C200 - region coded bluray disks

[chris57]

You can do it on other media players that have a BD drive and have a menu to change region as many times as you like.

We also have quite a few users who love cracking these type of things such as limits to number of times a region can be changed.

I am very confident that if things turn out like i have heard that they will region changing will be possible as many times as you want.

The BD ROM's are not specified so the BD keys are on the board. There is only one unit shipped across the world so no region coding on the chip that cannot be changed to accomaodate any region BD ROM is needed. That's why the type of BD license was acquired that allowed users to fit their own BD ROM's was pursued & 18mth license renewals are necessary.

[J-Tim]

Hmmmmm aren't most of BD-ROM drives themselves region-locked and can only be changed up to five times ?

[noggin]

(08-27-2009 04:09 AM)J-Tim Wrote:  Hmmmmm aren't most of BD-ROM drives themselves region-locked and can only be changed up to five times ?

On PCs, my understanding is that the regional encoding is handled by the player software NOT the BD drive itself. It used to be trivial to have batch files that allowed PowerDVD to switch between Region A and Region B configs. (Was detailed in at least one UK Computer Magazine)

I may be wrong. I run AnyDVD HD to get round HDCP issues - but don't have any out-of-region BDs currently anyway. (All my disks are either region-free or from my home region)

[strider_little]

(08-27-2009 04:09 AM)J-Tim Wrote:  Hmmmmm aren't most of BD-ROM drives themselves region-locked and can only be changed up to five times ?

I think you can check this before : http://forum.rpc1.org/portal.php
Most of the BR drive can be flashed with modified firmware to bypass region lock... It was exactly the same thing some time ago with DVD rom... My two DVD burner on my pc are region free + a lot of new stuff added on these firmware... BR drives are not different...

[peterjcat]

(08-27-2009 04:09 AM)J-Tim Wrote:  Hmmmmm aren't most of BD-ROM drives themselves region-locked and can only be changed up to five times ?

My understanding is that the BD-ROM drives themselves may be region-locked for DVD, but the BD side of things is handled in software. If there were region-lockout in the drives themselves, then AnyDVD HD wouldn't work on them—it can only defeat software locking.

I have a Panasonic UJ-120 slimline drive that is RPC2 locked for DVD so that not even AnyDVD can read out-of-region discs, but it's never had a problem with BDs. And an LG GGW-H20L that is RPC1 for DVDs and has also never had a problem with BDs.

[tux99]

(08-27-2009 11:03 PM)peterjcat Wrote:  My understanding is that the BD-ROM drives themselves may be region-locked for DVD, but the BD side of things is handled in software. If there were region-lockout in the drives themselves, then AnyDVD HD wouldn't work on them—it can only defeat software locking.

Correct that's what I know too, there is no firmware BD region lock for drives.

(08-27-2009 11:03 PM)peterjcat Wrote:  I have a Panasonic UJ-120 slimline drive that is RPC2 locked for DVD so that not even AnyDVD can read out-of-region discs, but it's never had a problem with BDs. And an LG GGW-H20L that is RPC1 for DVDs and has also never had a problem with BDs.

I'm surprised that AnyDVD can't ignore the RPC2 lock. Under Linux the RPC2 setting doesn't matter, any Linux app is still able to read DVDs from any region.
For example my LG DVD/BD drive is RPC2 region 2 locked (standard factory default firmware), but it can play all my region 1, 2, 4 DVDs perfectly fine with xine or mplayer (I don't have other region DVDs to test, but all 6 regions should work, not just those 3).

Ultimately it's all software, even the firmware setting can be ignored.

[J-Tim]

(08-27-2009 09:47 PM)strider_little Wrote:   I think you can check this before : http://forum.rpc1.org/portal.php
Most of the BR drive can be flashed with modified firmware to bypass region lock... It was exactly the same thing some time ago with DVD rom... My two DVD burner on my pc are region free + a lot of new stuff added on these firmware... BR drives are not different...

Okay, that's definitely a GREAT news!

That means, that I can finally start buying Criterion blurays, which are Region-A locked.

[peterjcat]

(08-28-2009 12:11 AM)tux99 Wrote:  I'm surprised that AnyDVD can't ignore the RPC2 lock. Under Linux the RPC2 setting doesn't matter, any Linux app is still able to read DVDs from any region.
For example my LG DVD/BD drive is RPC2 region 2 locked (standard factory default firmware), but it can play all my region 1, 2, 4 DVDs perfectly fine with xine or mplayer (I don't have other region DVDs to test, but all 6 regions should work, not just those 3).

