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LG BH200: Hidden Hacking Options

post #1 of 331
4/29/08 at 1:04pm
Thread Starter 
LG BH200: Hidden Hacking Options Thread! -

1. The ability to make the BH200 SD DVD Region Free can be seen here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1027617
2. It's also possible to enable PAL support on the BH100 and BH200 from The Americas, see here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1009104
3. For BH100 PAL and SD DVD Region Free discussion, look here: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...9#post13714189
4. It's also possible to switch the BH200 between Region A, Region B and Region C:

Default USA String: 55 53 00 00 00 05 00 40
Default Canadian String: 43 41 00 01 00 05 00 40

1. Open the tray, with no disc in the tray
2. Press PAUSE, 1, 4, 7, 2
3. Change the fourth HEX value (00/01 above) to 80 for Region A, 92 for Region B (which will also Disable the Network Update Option) and A6 for Region C.
4. Press PAUSE to Save changes
5. Turn the BH200 Off
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post #2 of 331
4/29/08 at 1:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by robertpierre View Post

...the best little machine that definitely could...
This is a tremendous bit of news - so let me press harder - does the multiregion hack and PAL hack allow it to play region 5 PAL (there is a lot of R5 discs on Exploitedcinema.com)????

I applied PAL and region hack to my BH200 and can confirm that it plays region 5 PAL DVDs just fine
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post #3 of 331
4/29/08 at 2:34pm
Thread Starter 
Cool. Out of interest what Russian DVDs do you own? I've never come across any films on Russian DVD I cannot get easier elsewhere.
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post #4 of 331
4/29/08 at 3:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bradavon View Post

NTSC only I'm afraid:

http://technews.in/reviews/plasma_an...er_pdp-5070hd/

A Plasma TV that supports all the way up to 1920x1080p but cannot understand the decades old PAL. Utter stupidity. Dumb American protocol to not support PAL!

Sure nothing in The Americas officially uses PAL period, but that's not exactly the point is it. I'd be inclined to pop Pioneer an e-mail telling them politely how annoyed you are. In a world of 1920x1080p Full HD LCD & Plasma TVs PAL support should be standard. It seems other American Pioneer Plasmas support both.

It's still worth applying the SD DVD MR hack for Non-R1 NTSC DVDs but there's no point enabling PAL support. All that will happen is it will then play PAL (instead of the default BH200 error message) but it will be in B&W.

Assuming you have any Non-R1 DVDs and also assuming none of your R1 DVDs are RCE. If it were me I'd enable SD DVD Region Free as I have lots of R3 DVDs but none R1 RCE DVDs. I have a couple Japanese R2 DVDs too.

I would also search Google for any TV PAL hack, like we've hacked the BH100/BH200. You never know.

Thanks as always for your help bradavon.

I will check on the plasma forum for the PAL hack on the Pio. I have decided to go ahead and apply both the region free and pal hack on my BH200. It won't hurt.
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post #5 of 331
4/30/08 at 7:38am
...after a glitch -free EEPROM adjustment and region-code hack, my increasingly competent BH-200 plays PAL region 2 discs like a champ. Contrary to my fears that my plain vanilla NTSC monitor, 720p Toshiba 27" widescreen would not be able to handle the PAL input, it all went smoothly. It played a Polish PAL 2 disc - one of those cheap jobies included with weekly magazines, w/o English subtitles or extra sound streams. I will test it with full-fledged studio releases from Europe in the upcoming weeks. Thank you all wonderful geeks for figuring it out. This truly is a remarkable machine. BTW, I have not experienced ANY dropouts on HD DVDs (50+, including Japanese "XXX" and German "Total Recall") or BDs (only 3, all US/Canada). The sound works perfectly on my Yamaha 6060 over optical Toslink - DTS re-encoding. Thanks again, guys...
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post #6 of 331
4/30/08 at 11:03am
Thread Starter 
Thanks Robert. That's good to hear, particular about Non-USA HD Discs. It seems the drop outs are HDMI related.

Being a geek is good, geeks rule the world
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post #7 of 331
4/30/08 at 11:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by bradavon View Post

Thanks Robert. That's good to hear, particular about Non-USA HD Discs. It seems the drop outs are HDMI related.

