The Firmware Page

Why is an Autoreset better than RPC-1? What are the problems with RPC-1?

There are no problems with the RPC-1 version. The benefit of using the autoreset version over the patched (RPC-1) version is that no software like DVD Genie or Region Killer is required after the flash because the software region counters don't kick in unless the drive itself is region free (has no counter). If you don't restart your computer often, then you may run into a problem if you change it too many times with the autoreset version.

RPC-1

RPC-1 term is used to refer to PC's DVD-ROM drives that were built before 1st of January, 2000.

Before that date, virtually all DVD-ROM drives permitted the user to change the region code settings of the drive freely when necessary, thus allowing watching/using DVD-Video movies from all over the world.

This was changed when the MPAA forced hardware manufacturers to implement a new technology, dubbed as RPC-2 in their drives, that only allows max. 5 changes in the region code

I understand the autoreset (What hapens if I change code too often without restart after the restart? Is it locked?)

But I thought if firmware is RPC-1 it is regionfree and i don't need any software to change region because every DVD is accepted?

I'll add to that that most counters are stored in a separate memory from the main Flash memory that can be changed only a limited number of times. It could be as low as 100 times before the memory gets damaged, so you don't want to do that.

Now, you will say that working around that is easy: You just have to make sure that your region counters are never written to the permanent memory, but patching this can be tricky and takes more time than regular RPC-1.

And the reason why you need software, is because the MPAA really doesn't like region free drives, and asked OS manufacturers (M$) and software players manufacturers (Cyberlink, Intervideo, Ravisent, etc.) to add a region protection in their SOFTWARE when they find out that the HARDWARE has no such region.

So you might have up to region protections: Drive, OS and software player.

Fortunately, software protection can be defeated more easily than hardware protection...

Thank you, now it is clear

Hi
Can anyone say for sure how many PC reboots and/or changes of Region it could take to burn out the memory on say the NEC 1300a
using the autoreset firmware
I am about to reflash, and have used the earlier autoreset firmware from Herrie for a couple of months with no problem.. but have I used up my Memorys Life?
Is it the reboots that rewrite the hardware memory or the region changes??

Any imput would be appreciated
Thanks
Marv

Marv:
If I have understood correctly, nothing will be written to your drive's memory after flashing the auto-reset patch.
So it should last as long as it would have if you never flashed it in the first place.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm using auto-reset firmware myself too 8)

Hi Haltsi

something some where must be rewritten to ???

this quote from >Nil raised my concern...

Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2003 3:40 pm

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I'll add to that that most counters are stored in a separate memory from the main Flash memory that can be changed only a limited number of times. It could be as low as 100 times before the memory gets damaged, so you don't want to do that.
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Thanks
Marv

Hmm... Firstly, I'm a complete newbie in these dvd matters, so I'm waiting for any guru's answer to clarify things.

Thus, I might be horribly wrong here (just thinking aloud):
After you boot up with auto-reset firmware (no disc in drive), and when you get into Windows, your drive's region is not set at all. Right? When you set the region with an RPC2 drive with a normal firmware (i.e. non auto-resetting), it might be written to RAM *AND* to your dvd-drive's mem? When you patch your dvd-drive with an auto-reset, it "blocks" Windows drivers from writing to it's own memory. So the current region what you see with programs comes from drivers, not directly from the dvd-drive's mem (?). And when you restart and come back to Windows, the driver loads it's region from dvd-drive's mem (which is absent with auto-resetting one, because the region change wasn't allowed to be written into it in the first place).

Did that make any sense? Just my thoughts, could be horribly wrong, as I said.

Gee.. After reading >Nil's post again I think I now undestand it. Ignore my previous post.

Read this again:


The "that can be changed..." part talks about the main flash mem, not the another mem where the region stuff is written into!

Hi Halts

I'm affraid that sentence can be taken two ways however you look at it..

maby >Nil would be kind enough to clarify what he means

I realise its not the main flash memory being reflashed at each Bootup
but something is getting reset
and back to the quote who would ever need to reflash the main flash memory 100 times
so he must mean this other memory

Marv

Nope, I was talking about both.
The memory might be separated (most of the time but some drives do write the counters in a region of the flash ROM that does not get overwritten when re-flashing), however both these memories can only be written a limited number of times. It might be hundreds, thousands, or more, but it is limited.
This is why, IMO, standard autoreset is not a solution because in the long run, it will probably damage your drive...

