Make your Pioneer A03/103 RPC-1 Region Free

[SiC]

For any of you that are interested into making your A03/103 region free The Firmware page has got the RPC-1 Firmware. I haven't tried it yet but I will later on tonight. I've used many other firmwares from this site for other drives with no probs.

http://perso.club-internet.fr/farzeno/firmware/

[Derrow]

Wow, this is great!

I've just downloaded the patched firmware, and compared it against the original Pioneer upgrade firmware.
I've found 2 changes in the firmware binary, so it looks okay so far.

Please let me know if the patch worked.

[SiC]

Well, I tried it and it works (RPC-1 region free), I just burned 1 DVD-RW without any problems, and the good thing is you can repatch it back to your old firmware anytime you want. So---- I don't see anything bad about it so far!!

[ByronE]

I just did it as well...results, super cool. I had tried ripping the movie files of Silence of the Lambs the other day with SmartRipper, and got a wierd LOCKED message at the end of the disc read out, and when I tried to rip it SmartRipper would freeze up immediately, patched it with this upgrade, tryed again and it worked perfectly. Burned a dvd-rw, and 2 dvd-r's with full success.

[Dok]

I also have a Pioneer DVR-AO3 but my upgrade failed to make my drive region-free. I used Drive Info after the patch, and it identifies the drive as "This drive has Region Protection." I also checked it against CDDVDINFO and it confirms that it's still locked. However, the firmware version is identified correctly. Does anyone have any feedback as to why I'm experiencing this problem?:confused:

[sidders]

I don't know whether I did anything wrong, but I downloaded the 1.68 RPC1 firware for my A03 then it just gets stuck when writing the lead out. I've tried Nero and Instant CD and the same thing happens. Help!!!

[SiC]

I have no probs with mine, but if you need to, you can just flash it back to the original firmware. Just download it from the Pioneer site.

[sidders]

Might it be a problem with my DVD-RW discs? I've only done a quick format each time with them and have probably used them about 10 times. They are Princo Discs.
Thanks

[ByronE]

I've read that you should do a full erase one time, and then after that, all you need to do is quick erases. I've run into Prassi screwing up the quick erases before as well...ie, I did a quick erase with Prassi, and it froze when I tried to burn a Video TS folder to it...then I did a quick erase with Gear, and then it burnt in Prassi fine.

[sidders]

How long shoul it take writing the lead out / finishing the disc? Does it make a difference if you write 1mb or 4000mb?
Thanks

[ByronE]

It may vary depending on the program used, but I don't think the size of the burn makes alot of difference. I think it normally takes about 2 minutes though, maybe 3?

[sidders]

I just found this on a site somewhere:

when you write a small quantity of data (<10MB) it needs a very long time to close the disc (about 15min). This is because the lead out of the disk needs to be at some distance from its center and the drive needs to write up to that point

I have only been writing small amounts of data to test so this could be it.

[thetered]

I whanna patch mine to, but which one do i use, i dont know the difference...

Pioneer DVR-A03 (Kernel firmware)

Pioneer DVR-A03 (General firmware)

should i use the kernel or the general firmware, and what is the difference, for future reference?

[SiC]

Is yours OEM or is it the standard Pioneer A03/103 drive???

Users with a standard Pioneer DVR-103 drive should only apply the general RPC-1 firmware only.
But you cannot apply the same firmware rev as the one you currently have, so if your current revision is 1.68 you will have to use 1.65.

Users with an OEM DVR-103 drive (like the one in the Apple iMac, or Compaq, or Nec), should flash the 1.68 kernel BEFORE, applying the 1.68 RPC-1 general firmware.
This will turn your drive into a true Pioneer DVR-103 drive, but it will work exactly as it did before.

[jaay]

i flashed the drive and it f@#cked it completely. it wont even open the tray now - so be warned!! i had to return the drive to the supplier, apparently the drive likes to be the secondary master in your comp and not a slave and this may be why i killed it, who knows but dont chance it unless you have to! and mine was not an oem model either.