LG - 8x External USB 2.0 Blu-ray Disc Double-Layer DVD±RW/CD-RW Disc Rewriter - Black

I just bought this Blu-Ray optical drive yesterday, I needed something to rip my Blu-Ray collection as my Apple SuperDrive is only capable of reading / writing DVDs. This was really the only one they had to offer at my local BestBuy and the reviews online were decent, so I thought I'd give it a try. A couple of things right off the bat - some reviews on here are confusing, after reading and doing research, I wasn't sure if this drive had two separate USB cables, or just one, the manufacturer's description wasn't helpful at all. However, I discovered that it is technically one cable, but it DOES SPLIT AT THE END into two USBs, one for data transfer and the other to provide additional power to the drive. The main drawback here is that the split in the cord itself is very short, only a few inches, so if you have a 15-inch MacBook Pro (like I do) this is a major problem because the only 2 USB ports are on opposite sides of the computer... At first I tried plugging both into one of my 4 port USB hubs, I thought it was going to work but then the rips kept failing because the drive didn't have enough power. So, HERE WAS MY WORKAROUND: even though every LG document says not to, I plugged the shorter split end of the cable into a USB extension cable, which I then plugged into one of my iPhone USB power adapters. It is working great now, have ripped 6 Blu-Rays and am doing more as I type. So basically even though LG advertises "No AC power needed! Convenient!" it's not exactly so, I'd almost rather they provide an AC cable, but my workaround seems to be doing just fine and I can live with it. I assume this will affect almost all Mac laptop users and probably a lot of PC notebooks as well. (SEE PHOTOS) Other than that I am pretty happy with the drive, I realize Blu-Ray drives in general are going to be more expensive, but honestly for $100 it does feel a little cheap. All plastic and the slot that pops out to put the disc into seems kinda flimsy, so I'll be extra careful about that. Oh and Mac users: I was able to plug and play with this drive, I am ripping the Blu-Rays using MakeMKV and it worked fine, no drivers to install or anything. I imagine if you download a Blu-Ray playing software for Mac you might have to download some drivers, but probably not. Shouldn't have any problems.

I got this drive (LG - 8x External USB 2.0 Blu-ray Disc Double-Layer DVD±RW/CD-RW Disc Rewriter - Black ) because I wanted something portable that I could use with either my desktop or laptop PC. The hardware works great. The software, by Cybermedia, also works as expected. However, I was disappointed to find that the PowerDVD player software is only licensed for ONE computer, which makes no sense to me when being sold with a portable USB drive. As a workaround, I use the Leawo free Blu-ray DVD player software, easily found on the internet. I've also read that VLC (VideoLan) can play blu-ray disks, but I found Leawo was easier to use for this. If you wish to backup your Blu-ray DVD's, I recommend MakeMKV (free, although always in beta, but the beta key is repeatedly made available). I have also found (free) Handbrake to be very useful, converting backed up blu-ray DVD info to mp4. The software that came with the drive was rather old. PowerDVD was version 12 and version 16 is out now. The Cybermedia software updates/upgrades were not free, but I feel they should have been since I had just bought the drive brand-new. Also, they should have been perhaps locked to my drive's serial number, but usable on both my desktop and laptop (2 PC's at least). I mostly paid to get the burning software upgrades, since this drive is also a writer, but I have not yet bought blu-ray blanks or tried burning anything to blu-ray DVD, so I can't say anything about how the burning works. I'm pretty sure it will, though. I highly recommend the drive. I would advise waiting to decide about paying for the software updates until after trying the free programs mentioned. Cybermedia needs to make portable software for portable drives and offer updates free at least up to the purchase date. Getting a brand-new drive packaged with 5 year old software and having to pay as much for updates as for the drive, was disappointing - especially after finding it only would run on one PC. I have no affiliation with any of the free software I mentioned. Backups are only legal for private use of DVD's you own and hold. Do not make illegal backups.

