Mediatek chipset BDXL writers

[discuser]

Does anyone know which brand / models of BD or BDXL readers or writers use the Mediatek chipset? It seems that Philips-Liteon has discontinued their internal BD reader drives, Sony apparently used to use Mediatek chipsets but have been out of the ODD market for years now. Samsung doesn't appear to make any internal BDXL drives, and Hitachi-LG BD/BDXL ODDs don't appear to use the Mediatek chipset, as I recently tested one from Hitachi-LG and it did not work with Opti-Drive Control utility to test BD LDC/BIS rates.

Pioneer BDXL writers allow for Opti-Drive Control disc quality tests for DVD media, but not BD/BDXL media.
 

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Does this drive not work?

It says the enhanced model of this vinpower drive supports scanning.

https://www.vinpowerdigital.com/products/wh16ns58dup

[discuser]

18 hours ago, LIGHTNING UK! said:

Does this drive not work? It says the enhanced model of this vinpower drive supports scanning.
https://www.vinpowerdigital.com/products/wh16ns58dup

I hadn't noticed this drive before. But it is a Hitachi-LG drive so not sure what chipset the drive is using, but I suppose I could ask them. However, that it can support disc quality scanning will depend on whether it's with the Vinpower scanning utility or Opti-Drive Control utility. The odd part about the Pioneer BD drives is that while they use the Renasas chipset, it is possible to run Opti-Drive control on it for error rates check, but only on DVD media only, and not BD media. I do have a recent model Hitachi-LG ODD that supports BDXL and it doesn't work with Opti-Drive control. I'll have to dig into this a bit further about this drive. Of course, there's always the Pioneer professional BD writers that supports error scanning, but they aren't BDXL drives.

Speaking of Hitachi-LG drives, I wonder what the difference is between their BH-series and WH-series BDXL writers? The model number suffix appears to depend on if the drive is branded primarily Hitachi-LG or just LG, respectively. Also, it does seem like LG is using the Mediatek chipset, so that gives some hope of using it with Opti-Drive control for BDXL quality scanning. I would say though, when it comes to firmware updates, Pioneer's updates are somewhat more organized / consistent over the life of a given ODD model as well as providing information on the improvements of the firmware update, compared to Hitachi-LG / LG, both of which provides barely any technical information about their drives in the first place, much less firmware update details / improvements.

Edited November 30, 2021 by discuser

[dbminter]

I forget because it's been so long since I had a BH LG drive, but is the difference between it and the WH that the WH supports M-Disc and the BH doesn't?  I forget if the BH model supported M-Disc writing.

 

[discuser]

16 hours ago, dbminter said:

I forget because it's been so long since I had a BH LG drive, but is the difference between it and the WH that the WH supports M-Disc and the BH doesn't?  I forget if the BH model supported M-Disc writing.

Nope, it's not related to M-Disc. I did a bit of digging and BD ODD models with B-prefixed models are retail, presumably retail packaged and includes ODD software. W-prefixed models are bulk / OEM. I suppose this is similar to what Pioneer does with their ODD models also, with the branded and unbranded OEM type models where the latter are cheaper but more or less the same drive internally. The Hitachi-LG BD/DVD drives that have C and U-prefixed models are BD-read only with DVD write capability. These particulars are applicable to internal ODD drives from Hitachi-LG or LG alone.

Edited December 1, 2021 by discuser

[dbminter]

The WH does include a disc of software.  Some PowerDVD stuff and a few other utilities from the same company.  I just got a WH last week and got yet another of those discs which I don't need.

 

As I said, it's been a while since I had a BH, but I think the WH also had some faster write speeds for BD media versus the BH.  But, that could be fixed by firmware updates, you'd think.

[kidflo]

The Vinpower drive is actually an LG based on MT1959 chipset . I also have an LG with the same chipset, BH series , but it does not support Disc Quality or FE/TE in OptiDriveControl . I have a GTA V for PS4 that fails to install on the console but in ImgBurn i managed to create an ISO . I can't test any further since i don't have a compatible drive, looking for one.