Region free problems

[jimbob2001]

I've just got hold of 2 16x DVD drives. They both were in working order but locked to R2. I've tried to unlock them with firmware i got from digital-digest.com and now both of them won't play cd's or dvd's in windows. I've tried to flash them back to there original settings, but they still don't work. Is there anyway of correcting this?

The drivers are BTC BDV 316B & Acer DVP 1648A

[MacGyver]

Probably not.

[AlienDyne]

That's why I avoid firmware updates.

[Radical Dreamer]

I would contact the manufacturer and let them know what happened, they may be able to help you some more with their black magic trickery

[freddy]

just remembered your posting , whilst serfing i came across several progs that may help ..http://www.cheflab.com/software.html dvd genie ,,,,

and <a href="http://firmware.inmatrix.com/" target="_blank">http://firmware.inmatrix.com/</a> may give u some info on unlocking or setting it back to origional spec,,

i dont think this infos "illigal" ,,,,if it is then please edit it mods.

freddy

[confus-ed]

Hang on there's no region locking in the hardware?? is there....??

If there were region locking in the firmware you'd need region specific firmware, so there would be lots of versions of each firmware, now I never seen those.....

Isn't it the player s/w that identifies the region locking on the disc? You need some player s/w that ain't too particular...

If you've stuffed up the flash (i.e it won't flash back) then you are up the creak, I have heard of folk pulling the eeprom from their writers(so can you do a DVD?) and using a flash writer, but I wouldn't recommend it.

I'd be wanting to try a newer flash, btw you can often find firmware blanking routines that just clear x sized eeprom, then maybe the flash might work....

[Darren Wilson]

You would be surprised about the number of Hardware Region fixed DVD-Rom drives out there at the present time. The software region coding is just a backup for those drives that haven't got the hardware fixed RC.

[confus-ed]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Darren Wilson:
<strong>You would be surprised about the number of Hardware Region ....</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Oh! I'll believe you then, Darren. But the disks are locked for sure, & the DVD player gets locked once you play the first DVD???

But if you have region locked probs you want to change your player s/w not your firmware?????

My player s/w just plays anything from anywhere, I get a stupid message about it not being 'my region' but it plays..

[freddy]

well , i.ve sat pondering on this one ,,for a few days.

about a month ago i almost LOCKED my dvd because someone lent me a non UK dvd ,,,drive info told me i had only 2 more changes ,,,so i dit some searching on one of the above pages (or even) <a href="http://perso.club-internet.fr/farzeno/firmware/" target="_blank">http://perso.club-internet.fr/farzeno/firmware/</a> , and d/loaded prog for lg8160 ,,,,now the machine is unlocked

i don,t care if its software , hardware ,or indeed a bios u/grade ,,,,whatever it is ,,it UNLOCKED my drive ,,,

[silencio]

There's a region free patch for the Toshiba SD-M1612 so I bought one (see other thread "Need DVD Drive Advice).

Thanks for that site!