Hope this is clear for everyone now.

Thanks for the Imput Guys

Marv

Excuse me for being the dumb-ass that I am:
If I understand it right: It is better NOT to use the autoreset firmware ?
And what about the RPC-1 (region-free) firmware

In short:

1/ If the autoreset firmware has properly been done, YES it is better to use autoreset. But there is no way to know whether autoreset has been properly done but to *trust* the patcher or have a look into it yourself.
The advantage of autoreset is you have no need for region busting software like DVD Region Killer or WinDVD tweaker. You just change the region when asked and that's it.

2/ If the autoreset has not been properly done (i.e. the firmware endlessly writes the drive region into its flash memory over and over again), NO, because what you will end up with is a damaged flash memory, hence a damaged drive. Most autopatchers I have seen on the older Pioneer drives were done that way... not a good solution.

3/ Doing a proper autoreset frimware is tricky and takes time (longer than RPC-1), and patchers are short of it. Plus, RPC-2 is an aberation that should be wiped from the earth altogether, and autopacher is still RPC-2 (albeit tweaked). For this reason, most patchers prefer to issue RPC-1 firmware only.

No human being on this planet should have to be getthoized by the MPAA. Seggregating between regions is like making you wear a yellow star, no less. As this kind of Nazi dictatorship has to be erased from the face of the earth, we do not want to recognize region, not even in an autopatcher.
At least this is my point of view.

Euh jeah, right !
To be short:
- *Trust* is not the issue for me, i'd rather not take the risk that my drive becomes defective. So i guess I'm stuck with the original or the RPC-1 firmware.
- I still am wondering about the actual differences in firmware-patch-VERSIONS.
- I agree about your point of view regarding the "regions-issue".

To make it a litlle longer:
However I wouldn't dare to compare this with Nazi dictatorship or wearing a yellow star....
Just the old rule: I am loaded but I never have enough,
(like Bill Gates with his Windoze, like music-industries with copyprotections and napster-like-situations, etc,etc)
is typical of human nature and can be compared with simple animalistic Territorial behaviour.
Primitive, nothing more nothing less.
What Nazi's did to Jews, What Americans did to Indians, What the Dutch did regarding slavery, etc, etc. has nothing to do with it, and from my point of view, needs to be differentiated/ treated with more nuance.
(Xcuse my French)

I, myself, prefer the idea of autoreset patches. In my mind it's like the DVD Forum is being beaten at their own game. I also like the idea of removing the need for additional software like DVD Genie or PowerDVD since these are no longer being developed, and can even be hard to find. The only downside to autoreset patches (when done correctly) is that after restarting, there is no currently set region, so if you have no need to be region free, and you never switch regions, but you use an autoreset firmware anyways, it means that you have to specify the region every time after restarting. Making an autoreset firmware that just gave you back 4 changes, but left the drive set to the last used region would be neat. I've only seen autoreset patches by The Dangerous Brothers, I'd never seen one for any Pioneer drive. The Dangerous Brothers' autoreset patches which include those for NEC DVD Burners, and a couple of LG Combo and DVD-ROM drives are trustworthy. These so not write the region code to the more fragile memory at all.

Ok, I'll take to take your word for it.
For now, the only reason for me to use the latest autoreset-firmware-hack on http://etna.rpc1.org/nec/nec%20nd+1100a ... 07%20(1_33).zip ,
because it contains a bitsetting hack, so that my DVDr's are more compatible with different (& older) standalone's....
(Because I am making various productions on DVD on my own for others)
See etna's link for this: http://etna.rpc1.org/nec/bitset.html

I don't know yet if I should try this and risk ending up with a defective drive.
It would be nice if there was also an "original" version with the bitsetting hack only (or even an RPC-1 version).

