I get it, the world is moving away from physical media. But I won't, not entirely. As many movies and TV shows that I "own" digitally and have access to through streaming services, I'm old-fashioned.

The only way I know I'm not losing access to a piece of content (games not included) is by owning a copy of it on a disc. Like it's 2010 all over again.

But Blu-ray discs aren't the most convenient. I can't watch them in any room in my house, I can't "offline" them to my phone if I'm going on a train or a plane, or just traveling in general. So, once again, I'm making an attempt to digitize the collection so that my family and I can watch them anywhere.

Since my last attempt, I've acquired a number of 4K UHD Blu-rays, though, and my trusty old USB drive is only suitable for the regular 1080p kind. Or so I thought.

After stumbling on a YouTube video, I learned of a thing called LibreDrive that could, magically, make it so I could utilize this drive to digitize the 4K discs. Not expecting much, I went off and did a little digging, and whaddya know?!

With minimal effort and a little care to do things properly, I can do just that and don't need to spring for a new external Blu-ray drive. I'm a happy man.

What in the heck is LibreDrive?

I was careful to say I learned of LibreDrive, not about it. Because truthfully, I don't really understand it. In its simplest terms (and do correct me in the comments if I'm wrong here) is that it allows for direct access to the data on the disc without any restrictions placed by firmware.

A LibreDrive-compatible.. uh, drive.. will therefore be able to work around these restrictions and grab the data straight from the disc. It does involve changing the firmware on the Blu-ray drive to something that can do this, and as such, not all Blu-ray drives are compatible.

How did I know mine was? MakeMKV, the software you should absolutely use to digitize your discs, simply told me that LibreDrive was possible, but not enabled. Having seen this, I ended up on the MakeMKV forums where I found the firmware, a tool to flash it, and step-by-step instructions written by people way smarter than I.

I'll admit to being skeptical, but it really did work. LibreDrive is now enabled, and I can access the data from a 4K UHD Blu-ray, despite not having a drive I'm supposed to be able to do that with. Be that for watching or digitizing.

As far as I can make out, to digitize a 4K Blu-ray, you need a LibreDrive-compatible piece of hardware, regardless of the protections on the disc. Regular reminder that, generally speaking, the companies making these things don't want you to rip them.

This isn't a guide, because, again, I am not the man to be writing such content. But if it's something that interests you, the MakeMKV forums are the place to go. You'll find helpful advice, recommendations on compatible hardware, and all the bits you require.

But I would recommend opening MakeMKV first and seeing what it says. If it says it's possible, as with my drive, at least you know you're looking with purpose. Less chance of being disappointed.

For reference, the drive I'm using is a Hitachi-LG BP55EB40. If you can find one cheap, it's solid, if not the latest and fastest around, but I wouldn't buy one at full price anymore.

How I'm digitizing 4K UHD Blu-ray discs

This part I can speak to with a little more authority. It's not necessarily the best workflow around, but it's the one I have with the hardware at my disposal.

The first part is grabbing MakeMKV, which has been in beta for essentially eternity at this point. There's a beta key posted regularly to the forums, but you get 30 days of evaluation time regardless, or you can support the development by buying a lifetime license.

Opening a disc will show you every single piece of content on it. You can rip it all, or, as I do, be selective. I'm not interested in extras, I just want the main feature content. It's pretty obvious which is the main feature, for one, it's usually the biggest file.

From there, the workflow is to click "MakeMKV" and then grab a beverage, because it takes a while. I only have a USB 2.0 Blu-ray drive, and it can take anything up to an hour depending on how big the file is.

What you're left with is a raw rip of the video content from the disc. You can watch this if you want, but it's potentially not ideal. For one, it'll be a massive file, so unless you have an endless supply of storage, eventually you'll run out.

Huge files also aren't necessarily what you're going to want to transfer to a phone or tablet, or stream over your network, either. That's where the second part comes in, and it's over to Handbrake.

Handbrake is where I'll transcode all the videos to a more efficient, readable, smaller format. There are plenty of settings in here you can use to get the right balance, and I'd recommend reading up on the wealth of resources you'll find on the internet.

For me, I simply use the 10-bit h.265 NVENC option for 4K discs to utilize my RTX 5080 GPU. I do this for a balance of quality and efficiency. I may have a couple of goes at it if I set the quality too low, but using the GPU, at least I'm not waiting all day for it to finish.

Unlike MakeMKV, though, which has to handle a disc at a time, Handbrake allows you to set up a queue. You don't need to do a file at a time; you can simply line up a bunch of your Blu-ray rips, decide on the settings for each, hit the button, and let it do its magic.

