Hi folks,
Got a US DVL-919 and some LDs for a song and am curious whether it can be made region-free to play non-R1 DVDs. Various references suggest it is possible and very easy, but I've had no luck and information is scarce. Interestingly it ignores the region code in test mode and plays PAL video fine; but obviously there is the OSD on top of everything and it doesn't play the entire title.
I've tried the usual suspect for the 909 (solder the two pads, then the remote combo) to no avail. I think my firmware is too new and does not allow this. For what it's worth, I'm using an android IR transmitter app; no original remote. But the relevant buttons work correctly in playback mode, so the codes would appear to be correct as gained from remoteCentral)
I've seen some mention of a hacked firmware update for the 919 which re-enables it, apparently identifiable by the fact it shows "EXCEL" on the VFD when the tray is open. Of course, any references I did find are long since dead. These units can apparently be updated by burning the firmware to a special CD, so it's just a matter of finding the file.
Another thread here mentions a serial port plug in their 919E that does this, anyone have more info on that or have one they'd be able to capture the communication from? I've probed the port with a scope, but it does not output anything, so it must accept commands only.
I did also see this little annotation in the schematic for it, but alas changing the jumper link there did not have any effect. There's probably more to it than that; there are two pins used to configure the mode select with a voltage divider; EU versions of the 919 have different resistors there. I did not find a 919E schematic for the FLKY assembly; anyone willing to check component values on a multi-region 919E to compare to mine? I doubt they spun entirely different silicon/boards for the models and it's either a hardware jumper or software change to go from one to the other.
Attachment:
919.png [ 31.16 KiB | Viewed 1611 times ]
Thanks!
