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    Sony S1XP DVD region lock problem

    Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by dhigger, Jul 19, 2004.

  1. dhigger

    dhigger Newbie

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    To all those who wish to simply play DVDs from many regions read on...
    (I'm from the UK and my wife is from North America, so we have alot of both regions 1 and 2. Why I can by two laptops from the same store and legally set them to different regions, but can't set multi-region on just one seems daft to me.)

    The S1XP comes with the Matsush1ta [sic] UJ-812 DVD-RAM drive. Note that current software does not undo the region lock on this drive.

    DVD Region Free specifically disclaim the Matsush1ta **-8** drives on their website, in spite of their "all drives" claim. AnyDVD (Slysoft) told me that "All Matsush1ta drives have problems cooperating with AnyDVD. They have special energy saving drive mechanics and firmware. In order to decrypt CSS AnyDVD has to adjust the speed of the drive. The firmware of the Matsush1ta drives don't allow such 'unauthorized' speed adjustments and interrupt the connection to the AnyDVD software driver. We know about this problem but currently we have no practical solution for this." DVD43 doesn't work either (I tried it.)

    The problem with the UJ-812 may also be to do with the fact that "Matsush1ta DVD-RAM drives call a subroutine outside the firmware area to check the region compatibility", which makes them unpatchable. (XVI's making-firmware PDF file, see http://xvi.rpc1.org/ ). Yet XVI also calls these attempts at anti-piracy "pathetic". I don't know if he means "easy to break" or "ethically invalid".

    But Matsush1ta DVD-RAM drives have been patched by XVI and are available (the UJ-815, for example) on http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_firmware.php?category=14&manufactor=18 though the UJ-812 is not patched (yet?). I wonder if the construction of a patch for the UJ-812 is much different from the UJ-815. Has the bulk of the work already been done?

    Does anyone know....is there any hope for the UJ-812?
     
    dhigger, Jul 19, 2004
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  2. Tron

    Tron Notebook Consultant

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    It's only a matter of time, especially for a high-end, high profile DVD-RAM drive. Until then I suggest making a back-up of all your DVDs in Region 0. I've done that numerous times with disks from different regions so I've never had to change the region on my drive. With DVD+/-R disks being so cheap now, the only thing you really lose is a little time. Just make sure your stand-alone DVD players will play whichever format you choose. I got lucky and my players will play anything my multi-drive burns.
    [ :D]
     
    Tron, Jul 19, 2004
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