That's what I tend to do. I'll focus on ripping maybe half a dozen discs at a time, then queue up those files in Handbrake and do a batch. I doubt it saves me any time, but it reduces the time spent flicking between the apps. I can focus on a single task at a time.

So what do I do with all of these transcoded files?

The final step is one I haven't decided on yet. For a large collection — and mine isn't exactly small — a lot of storage is needed.

For now, they're all building up on a secondary SSD in my PC, but the long-term play will be moving them to a NAS. I have one with a 4TB RAID set up, which should do for the foreseeable future.

From there on, it'll be getting back into either Plex or Jellyfin. I have a Plex Pass lifetime license, and in the past, it's what I've used. But the more I hear about Jellyfin, the more I want to at least try it out.

All of that is another post for another day, though. For now, I'm just elated that I didn't need a new Blu-ray drive to take care of the 4K discs!

A Blu-ray disc contains a lot of data, and to get them onto your PC you need time and patience. But it's also a fairly straightforward process and something that anyone can do.

To be clear, though, there is a distinct legal grey area around using software such as that mentioned in this post, and this will differ depending on your location. It's unlikely you personally will face any direct consequences of circumventing the DRM on Blu-ray discs, but it's something to bear in mind.

Getting a Blu-ray drive for your PC

The first thing you actually need is a Blu-ray drive, and they're not particularly common when it comes to being pre-installed in PCs these days. If you have one, great, you're all set.

If you don't, you need one of the best external Blu-ray drives. They'll hook up over USB 2.0 or 3.0 to your PC, and you can get cracking straight away.

An external Blu-ray drive is unlikely to need specialist drivers or software, either, which makes working with the best pieces of software even easier.

Ripping your Blu-ray discs

This isn't for the light-hearted, mostly because it takes such a long time to do, and it's easy to make a mistake. But there is a free way to do it using two pieces of incredible software.

MakeMKV and HandBrake have been featured before in our roundup of the best DVD cloning software, and for good reason. Both are completely free to use, and though MakeMKV is technically still a beta, they're both very powerful. MakeMKV does have a paid element, though admittedly you're never really required to pay, but if you like it then you should certainly throw the developer some cash.

Essentially you use MakeMKV to pull the data from the Blu-ray, then run it through HandBrake to compress it down. You can, of course, skip HandBrake, but each file from a Blu-ray will be huge. If you have a ton of storage and you're only using the files on your local machine it might not matter. But if you also picked up one of today's best NAS drives to build a media server with, the HandBrake step is crucial.

How to use MakeMKV to rip a Blu-ray disc

The process of using MakeMKV is straightforward, but it does take a little time to complete. It's very resource intensive and exactly how long will depend largely on the spec of your PC.

1. Insert the Blu-ray disc into your drive.
2. When loaded, click File in the menu bar.
3. Choose Open disc.
4. Select the folder that corresponds to the disc you just put in.
5. Right-click and Unselect all.

The reason to de-select everything is that it makes it quicker to get what you want and get rid of what you don't. A Blu-ray is packed with extras and menus and all kinds of files that will just make the process take longer and take up space on your PC.

Select the largest file(s) on the disc as this will represent the movie or TV show episodes you're looking for. Now just click Make MKV, accept the dialog to have a folder created and go grab a coffee while it completes.

How to compress ripped Blu-rays with HandBrake

HandBrake is more than a "one size fits all" solution as it has a number of settings to change that will affect the overall quality of your file. The basic process involves opening a file (or a folder full of them) and hitting the encode button if you're happy with the settings.

Things to change include the encoding speed, which can affect visual quality, audio, subtitles, and more. Have a poke around and see what fits your needs and get those files queued up.

You will encode only a single file at a time and HandBrake will use all of your CPU (NVENC is also available to NVIDIA GPU users) so again, it's time to grab a coffee and wait. But you can queue up as many files as you need and HandBrake will get through them one by one.

How to use the files

What you end up with is a digital file now instead of the disc. And that means you can watch it with any programs on your PC capable of interpreting that file type. That might be the built-in Movies & TV app, or it could be something a little more advanced like VLC.

One of the best things you can do is add them to a home media server such as Plex or Emby. This way you can enjoy them on not only your PC but any other device that has access to those apps, as well as easily being able to pull them into something like Kodi.

Alternatively you could just store the files on something like a Synology NAS and use the Synology apps to stream your files to other PCs, smart TVs, and mobile devices. Once you have the digital files, the only limit is your imagination.

DVDs are relatively simple to deal with, but how to watch Blu-ray discs on Windows 10? These discs are now the standard for HD video on the physical format, and as more and more of us use our PCs for home entertainment, it's perfectly acceptable to want to play a Blu-ray on it. But it's not just a case of popping a disc in the drive and putting your feet up. You need something like PowerDVD 19 from Cyberlink.