Being a geek is good, geeks rule the world


Geeks are excellent! My video connection is HDMI - no video dropouts at all (although before the firmware update to first March and then April F/W there were pixelation artifacts and mini-freezes - "The Chronicles of Riddick" among others) - lucky, I guess. BTW, in the Canadian model EEPROM, the first two ASCII words are different yet again - have to look it up and post that number string.
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post #8 of 331
4/30/08 at 11:50am
Thread Starter 
Yes, please post the default number string. That would be handy to know. I presume the PAL hack also works on the Canadian model?
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post #9 of 331
4/30/08 at 12:15pm
yes, it does. I have to wait until I get home to post the EEPROM string...
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post #10 of 331
5/1/08 at 2:50pm
The EEPROM string for the Canadian version of the BH200 player changed to PAL playback is as follows: 43 41 00 82 00 05 00 40
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post #11 of 331
5/1/08 at 3:13pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks Robert. I've mentioned that in the first post of the Mini-FAQ, in case someone wants to put it back. 43 is C and 41 is A in ASCII HEX Value:

http://www.cryer.co.uk/brian/misc/ascii_table.htm

So CA would fit, likewise 55 53 is US.

I presume it was 00 not 82 before you changed it?
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post #12 of 331
5/1/08 at 7:41pm
Yessiree!
I just discovered the very first problem disc = a Polish HD DVD of "Katyn", a foreign language Oscar Nominee 2007....while BH200 is trying to determine HD DVD/BD/DVD, it spits the disc out, saying "Check Disc" on OSD and disc error on the player's LED. Since it is a first, I'll try to replace the disc before blaming it on the player....
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post #13 of 331
5/1/08 at 7:49pm
Thread Starter 
Sorry if you've already said this (it's hard to keep a track of), you're running the April firmware and the 0702 driver right?

Once known I'll add it to the list.
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post #14 of 331
5/2/08 at 7:05am
April F/W and 0701 driver - have not updated that yet, though I doubt it would be responsible for this particular problem - or would it?
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post #15 of 331
5/2/08 at 9:41am
Thread Starter 
It's certainly possible. Several discs where fixed with the April over March firmware. Check out the first post.

The Hong Kong Dragon Tiger Gate BD for example just span and eventually gave up. This now works with the April firmware.
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post #16 of 331
5/2/08 at 10:38am
No, what I meant is that only the driver is old - 0701, rather than 0702. I am running the April 02/08 firmware already....
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post #17 of 331
5/2/08 at 1:05pm
Samsungmaster has indicated the "driver" is essentially the drive's firmware. New firmware on computer drives usually relates to better disc reading/writing compatibility. That's pretty much what you're dealing with here, so updating the driver to 0702 sounds like a good idea to me.
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post #18 of 331
5/2/08 at 2:27pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by robertpierre View Post

No, what I meant is that only the driver is old - 0701, rather than 0702. I am running the April 02/08 firmware already....

Oh right, sorry. How did I miss that? You said April Firmware. My mistake. 0702 specifically fixes problems with:

Saw IV, Hitman and Enchanted on Blu-ray

I'd upgrade though. You may as well, you never know.

Quote:
Originally Posted by robertpierre View Post

I just discovered the very first problem disc = a Polish HD DVD of "Katyn"

Added to April list.
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post #19 of 331
5/2/08 at 6:18pm
according to the people at xploitedcinema.com, they had other reports of problems with this disc - they could not be any more specific - and will accept the disc for refund/exchange. So I think this is disc authoring/manufacture issue. Installing 0702 driver did not resolve the issue. On the plus side, it plays PAL 0, PAL 2, PAL 2+4 and PAL 5 like a champ....I this player!
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post #20 of 331
5/2/08 at 6:29pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks Robert.

Are you going to try another disc or a refund? My gut feeling is a new disc won't make any difference. I'll update the post. You now just need to try PAL 3 and PAL 6
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post #21 of 331
5/2/08 at 6:32pm
I'll probably opt for the film on SD DVD, as the HD is only 1080i anyway (???!!!???)....
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post #22 of 331
5/2/08 at 6:50pm
Thread Starter 
1080i should look very similar to 1080p. The deinterlacer in the Player will sort out the interlacing issue (although obviously not as good as an actual Progressive image). The resolution is the same.

But yes I agree get the DVD.
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post #23 of 331
5/2/08 at 6:53pm
I guess what surprised me was that the HD DVD standard is 1080p, so this would make the disc non-standard, i.e. prone to problems.
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post #24 of 331
5/2/08 at 7:07pm
Thread Starter 
It's not a technical standard just what is almost universal. I understand some Adult HD-DVDs are 720p and Destiny's Child Sony BD is 1080i:

Quote:


This will fill your screen with an impressive 1.78:1 ratio coded using the earlier MPEG-2 system and not with the now standard 1080p but with 1080i. Now as long as the de-interlacer somewhere in your playback chain is up to the task what you will get is a glorious presentation.