Ultimately it's all software, even the firmware setting can be ignored.

I was surprised too! Especially in this day and age. Maybe it's something wrong with the disc; AnyDVD throws an error message saying that either there's something wrong with the disc OR the drive is RPC1 locked and the disc is off-region. Since the disc rips fine using my other drive, and given the nature of the error message, I thought the most likely explanation was that if the drive itself is RPC1 and set to the wrong region setting there's nothing AnyDVD can do. But I'll investigate further.

All is fine on Blu-ray, though -- no need to flash BD drive firmware as there's nothing in the drive itself to stop you playing discs from any region.

[lazarus18]

What about DVD's? Is it DVD region free? Or this still depends on the BD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive?

[halfelite]

(08-28-2009 08:38 AM)peterjcat Wrote:  I was surprised too! Especially in this day and age. Maybe it's something wrong with the disc; AnyDVD throws an error message saying that either there's something wrong with the disc OR the drive is RPC1 locked and the disc is off-region. Since the disc rips fine using my other drive, and given the nature of the error message, I thought the most likely explanation was that if the drive itself is RPC1 and set to the wrong region setting there's nothing AnyDVD can do. But I'll investigate further.

All is fine on Blu-ray, though -- no need to flash BD drive firmware as there's nothing in the drive itself to stop you playing discs from any region.

RPC1 is software based region protection not dvdrom.

(08-28-2009 08:57 AM)lazarus18 Wrote:  What about DVD's? Is it DVD region free? Or this still depends on the BD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive?

Even if it is RPC2 based on the rom region. Almost every drive out there has a firmware patch to make it region free.

[peterjcat]

(08-28-2009 09:04 AM)halfelite Wrote:  RPC1 is software based region protection not dvdrom.

Yes, sorry, I meant to type RPC2. Significant mistake.

Unfortunately neither of my RPC2 drives seem to have RPC1 firmware available for flashing. They are both Panasonic/Matshita which I think are the notorious ones. One is the BD combo UJ-120, the other is the UJ-868.

[halfelite]

(08-28-2009 09:15 AM)peterjcat Wrote:  Yes, sorry, I meant to type RPC2. Significant mistake.

Unfortunately neither of my RPC2 drives seem to have RPC1 firmware available for flashing. They are both Panasonic/Matshita which I think are the notorious ones. One is the BD combo UJ-120, the other is the UJ-868.

With both acer and sony using the UJ-120 in some notebooks and addons for netbooks. It wont be long before someone does a firmware hack.

[civilian]

up,

so the new beta is out...
http://www.networkedmediatank.com/showth...?tid=27171

Quote:Quote:
IMPORTANT: THIS WORK ONLY 5 TIMES IN EACH OF THE SETUPS!
DVD Region Setting:
1.) Insert an DVD Disc which has the Region you wanna setup, if the Region is not the same as the Disc has, it wont work!
2.) Please go into the Setup Page
3.) press now "Slow, 1, 6, 8, 3" on your remote
4.) now an popup shows up, on the remote use the number for the region you wanna set.

Quote:
1 Canada, United States; U.S. territories; Bermuda
2 Western Europe, incl. United Kingdom, and Central Europe; Western Asia; including Iran, Israel and Turkey, Egypt; Japan, South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho; French overseas territories
3 Southeast Asia; South Korea; Taiwan; Hong Kong; Macau
4 Mexico, Central and South America; Caribbean; Australia; New Zealand; Oceania;
5 Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Continent of Africa, excluding Egypt, South Africa, Swaziland, and Lesotho; Central and South Asia, Mongolia, North Korea.
6 People's Republic of China, Hong Kong

BD Region Setting:
1.) go into Setup (no need to put an BluRay into the drive)
2.) press now "Slow, 1, 6, 6, 3" on your remote
3.) an popup shows up, on the remote use the number keys to select the region you need.

Quote:
1 = Region A
2 = Region B
3 = Region C

only 5 changes...
Or can the settings be reset?

[dc11ab]

"Slow, 1, 6, 8, 3"


Hmm, I wonder if there is any other interesting key combination.

[Boost]

(09-04-2009 01:42 PM)dc11ab Wrote:  Hmm, I wonder if there is any other interesting key combination.

"Up,Down,6,6,6" makes the devil appear