How to convert your Blu-ray discs to digital

This isn't for the light-hearted, mostly because it takes such a long time to do, and it's easy to make a mistake. But there is a free way to do it using two pieces of software.

MakeMKV and Handbrake have been featured before in our roundup of DVD cloning software, and for a good reason: Both are entirely free. While MakeMKV is technically still a beta, and it's still potent.

Essentially, you use MakeMKV to pull the data from the Blu-ray, then run it through Handbrake to compress it down. You can, of course, skip Handbrake, but each file from a Blu-ray will be huge. So unless you have an awful lot of storage on hand, running through Handbrake is an excellent step to reduce the file size at the expense of outright quality.

How to watch your Blu-ray discs on Windows 10

You can watch the actual discs on your Windows 10 PC without having to convert them to a digital file.

The first option to mention is the good old Swiss Army Knife, VLC. Natively, VLC won't just play your Blu-ray discs, so you'll need to do some tweaking.

It's not necessarily the best option, but if you're a heavy VLC user already, it's at least an option.

Perhaps a better —and also free— method is the Leawo Blu-ray player application. It also supports DVDs, and while you're not paying for it, you're only getting a bare-bones Blu-ray player. Nevertheless, it's reliable and gets the job done.

If you're interested in something a little more feature-filled, there are numerous apps out there. The best is Cyberlink's PowerDVD 19. It offers support for 3D Blu-ray as well as regular discs, high frame rate playback, HDR, casting, and 4K UHD Blu-ray.

Additionally, PowerDVD will also play any of your ISO files from Blu-rays or DVDs directly, so you've got everything you need under one roof. It's a handy piece of software to have on a media PC, and you can even use it to pull in content from YouTube and Vimeo, including 360-degree video.

If you're hunting for a Blu-Ray player

The software is obviously a big part of watching Blu-Ray discs on Windows 10, but if your PC or laptop doesn't have a built-in drive, you're going to need one before you get anywhere.

Whether you're building your own PC, buying one or just looking for an external addition, it's important to make sure you get the right optical drive for your needs. There are three formats to take into consideration: Blu-ray, DVD and CD.

The choice may sound straightforward, but there's a little bit of thinking to do first.

Go Blu-ray if you can

The downside to going for a Blu-ray drive is cost. They're significantly more expensive than drives that don't support the format. There's a good reason for it (quality), but it'll always leave you spending a bit more.

That's the only negative. If you can get a Blu-ray drive, then you definitely should, whether it is built into your pre-built PC or you're putting your own internal or external drive into your setup.

Blu-ray drives will almost always be backward compatible with DVDs and CDs. That means one drive to play everything. Forward compatibility isn't a thing so if you get a drive that only plays DVDs and CDs, you're stuck with those. No Blu-ray for you.

If you don't ever watch Blu-ray movies, you might not need it. If the extra cost isn't a problem, it's never a bad thing to be prepared for the future.

More: Best external Blu-Ray drives for PC

Check your writing

If you ever write or "burn" data to CDs, DVDs or Blu-ray discs, you'll need to ensure you get a drive that can do this.

Don't just see the item listing in a store like Amazon mention writing and assume it does what you need. Some will read Blu-ray discs but will only write to DVDs and CDs.

You'll (almost) always need some software

Some drives may come bundled with an app to view content from your discs. Most of the time, they will not.

If you're simply reading data files from the discs, you'll only need File Explorer in Windows 10. You can get to the files as you would any other internal or external hard drive.

Listening to music from CDs is easy, and apps like Windows Media Player that are built in that will do this. DVDs and Blu-rays require a little more effort on your part.

Fortunately, we've got guides that cover you in both instances.

• How to watch DVDs on Windows 10
• How to watch Blu-Ray discs on Windows 10

Microsoft has yet to take full advantage of UWP capabilities when it comes to Xbox One, but that's about to change as the company begins to bring across some universal apps. The first being Blu-ray Player. As reported by WinBeta, this new UWP Blu-ray Player app will replace the existing one automatically once the update has been downloaded and applied on the console.

The company is pushing out the updated app to around 20,000 Xbox One Preview members as part of a testing phase. Fear not if you won't be among the selected few as more Preview members will be added to the program over time before it's eventually launched as final for the general public. As for the Blu-ray Player, it's noted to not be much different from the Player already available, aside from underlying code.

Here's a snippet of the announcement published in the private forum for Preview members:

There's still some way to go before Microsoft brings to life its vision of running apps right across its platform, but we're slowly getting there.

