The Firmware Page

No, it would be too much of a risk. If the drive has another reference, it hints that the changes between the models go beyond the simple firmware revision and that there are physical differences.

An adequate comparision would be parking your car in an underground parkway. You park at a reserved place, near two pillars. It requires you to always do the same maneuver. With practice, you can do it with eyes closed. One day, the space is moved a few inches to the left or to the right. You still try the maneuver. It might still work but you may wreck your car. Updating a firmware is the same thing. The installer provided by Apple works with a limited range of models and performs the same maneuver, blindly. So, unless it's finetuned for the UJ-857J and I've got positive feedback that it works, I would never try it.

Ben, if you write your utility to dump the firmware, I'd be glad to provide you all the important content from a UJ-857E, firmware ZB0E. And congratulations for your hack, that's the most important upgrade in years for the Mac in this forum.

Thanks a lot Ben11, your firmware update for HBEA region free works like a charm.

I have investigated the firmwares itself a lot. Most of them are crypted. I cannot get the ones decrypted, but I can read out the structures from them ( new ones have a new header ). So all bytes have a meaning now - except for the crypted firmware.

I see the patched firmwares all generate the same pattern when XORed with their RPC2 originals:
00-54-3C-6F-F9-45-...
regardless of position or previous bytes.

This means, the "encryption" is only working in XOR-mode. I havent found out HOW exactly, it seems they do not use CRC32 or similar popular CRCs as stream cipher.

My UJ-857 with firmware HAEA is also successfully RPC-1'ed!

I wonder if they pulled the firmware 2.1 update because they discovered it was modifiable.

Either way, thanks to ben11 for doing what many thought couldn't be done!

I think that for the first time people will WANT to see a Matshita drive in their Mac! At least any of the models that there are flashers for at any rate.

Hey guys,
Thought this might be the best place to ask,
but does anyone know if there is any way to
support bitsetting on UJ-857D?
Great work on the region free by the way.

akadiago

Simply no.
No one, not even the manufacturer, would invest that time and work to implement such a "feature".
Use DVD-R.

Thanks for the reply,
but then how do I write a DVD + R as a DVD-ROM book type,
on this drive?

You simply cannot, it is not implemented.

It firmware worked great on my MBP 2.33 GHz but a quick question: Why don't the dvds play properly in VLC (Mac) or WMP (Win)?

Either the discs were not properly authored or there is a software problem.

The thing is, I can use alternative programs & the discs will play fine.

Which ones?

I wonder why VLC would not work...

Hi Ancyru,

What happens when you try to use VLC? Is it a problem with just one disk or several? What version of VLC have you using? - have you used it successfully previously?

For your WMP on windows, do you have an MPEG-2 decoder? (I think you normally have to purchase one..)

Okay, so I

PS: Should I worry about running that Superdrive Firmware 2.1 update since some have reported drive failures with it?

lulamaebroadway you absolutely must use the 2.1 superdrive firmware for ben11 RPC1 firmware to work. all your other steps are fine. don't stop it until ben11's firmware upgrade is done as well. then restart. i suggest you do this first before anything

type or paste in terminal: drutil info
hit return.
take a screenshot of the terminal output

then follow all the steps you have listed in your post. restart and do the exact same thing in your terminal. compare the before and after screenshots and you will see the change to RPC1. good luck

make sure to grab the intel RegionX (IT WORKS) rapidshare link i posted. all previous RegionX 1.12 appz will fail otherwise
i didn't create this altered version, i just found it, but it absolutely works

fahrenheit,

Thanks so much for the quick & detailed reply.

So I understand that I must run the Superdrive update 2.1 to change revision from HAC1 to HBEA-- am just wondering if:

1) based on other posts about this update ruining drives and
2) Apple pulling it from their site,

if I have to worry about it killing my drive... and if it does cripple the drive, is there anything I can do about it? Or are my fears unfounded?

Thanks again.

there are no guarantees from anyone including me. all this RPC1 stuff is at your own risk. as it is that MATSHITA is worthless to do much so to me the choice is simple. for you that will have to be a personal decision as well

other experts here will have to confirm for you what you can do if this fails. it is a roll of the dice but reading the various posts of success make me think the odds are in your favor to have success vs. failure

Gotcha. Not expecting guarantees, more just anecdotal: "Oh dude - I know 5 people who blew out their drives" or, you know, not.

When I have applied Superdriver Firmware Update 2.1, it have killed my superdrive. My sistem profiler says:

MATSHITADVD-R UJ-857D:

Modello: MATSHITADVD-R UJ-857D
Revisione: 0032
Numero di serie:
Unit

Thanks for the heads up.

Precautions:

Never do a flash on a laptop without being connected to AC power.

Make sure to eject any/all media in the drive before flashing.

Make sure no other applications are running that access the CD/DVD other than the Finder.

It also may help to boot OS X in Safe Mode as well.

I have run the SD 2.1 updater on four machines so far without harm using the preceding precautions.

Great information - I didn't know any of that.

Thank you so much!

VLC doesn't quite work for me the way it used to, either. That is, when I say "Open Disk", there's a strange grid pattern over the video. However, the DVD does work when I open it as VIDEO_TS instead. That's not a major change to make and so it shouldn't pose any future problem, but that's the gist of what's happening.

Quick question too. When I run Region X, now that my drive is region free, will it tell me I have 4 changes left every time? I'm afraid to tinker with it much and see for myself.

Looks like I've found the perfect solution to my study abroad problem, in any case. Thanks, Ben!

Hello minervamoon,

I'm not sure if this what the original poster, Ancyru, was seeing - as I didn't see any reply from them yet. But I think it is the second time somebody has mentioned seeing a grid pattern and VLC.

If anyone knows this to be a VLC issue please mention it. Or if you also see it yourself - especially if you connect it with the rpc1 patch - please let me know too. I've not seen this myself with VLC 0.8.6a/b/c (region free or not).