If you're only ripping traditional Blu-rays, that's all you need to do. Install MakeMKV and open the program, then enter the key when prompted (or enter it later under the Help > Register menu). You can purchase a license for $50 (Opens in a new window) if you want to avoid this annoyance. You just need to use the latest beta key (Opens in a new window) whenever it asks you to register, which is about once a month. Technically, it's only free while in beta, but it's been 'in beta' for about 10 years. There are other paid programs that offer more features, like DeUHD (Opens in a new window) and AnyDVD (Opens in a new window), but we'll be using MakeMKV for this tutorial, since it's free. MakeMKV (Opens in a new window) is a program for Windows, macOS, and Linux that can rip DVD and Blu-ray discs into the versatile MKV video format. I used an LG WH16NS40 (Opens in a new window) with patched firmware (Opens in a new window) for the most recent version of this guide. You can read the most up-to-date drive for flashing new firmware here (Opens in a new window). This can be a bit nerve-wracking, but I've done it twice without breaking anything, so it can be done. You may have to flash custom firmware (Opens in a new window) or roll back to an older firmware version in order to read those 4K discs.

If you already have a Blu-ray drive, you can poke around the MakeMKV forums (Opens in a new window) to see if it's usable for 4K Blu-rays, or you can buy one of their recommended drives. Instead, you will want a regular Blu-ray drive that is considered '4K friendly.' Due to their enhanced copy protection, 4K UHD Blu-rays can't be ripped on most 4K Blu-ray drives. If you want to rip 4K UHD Blu-rays, however, your choices are more limited. You can buy an external one (Opens in a new window) that connects over USB, or an internal one (Opens in a new window) for your desktop-either is fine.

In order to rip those movies to your PC, you'll need an optical drive in your PC that can read Blu-ray discs-a DVD drive is not enough.

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Makemkv inside out