Xbox One can provide a great experience whether you choose to purchase your games in store from a brick and mortar retailer, or if you decide to download all of your content digitally from the Microsoft Xbox Marketplace. I personally download all of my content from the store, and have not used to the disk drive to this day (okay, I did once to test for the original faulty Blu-Ray drive issue). It has just been revealed though, that at one point – Xbox One could have been a disc-less console.

The official Xbox magazine for the UK spoke to Microsoft Studio’s boss, Phil Spencer, about the design process of the company’s latest console. Spencer revealed that the company was considering removing the disk drive from the unit as late as mid-2013.

So there it is, Microsoft struggled with the idea of creating a possible disc-less console, but decided against it due to current bandwidth constraints along with the massive size of some of the currently available game titles.

The fact that we have to remember is that Xbox is a universal brand, while some of us may have an excellent internet connection (I get 50 Mb/s down) – not all of us are so lucky. In areas where internet connections drip slower than molasses from a winter tree (what?), the disc-less option of an Xbox One just isn’t a possibility for all at the current time.

While a second Xbox One without a disc drive could have been a possible option, it most likely would have not affected the price by enough of a significant margin.

What do you think about a disc-less Xbox One?

Source: Xbox Magazine UK

Vector is our cross-platform, cross-site podcast where we talk about the technology that matters to all of us. In this episode, Don Melton, former Engineering Director of Internet Technologies at Apple, deep-dives into his non-browser-based passions: Blu-Ray, transcoding video, H.264, and managing massive amounts of media. Bottom line, if you want to get your videos onto your devices, and you're not afraid of command-lines or codecs, you're in for one hell of a ride. But, yeah: Warning: Contains extreme nerdery.

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Show notes

• HandBrake and HandBrakeCLI: Convert video from nearly any format.
• HandBrake and HandBrakeCLI: nightly builds.
• MediaInfo: Display technical and tag data for video and audio files.
• MKVToolNix: Tools for Matroska, including mkvmerge.
• MPlayer: Media utilities and player.
• MakeMKV: Convert/rip video that you own into the portable and open Matroska format.
• Plex
• XBMC
• OpenELEC (Open Embedded Linux Entertainment Center)
• X264 Settings
• Scene Rules: warez)

Guests

• Don Melton of donmelton.com

Hosts

• Rene Ritchie of iMore.com

Feedback

Yell at us via the Twitter accounts above (or the same names on ADN). Loudly.

Microsoft has been facing a slew of battles with the announcement of its latest Xbox One console. The launch event was riddled with DRM woes, a required Kinect accessory and a higher price tag that Sony’s PlayStation 4. The company has backtracked on its original DRM mission, making players more comfortable with the idea of purchasing games for the unit, but questions about the Kinect sensor still remain.

Microsoft has confirmed that consumers can now unplug the Kinect sensor from their Xbox One unit and still enjoy what the console has to offer. Any abilities of the unit that take advantage of the sensor will be unavailable, but for gamers who just want to dive right in and don’t give a hoot about motion controls or voice recognition – there isn’t an issue.

The problem with the Xbox One’s higher price tag now seems like an easy issue to address – cut the Kinect sensor from the bundle. If Microsoft was to remove the Kinect sensor from its Xbox One package the price of the unit could be significantly reduced. In a recent conversation between Phil Harrison, Microsoft corporate vice president, and CVG, we learned that cutting Kinect will never happen.

Many may see this as a missed opportunity for Microsoft. Surely a cheaper Xbox One console would sell better and place it in a stronger position against Sony’s PlayStation 4 – but Microsoft says no. There are benefits of sticking with the Kinect sensor though.

In the past, developers wishing to release a Kinect game was a hit or miss situation – you never knew if an Xbox 360 owner would own the high tech accessory. With Xbox One, every owner will have a Kinect available for their system and because of this, we expect Kinect game production to flourish.

When Sony stated that they would be selling the PlayStation 4 camera separate from the console itself, they surrendered the opportunity to win in the motion gaming space. Many gamers would argue, "Who cares", but winning motion gaming is much more than just swinging your arms around while trying to slay a dragon or fighting the Sith with a lightsaber.

Kinect with Xbox One presents a completely new way to interact with technology and is a true step forward for natural interfaces. Sure you can game, but you can also control the entire console or browse TV with the gesture of a hand or a remark of the mouth.

Now that we know that Microsoft has confirmed that the Xbox One won’t be sold without the Kinect sensor bundled – how can they get the price down? Recent news has showcased that the company might be bundling free games (like FIFA for Europe) with its latest generation console in an attempt to entice buyers; if you can’t cut the cost of the console – add more freebies.

What are your thoughts on bundling Kinect? Despite Kinect being a central part of the operating system, would you want to buy an Xbox One without the sensor?

Source: CVG via CNET