Acer DVP1648A DVD-ROM Region Free Help

[aknit44]

Hi guys.

I have an Acer DVP1648A DVD-ROM drive, that is region locked. I have gone to the firmware page and downloaded the region free firmware for this drive, and installed it. The installation appears to have gone well, twice.

I then got Windows 2000 Server to re-detect and re-install the DVD-ROM drive, but it still installs it as the same it was before the firmware flash. The firmware page says Windows should re-detect the drive as a Pioneer drive, but it doesn't.

Even after flashing the BIOS twice, I cannot make the drive RPC-1/region free.

Here is my system information:

Any and all advice is appreciated. Thanks.

[joegib]

The Acer entry on that site refers you to the Pioneer section entry for the Pioneer DVD-500M. That section has a link which takes you to >Nil's site. Is that the path you followed? If not, you probably installed the "official" Acer firmware. >Nil's site is here:

http://kickme.to/dvd105s

[aknit44]

Acer DVP1648A DVD-ROM Region Free Help

Hey, thanks for the help.

But yesterday I managed to land on Nil's site, and used the Pioneer firmware. It worked flawlessly, but the problem came with the WinDVD decoder.

Apparently, like the drive, it had a 5-change limit, until it sticks to the last change. There are three workarounds I discovered, DVDGenie, Region Killer and re-installing the decoder. The third option is no good definitely.

Region Killer is good, because it automates both processes fine. But I had to lose it because it kept on causing my Windows to stop and crash, whenever I attempted to load a DVD different from the region of the last DVD that played. This is my system:

1.12GHz AMD Athlon Processor
768MB 133MHz SD-RAM
3x40GB IDE HDD
Acer DVP16481A 16X/48X DVD-ROM Drive
64MB DDR Ge-Force 2 AGP Graphics Card
Creative Sound Blaster Live Value!
Windows 2000 Server with SP 2

So, I noticed that disabling Region Killer stopped causing the Windows crash, but that meant that my WinDVD decoder begins to countdown the remaining times to permanent change. So, the solution I got for that is when I run out of region changing times, I simply run DVDGenie and reset the WinDVD counter back to 5, which beats re-installing WinDVD.

I also noticed that if you have Region Killer enabled, you will get the region change/limit option on your Pioneer DVD-ROM hardware information details. In this mode, CDVDInfo picks up the drive with a "No Lock Detected" status, whilst DriveInfo picks up the same drive as having "Region Locked" status. I found that disabling Region Killer removes the region change/limit option from your DVD-ROM drive hardware detail, making the drive seem region free, or having RPC-1 status. In this mode, both CDVDInfo and DriveInfo pick up the drive as having "Region Free" status.

So, for all Windows 2000 users who might be having a similar problem as mine, where Windows crashes as Region Killer tries to interrogate the DVD for region-type, then disabling Region Killer won't hurt, provided that your remember to reset the WinDVD or whichever software decoder using DVDGenie, from time to time.

Thanks for all help.