The Firmware Page

UJ-835E firmware revision "GAND" - worked flawlessly. The only important trick (for everyone) is to delete VLC preferences - otherwise the discs that were previously failing to start due to wrong region will start but display garbage. VLC keeps some sort of disc cache I guess that needs to be reset.

Now, this sort of super-quality work easily deserves a donation. Ben11, if you set up paypal donations or something I'd be happy to contribute. You might not want to, unfortunately, so as to keep your identity private.

Thanks Ben11 !! you 're a great "freezoner".

My UJ-846-FB2U works fine, and free zone now.

At some stage I would like to ask you how to mofidy the dump for RPC1, and who long it take...

This's for my personal knowledge...

THANKS !

Anyone out there test the UJ-845E DMP2 firmware upgrade yet?

THANKS!!

Is UJ-85J Revision: FCQA the same (functionally speaking) as FCQ5? i.e., has anyone tried it out on a Core Duo iMac?

Thank you in advance for the amazing work!

Joshua

Just uploaded the patched firmware for my UJ-857 (re. HAEA). The drive seems to work fine and it is codefree.
But i just after restarted the Macbook Pro i got serious problems with my graphics hardware, the colors are all totally wrong. Really weird. I have Windows XP as well installed on it and if i boot into it i get the same problems. Even worse, if i try to login (into Win XP) the Macbook hangs.
So my Macbook is quite unusable at the moment.
Anybody got a similar experience?

Has anyone else successfully flashed the uj 857e with the ZB0E regoin free firmware?

thanks.

actually i just did it.

I can confirm the ZB0E firmware patch works a treat!

Thank you so much Ben11... you've really helped alot of people out!

Hey, just managed to solve my problem with the weird colors. Looks like some PRAM data was messed up. Seems to be related to a dual-boot configuration and other people had the very same problem, especially after having updated firmwares.
In case you experience the same, reset the PRAM by holding down Apple, Option, p and r all at the same time before startup. There's a thread about that:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jsp ... ID=5194844

Now everything works fine again. Thanks for the freezoning!

Just executed the UJ-846-FM3J update on my Intel Mini and it works like a charm. Ran DVD Info and it showed that the drive had changed from RPC-2 to RPC-1. Then proceeded to run Region X, but I didn't really see a need to (nothing had changed when I ran DVD Info once again).

Regarding Front Row: I inserted a Region 1 Disc and DVD Player started and played the movie just fine. I then switched to Front Row (using the menu-button on the Apple Remote) and the DVD ran fine there too.

Next, I inserted a Region 2 DVD, got the message to switch the region (5 times left), did so, the movie played, but: When I switched to Front Row I got the error message that the disc was another region than the software.
A wild guess is that the mac needs to restart for Front Row to sync its region settings with the hardware, but I'm sure there are much brighter people at this forum that can figure this out.

Ben11, one day I'm sure there'll be movies about people like you

Has anyone tried flashing any of the following DVD drives yet?
UJ-845E rev. DMP2
UJ-857E rev. ZA0E
UJ-85J rev. FAV1

Have they worked?

Has the dump of CW-8221 rev. GAOJ been done yet?

(Some fellow language teachers and I are extremely interested in this because we use our Macs and DVDs from different regions to teach English as a Foreign Language.)

Ben,
Great work. how about the MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-85J FCQ5?

Denny asked about the CW-8221 GAOJ
I am interested in that one as well as the results of 845E DMP2.

Thanks again. This is bordering on Miraculous.

I believe the CW series won't be concerned, as they have quite different firmwares. It implies to start all over again, without any sample of an uncrypted firmware or the tool to install it.

I have no confirmation for UJ857E/ZAOE but I can confirm that ZB0E, which is very similar, works perfectly. So far, there has been one negative review of a firmware unlocking for all samples but it turned out it was related to a PRAM error triggered by the reboot not the firmware and a PRAM reset solved it.

Are you sure? It might be that CW drives differ in lasers and mechanics only from the UJ series, and the software interface to dump and upload firmwares is the same. Someone should try ben11's dump utility on a CW drive, it might just work.

Also, I've heard that CW series has no such strict hardware-based region restrictions that the UJ series has, and thus tools like VLC work even on RPC2 drives with any disc. Something to verify too.

ben's utility will browse the "Authoring devices". the CW-series - arent those DVDROMs?
Also, the "magic" number might be different. You can try these values (modify dump.c and re-"make" the dump utility):

char attn2_cdb[] = { 0xfd, 0x00, 'D', 'V', 'D', 'D', 'R', 'I', 'V', 'E', 0x03, 0x00 };

I dont know how to browse for non-authoring scsi devices. You need to change mscsi.c -> sp_open_ix(). You might be lucky if you match against the very generic SCSITaskDevice. That will match against your HDD probably, too

May I convey my sincerest thanks to Ben11 for the firmware he provided for the matshita 845e: the patch worked perfectly on the drive in my powerbook and is now - with the assistance of Region X - able to address any DVD she likes.

I have not burnt a discs since applying the firmware so cannot confirm all is well quite yet, but will do in the next couple of days: if there are no further posts to the contrary then please understand that there have been no ill effects and the drive is on original form: which certainly appears to be the case for reading discs.

Many thanks again.

Joe

They are Combo drives, this means they can only read DVDs, but read and write to CDs. So they are probably "authoring devices" as well.

I ran: http://rapidshare.com/files/54080219/UJ ... T.zip.html
On my MBP 17" Intel Core Duo (10.4.10) and it has worked a treat, I'm now RPC-1!

I had honestly thought no one would end up making this firmware available, I'm ecstatic, thankyou so so much ben11, you're a star!

I applied your firmware on my macbook drive UJ-857E Version: ZB0E
Quick and easy, everything seems to work as before except it's region free now!!!

Thank You Very Much Ben11

Apparently working here. Thanks Ben11!

Hello,
thanks a lot for this firmware!
I am a little bit technologically impaired: how do I guess which is the firmware for my Matshita UJ846?
The only info I get from Apple System profiler is:

MATSHITADVD-R UJ-846:

Modello: MATSHITADVD-R UJ-846
Revisione: FAAG
Numero di serie:
Unit

Hello all,

sorry, I just created the dump for the disk and it turned
out to be a Matshita UJ846 FAAG (b.t.w. just typing "make" does the job), so I guess no joy for the moment.

Has anybody tried any of the available patched for this drive?
Thanks, Ela

Hello Ela,

welcome to rpc1!
Please check this and all other sticky threads. If there is RPC1 firmware for this drive, they should be mentioned there.

That also worked on my wife's Macbook C2D which had that model drive and firmware revision.

Nice work Ben11, hope to see some more for other models when time permits (I have an iMac 20" with a UJ-85J FCQ5, which is awaiting such a firmware)

Big thanks for the work so far.

Hi Ben.
I would love to get my hands on a patch for:
UJ-85J Firmware FBZ8

Any chance of one coming?