When I was looking at this product in the store, I read the specs (system requirements) on the box to make sure it would work on my brand new HP Win-10 laptop. It was OK and I bought it. My first impression upon removing the product from the box was that this is a very cheaply manufactured product. But, so what, I thought. Then I noticed that the top lid of of the plastic enclosure was not attached properly. The front right corner if the lid was sticking up where it should have been snapped into place. So what, I thought. I could always exchange it for one that was assembled correctly. But I was curious and wanted to reserve final judgment based on actual operation and functionality. The drive comes with a Y-connector USB cable. I plugged the single end of the USB cable into the drive, then one end of the Y-connector ends of the cable into my laptop. No drive letter appeared in File Explorer, but the laptop did play a sound-bite to indicate something connected. That's when I thought it required the other end of the Y-connector to also be plugged into a USB port. But I did not have a spare adjacent USB port. When I read product reviews, I thought this was only necessary on MAC laptops and not necessary for Win-10 PCs. So if this is true, this device was not properly recognized by my Win-10 OpSys with only one end was connected to my laptop. If this is NOT true, in that I DO need to connect both ends of the Y-connector into my laptop, this fact was omitted in the specs on the box. Are you listening LG???? The box says nothing that the computer needs to have two available ADJACENT USB ports. I returned the product to best buy withing 1 hour. I love LG products, but this external optical drive IS A PIECE OF CRAP! I hope this helps those who read reviews before purchasing. I did not.

I had to return everything as the Geek Squad and the customer service worker could not figure out how to get it to play blu-ray movies after over 3 hours of working on it. I spent 4 hours on a Windows 7 laptop, a Window 8 laptop and a Window 10 laptop. I would like to thank the customer service worker with no name tag that spent his time helping me. He tried everything he could, and I appreciate it. I bought it the day before with the Lenovo idea pad laptop suggested by an employee in the computer area. I explained that my grandmother had a stroke and my twin brother, whose wedding she couldn't make it to, suggested I ask how to go about showing her the wedding video in blu-ray on a laptop since him and my sister in law wouldn't be able to visit her. So he, the Best Buy employee, said it would work as I made sure to ask before purchasing everything. Unfortunately it didn't. I was disappointed with the customer service of the Geek Squad employee the next day as he said that the only compensation that he could give me for all the wasted time, effort, choice made by the employee in the computer section the day before, having me stand for over 3 hours and all the stress and frustration of the ordeal with the laptop and external blu-ray drive was to let me return it. I didn't appreciate that since I could return it regardless since it was the next day. So I had both great and not so great customer service. It would have been nice if they could have found a laptop that the external blu-ray drive would've worked on and given me some sort of discount or even for example a $5 gift card to use in Best Buy as the store would still make money on whatever I would've purchased. I understand yet I don't as afterwards I went to Culver's. They forgot my burger and gave me a free pint of frozen custard for the mistake since I had to drive back to go get it. I think that this is a good example for all Best Buy employees to strive for since there was no fault on my part. Again the customer service employee was the best part of the experience. I would have liked the external blu-ray drive to work with the new Lenovo ideapad laptop like I was told. I ended up returning everything as I was told by Geek Squad that they didn't know if it was an issue with the external blu-ray drive or the laptop. So buyer beware if you purchase this item as it may not work as anticipated. If I can help save anyone from a similar experience then I am glad. I probably should have talked to a store manager, but there's no saying that he/she could have come up with a good customer service solution. So thanks for those who tried to help regardless of the outcome! I apologize if I said anything I shouldn't have, but context always helps in understanding the reason for my review.

I hate to say it but this is the reason I shop at best buy. If you want something new and crazy that nobody has and that you have to figure out on your own (even without the employee's knowing about it), best buy is it. I have always wanted something so i can figure it out. When hooking your computer to your tv hdmi wasn't very popular. I wanted to figure out how to do it. I had to be one of the first out of my friends to do it. Before all the apps to watch TV on your computer I was streaming TV through my computer through media center with a TV turner and graphics card bought from best buy. And I was just a poor college student. But I had a 15 inch Tv with recorded dvr programs from my windows media center. With two light scribe internal dvd drives that I bought straight from bestbuy. Now in 2017 I wanted to restart myself where I haven't been in 11 years. So I picked up this LG blu ray burner and software. I was really impressed with how cyberlink looked. I had cyberlink back in 2006 in my college years as well as nero. I loved nero much better. But I'm impressed with this version of cyber link. There are some issues with this blu ray player. First my computer is a 2008 hp. So I had to get a 500 watt power supply, amd 450 graphics card to handle these graphics. But once I play the blu ray, i hate the fact it won't let me use my mouse. Completely void of it. And yes i have an 80 dollar mouse bought from bestbuy. But it comes with a screen version of a mouse. When I'm about to start the movie after the box about the mouse comes on, another comes up saying that the graphics of my computer aren't supported by ratio so it wants to change it. I click no. Some reason when I click yes it slows down and doesn't work. So I click no. I could imagine why. But its annoying to even click that. And i have a 55 inch samsung TV 7100 series so i'm impressed with my TV. Once again it took a lot of things for this blu ray player to work on my computer that most people would not even have. I must say a good thing is the thing worked right away. Unlike the graphics card and other things, the software didn't give me a headache. If you want to watch blu rays on your computer this is it. I haven't hooked this up to a TV yet. So if you wanted to know about how that will work you have to read another review. I'm not sure if I'm more impressed with LG or best buy but either way if I need something advanced for my computer I can't go wrong with either.

