multizone 2K player - which actually works. The software players were all very cagey about what they could actually play, with VideoByte's 4K Blu-ray player being unable to play 4K Blu-ray discs, for example.
The external burner is now a tasteful usb-powered drinks coaster.

[jimcooper]

Thank you. I just flashed my LG WH14NS40 and the process went exactly like your video showed.

[CustomRCmodels]

man, I am thrilled ! - been getting me 2x slim external 4K UD drives, but all of my computers miss this SGX stuff ... I been using also makeMKV, but kind a got lost in these posts about firmware flashing I watched your other video first, and then this here - ha, I am rolling now - one is an LG drive, the other one is an Archgon will do that one later - but so far it reads me from the LG drive via makeMKV without error - big thumbs up ! Thanks a lot - and I have to say, buy just watching only these 2 videos from you, you explain and show very well - keep up the great work

[looknfind]

I really appreciate you doing this! I bought the Asus on your recommendation. It came in today, I just flashed it, and right away it can read my 4K discs! Thank you! Now I can finally back up my library.

[zbluebox]

Randomly came across this video. Nice tutorial. Glad to see someone local is making videos like this.

[minipicc]

It worked for me on my first try yesterday after I got an ASUS BW-16D1HT Drive in the mail Wednesday!!! You are the best!!!

[daskampffredchen]

Getting that LG Drive without any prior knowledge was super lucky. Everytime I look through compatibility lists it is in there

[jesseduran]

Thanks for the video! I was able to successfully update my LG WH14NS40, but not without some issues, through no fault of your video. First I couldn't get the drive to be recognized in Windows. After a complete teardown of the Vantec enclosure, it turns out they soldered a chip incorrectly so not all legs were making contact. Thankfully I have some soldering skills and was able to resolder the chip. I then had the .NET error that others experienced, but installing MakeMKV solved that issue. Looking forward to the next video!

[ScoutReaper-znrz]

Thanks man! I successfully flashed mine (LG) and it worked!

EDIT: I also did it on Windows 7 without any problems for anyone wondering.

[MegaManNeo]

Very interesting. I purchased one of the LG variants to rip my BDs and PS3 games.
Having the option to rip 4k now gives me so many more options even if all I have are 720p and 1080p panels.
Certainly won't hurt in the long run. Thanks for showcasing this.

[DigitalDiabloUK]

I didn't realise the PC drives couldn't read 4k. Doesn't make any sense because surely it's just a bitstream read of the data on the disc and the player software does the decoding legwork.

[ChrisRussell]

I wish they would make & allow 4K Blu-Ray disc capabilities in Desktop drives. I have the Asus drive I got for $80 a couple years ago & I currently use it to play Blu-Ray & 4K Blu-Ray movies.

I learned so much about how difficult it is to just PLAY a movie, it honestly feels like someone is actively discouraging the idea.

[varese]

Very nice guide, I am now the proud owner of a flashed LG WH14NS40 drive – thank you !. In case other’s come across my issue - I didn’t have a USB drive enclosure to hand, so I initially connected the drive to a SATA > USB cable (Powered with a 12v DC adaptor) which I had lying around. The drive was recognised by SDTool and MKV, they displayed all the information about my drive - however when pressing start after selecting the firmware or trying to read existing firmware - nothing happened. I guess this is down to the type of cable / adaptor used which in my case did not allow the firmware commands to be processed to the drive. So plugging my drive directly into my PC / motherboard SATA connector without the adaptor worked fine and was able to flash the drive . My SATA > USB adaptor cable works fine for reading/ripping my now flashed drive – it just couldn’t be used to apply the firmware.