I cannot make the Matshita UJ-850S in my Acer laptop region free. I am thinking of fitting a Liteon SSC 2485K in its place. Can anyone advise if the Liteon drive can be made region free?
You could always use software such as AnyDVD to make the drive "region free". However, if you want your drive to be perm. region free then you will need to check if RPC-1 firmware is available for that drive. This is a good place to check.. http://tdb.rpc1.org/
Thanks Ripper. However I have not yet been able to trace RPC-1 firmware for the Liteon drive on the site you point at. Perhaps the drive I am suggesting is not the best for the job? Any suggestions? I have a number of DVDs from various countries and, though I can play them on my desktop and on the home DVD player, the laptop has defeated me with its Matshita drive. I really want to upgrade it so that I can view these DVDs when away from home, that being the main purpose for buying them when abroad. Any further help or pointers would be welcome.
Then I suggest AnyDVD is the best option.. It's about $40 or something, but well worth the money. Cheaper than a new drive and the hassle involved carefully flashing your drive.
Hi ;-) The reason TDBs' don't have RPC1 f/w for Lite-Ons. Can be found here. Download & run LtnRPC to make drive region free. http://codeguys.rpc1.org/utilities.html Note for true region free you'll need s/w anyway to fool the OS & possibly the s/w you use to play/backup etc. So AnyDVD might be useful anyway.
Again, thanks for the updates. I have downloaded a copy of AnyDVD, and things looked promising at first. I successfully read a Region 1 DVD, and then a Region 2 DVD. However, trying to switch back again to Region 1, AnyDVD gives me a msg that includes: 1. Failed to read DVD! .... Some info about dirty DVDs - They're not! 3. Your drive is a region locked RPC2 drive, which does not allow reading of scrambled sectors from a different region and you try to read a different region. Known drives having this problem are... and Matshita/Panasonic DVD readers and writers. 4. Your drive is an RPC2 drive that has not yet been assigned a region. Try to assign one, or try to find an RPC1 patched firmware.... Again I am stubbing my toes on this Matshita drive and feel inclined to sling it - unless you know better? Perhaps I have not set AnyDVD up correctly - what should I beware of? To read the drive I have used MS Media Center's DVD player and PowerDVD. Same results from both.