http://avplay.avforums.com/index.php...diareview=9129
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post #25 of 331
5/2/08 at 7:08pm
Thanks...You are a font of knowledge!!!!!!!!!
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post #26 of 331
5/2/08 at 7:11pm
Thread Starter 
No worries. I try to help.
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post #27 of 331
5/3/08 at 5:23am
Quote:
Originally Posted by bradavon View Post

It's not a technical standard just what is almost universal. I understand some Adult HD-DVDs are 720p and Destiny's Child Sony BD is 1080i:


http://avplay.avforums.com/index.php...diareview=9129

Many BBC UK HDDVDs are 1080I too.
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post #28 of 331
5/4/08 at 6:14am
Thread Starter 
Further interesting developments:

On a UK BH100 (so BD Region B by default), it seems changing the fourth value from 00 (USA/CA default) OR 82 (UK/DE default) OR 8D (AU default) to 80 changes it from BD Region B to BD Region A.

This then annoyingly also makes it SD DVD Region 2. It's definitely development though.

It sounds like it's the same field (on the BH100 anyway) that controls PAL/NTSC, SD DVD MR and BD MR, and we just need to find the right value. Finding the value that changes it from BD Region A to Region B would be a start.

See here, from the BH100 thread: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...6#post13790886

This is particularly interesting news for me as I would prefer owning a BH200 with a 240v power supply (instead of the USA 100v) and could mean I should be able to buy a European BH200 and make it BD Region A.
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post #29 of 331
5/6/08 at 12:50pm
Thread Starter 
I've been chatting with an LG employee over PM and here is what they've said. It mixes between the BH100 and BH200:
Quote:


LG Employee: Some people may be able to unlock a lot more since the BH100's made dec06~april06 contain to broadcom IC's. I think it was May07 they took the extra one off the board. Anyway the BH100's that have 2, one of them is disabled. And the one that is disabled what does it do? Maybe a little something to do with HD.

Bradavon: are you abbreviating HD-DVD to HD and mean HDi was included but disabled?

 Any idea why kit sold in The Americas has PAL disabled by default? Sure I know nothing in The America is in PAL but it still seems odd when it's so easy to enable/disable it. Why not just leave it enabled?

 Lastly, is there any way to do any long term damage by altering any of the values in the EEPROM menu? Presumably you can always put it back to defaults? I just don't want to go bricking a BH200 by tinkering too much.

LG Employee: PAL is just disabled since it is sold in North America. It is easier to just disable it via the menu, remember these are made on an assembly line so when they are making them for a certain region they just change the options in the menu for that run of units.

No long term damage, this is how it is done in the factory.

I guess I should put a word of caution about changing the menu numbers. There is a chance of bricking a unit. I do not have a list of numbers that will do this so just a word of caution for everyone. For people who have the ability to return the unit to a store for exchange, no fears change the menu to whatever you like and see what happens.

For legal reasons the extra IC was disabled. This was the only way the BH100 could be sold. You may thank the battle between bluray and HD for that one. Neither one of them wanted a player that could do both. Of course differences were worked out so to speak and the BH200 was able to do HDi.

The "service port" on the back of the BH100 is not for service. It was just called a service port again for legal reasons. In reality it is an ethernet port. You normally do not see service ports with link lights. A few Dec07 units do say ethernet instead of service, if anyone has one of these, a collectors item

Bradavon: Any idea what Julio Cohen has done here to achieve SD DVD MR? - http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1010650

It's been confirmed this hack doesn't alter the values in the EEPROM menu.

LG Employee: Now what Julio did looks like a region code hack program. You can download these just do a google search. I am not sure if he modified an existing hack program so it would work with the BH200 or if he just took an existing program and just used it and it worked. Either way like I was saying before I am quite surprised nobody has done this sooner.
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post #30 of 331
5/6/08 at 1:57pm
Thread Starter 
Interestingly AlfaGT has just told me his European Swiss BH200 code is:

43 48 00 96 00 05 00 40

43 48 is CH which is the country code for Switzerland, so that makes sense but 96 is a new value. The user who reported that 82 was his value owned a UK BH100. His value was:

44 45 00 82 00 05 00 40

44 45 is DE so clearly his UK model was sourced from Germany but clearly there are also localised European BH200s too. AlfaGT's European BH200 is for the Swiss market only.

So either:

1. The German BH100 is 82 and the Swiss BH200 is 96
2. 82 is the European code for all the BH100s and 92 for the BH200s

We need to someone to check another European BH200.

p.s - Does someone (owning a USA/Canadian BH200) fancy trying 96 to see if the BD Region value changes?
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