I stand by my point of view (too which you agree apparently - good)
But I also stand by my comparison with what the Nazis did to the Jews, for the genocide of Jews/Indians/Slaves/Tibetans/Tutsis/etc... did not occur out of the blue. There was a preparation that led to it, and that is something that is often forgotten.
Making someone wear a yellow star is not killing him, however, it is a very dangerous first step towards killing him. As is displacing somebody into a Ghetto.

Should the community have raised their voices when such things started to happen to the Jews?
YES!!!

We know what happened next, and, because of that, we cannot simply live in a world where we ignore the consequences of actions that go against freedom, equality, and civic liberties, how insignificant they might appear, if we foresee that they can have dire consequences...
If you want to sit in a chair and argue about nuance, it's your call.
As far as I'm concerned, I believe that now is the time to act, before it gets too late and we are too overwhelmed by attempts against our freedom to have the power to do anything...

Framing the world into region IS dictatorship. This is the will of a few against the liberties of the vast majority. Thus, if I have to compare a dictatorship with another, I might as well pick the one that is suposedly most well known (not to say that some of the dictatorships that the world experienced since were not worse...).

If I speak about Nazis and what they did to the Jews, maybe I'll manage to make some readers here realize how serious the situation is becoming as far as digital rights are concerned. And I will use every mean I can to to raise their awareness on this issue. Look around. Read the news. Then craft your opinion, this is all I ask. If you see what I see, there's a good chance that you will end up being as worried as I am. How comes the MPAA ever managed to get the power to turn the world into regions???
How come the RIAA was convinced of price fixing, i.e. complete unfairness against us consumer in order to extend their profit, and nobody seems too concerned about it?

We already got regions, and now we're supposed to have "trusted computing" (a.k.a., say the xxAA: "users cannot be trusted - all they ever want is to violate our digital copyright - so we'll just take control of their machines instead"). I'm just wondering, what's in store next? Will I have to be taken to the theaters by the MPAA Gestapo to watch such crappy movies as the latest Tomb Raider? (and by the way, how's that for a TXT MSG?)

People are supposed to be born free and equal in rights. Well, apparently not if you attempt to watch a DVD bought in a foreign country. My fear is that pretty soon, we'll need to add an addendum to the declaration of the rights of Man to satisfy the MPAA, don't you think?

Except the DVD-Forum was not the entity that crafted Region Protection.
In fact, with the first DVD players, region made no sense at all, coz it had never been designed into them.
For once, the hardware manufacurers had come up with a format that was truly universal.

But that didn't please the MPAA, and that's when they threatened to pull the plug on releasing movies on DVDs if the DVD-Forum did not come up with a solution to help them delay releases between countries. This way, they could increment their profits by speading marketing campaigns over a longer timeframe. Dictatorship and bullying yet again...
Of course, the DVD-Forum, anxious to sell licences to a new format that was meant to be driven by movies sales did not say no.
(Note that on the other hand, it's the DVD-Forum that came up with CSS, in their effort to please the movie industry)

Now, for the technical aspect, autopatchers require more work because, to do it properly:
0/ You have to find a memory address in RAM to store the region counter that does not get overwritten (there can be a lot of trial and error there)
2/ You have to add extra code on the reset routine so that your region counter gets initialized (else you could run into troubles). Adding extra code is not something a patcher likes to do, as this increases the risks.
3/ You have to hijack all the routines that deal with region so that they use the region in RAM instead of the original ROM one.
Most of the time (at least for Pioneer DVD's), this is a bit complicated coz the original region counter is addressed on 16 bits (the flash is usually stored in the lower section of addressable memory, especially for CPU embedded flash) while the RAM needs to be addressed on 24/32 bits. So you might have to add yet another "wart" to the firmware.
4/ Sometimes (Pioneer DVR) the region counter is not even accessed directly, but through a stack to a serial EEPROM, which complicates matters a little bit.

Of course the challenge of doing an autopatcher rather than an RPC-1 is what makes the game interesting, but it requires more time, and time is in limited supply...

It's not really a bitsetting Hack. The HP OEM firmware has bitsetting capabilities. If you don't want a patched drive, then use the original HP OEM Firmware.