I was a little concerned about this drive because I saw some negative reviews for it. I've put this drive through the paces, and I think it's a good product. I bought this for use with my new laptop which did not come with a built-in optical drive. I read some complaints about not being able to play DVD's or Blu-Rays. I installed the software onto my Windows 10 Pro laptop, and Blu-Rays do work. I haven't sat through a whole movie yet, but the discs that I've popped into this drive do load up and appear in the PowerDVD software bundled with the drive. I did not have to pay any extra fees. Maybe because I have Windows 10 Pro instead of Windows 10 Home? I also used the drive to install Linux on my laptop. In this case, I decided to put the drive through the paces of burning a DVD-R (yeah, I know, I could've used a USB stick, but there are advantages to keeping an optical disc on your shelf for emergency recovery). The bundled software burned the Linux ISO image files I downloaded to three discs without a hitch. Then Linux installed just fine from the completed discs. I think this drive does a fine job. I like that it doesn't need a dedicated power supply - it draws all the power it needs from the USB port. As other reviewers pointed out, it is a bit loud, but not much more so than any other optical disc drive. Hopefully this drive will ll last, but so far it hasn't let me down.

I use this mostly with a desktop Dell XPS 8300 i7 processor running Win 10 Pro that did not come with a blu-ray burner and a Microsoft Surface Pro (first generation) that does not come with a built-in DVD / blu-ray drive at all also now running Win 10 Pro. I have also used it to install Windows on laptops with broken drives and more. It really has come in handy. Note that this external LG DVD / blu-ray drive does require two USB ports. With the Surface Pro, I just use a Belkin USB 3.0 3-Port Hub with Gigabit Ethernet Adapter, Model B2B128, that was also purchased locally at Best Buy. This is not a slot drive, but a has a tray that comes out when a button is pressed on the front. This drive comes with older versions of Cyberlink's Power2Go, PowerDVD, PowerProducer (I prefer PowerDirector), and MediaShow. You can use these versions to upgrade to the newer version of software for less. I have used other video editing and burning software, and Cyberlink is my software of choice right now for these purposes, and I have other Cyberlink software too. PowerDVD is great for watching movies. Power2Go is great for utility type disc tasks and social media backup including preserving special memories others share online, which you can now burn to DVD or blu-ray. If you are wanting a portable DVD *and* blu-ray writer that is compatible with Windows and MAC, then take a look at this one.

So this little guy is super light weight and simple to use. You only need to have one USB port for it if you have a modern computer that pushes out more power, otherwise you'll need to plug in the other USB which is part of the "Y" it comes with. I didn't need it so one plug just lays there. I'd probably recommend using Velcro or similar and adhere the drive where you like it since it's so lightweight compared to others. So I just burned a DATA disc to a BD-R and I only had 11gb to use and it took about 13minutes to complete. Why a DATA disc you ask? Well the program by Cyberlink that this comes with (which is bundled with quite a bit if you ask me) does not recognize .MP4 from iPhones / iPad. I'm part of 5 YT channels in which I do quite a bit of video editing using both iDevices I have and the iMovie app. I store our content on an external HDD for backup purposes and hopefully one day (hoping that was today) I could burn the seasons onto a Blu-ray with menu etc. Well, it doesn't import that file type unfortunately for me but with modern Blu-ray players and even DVD, they still support reading burned DATA discs even when contained in folders. It's because the player can decode the file type where the program cannot. I'm testing our the DATA disc I burned just now and it plays fine with a few hiccups like short audio breakage (split second breaks). Which could be the audio format and my Blu-ray doesn't handle it perfectly. IDK. You browse the disc like a folder setup if your wondering. I even selected the option which doesn't finalize the disc so I can add more later. Hopefully this helps you. I also have Windows 10 Lenovo Laptop with 8gb ram, Core i5. The Blu-ray blanks were on clearance at OD for $9.99/15pk 25gb discs. BD-R.