The Firmware Page

I'm new to the site yes. I've been reading through the forums for the past couple days and searching for topics similar to this one. I found users that had problems with the same hardware I have, but not the same exact problem. Hence my new thread.


First let me say this whole project started because I want to complete a very simple task that should not be this complicated. At home I have a dvd collection with some 300 movies. I frequently watch them on my home computer and then bring them into my office computer to rip to the office HD. I bought software on my office pc that allows me to split sections of .vob files and even convert to just about any file type I want. (Avi, MPeg2,3,WAV,etc) I've completed this task on numerous of my dvds and have never had a problem.

But there is one dvd that is stubborn. I must know why it won't work. I can play it on my home computer, but when I bring it to work I see video but hear no audio.

I followed the normal troubleshooting procedures at first. Make sure mute isn't pushed. Its obviously not an issue of hardware not working properly because it works for every other dvd. I checked drivers in device manager and everything is working properly. I downloaded the newest codecs and decrypters but no change. So I read many users had tried uninstalling windows media player and switching to an older version. I was running Media player 10 with all the latest updates but I figured it was worth a shot. I uninstalled 10 and went back to 9. Same issue occurs. So then I figured why not give Windows Media player 11 beta a shot. Same problem occurs.

Fortunately, as I already mentioned the dvd DOES work at home so I started comparing my home pc to my work pc. Both are Dells, both running XP Pro, both with the latest updates, both with WMP 10 or better. There is only one main difference. My Dell computer at home is fitted with an older (2000) LG dvd rom with no regional identification available. There is no regional settings tab when you check the drive's properties in device manager. My computer at work was built in 2004 with an LG dvd-rom that DOES have a regional settings tab in the properties section of device manager. Its the common LG GDR8163B that I've seen pop up in the forum several times. All this being said, the dvd video Im trying to watch and split in the office is a REGION FREE dvd. It was made in 2002 but is a dvd of a concert so wasn't widely distributed.

However I was under the impression that the dvd player would not play a regionless dvd at all. I'm fairly sure the regional setting is the problem, but wouldn't that cause the dvd to fail entirely? I'm confused as to why I see video but hear no audio.

I tried downloading the zip file that converts my GDR8163B to RPC1 but it was ineffective. When I checked my drive's properties in Window's explorer the drive was set to region free. But when I checked the drive's properties in device manager it was still set as region 1.

I'm still new to all of this stuff, but as you can see my simple task turned quite complicated and has caused me several days of research. Do you have any suggestions?

hmm, have you tryed the usual unistall all ide channels and restart the system, dma is selected, have you tryed software like powerdvd etc, windows is not the best to use on

I have my doubts that your problem is firmware related.

No idea what you really want to say which such sentences.

You should read this: http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?t=239

No sir but I will now. Like I said I'm pretty new to all of this so I just don't know the names of the best software to use. Thanks!

Ahh that link was interesting thank you. I do not think my problem exists because the firmware is ineffective. It exists because I don't know what I'm doing haha. I'm kind of diving right into this as it is the first time I've ever tried to flash any driver.

The one patch looks interesting where you have unlimited number of region changes. But for this dvd for example it says it is region free. So if my region is set to 1 and I must chose another region, I don't know how to access a region of 0.

I'm going to try a new media player for starters.

Try with VLC tool/videolan client - the best.

Well I finally got it to work today. I got a moment of happiness as I loaded the video into a program called avi.net for indexing. I use avi.net to convert .vob files to .avi. It worked!

Even though the windows media player would not play the dvd or the .vob files I ripped off the dvd, when I converted the .vob to .avi the Windows Media Player played it perfectly.

Now I can finish my short task in about 5 minutes. Thanks for the help guys even though I inadvertently helped myself haha.