The Firmware Page

Hi,

In December of 2008 i bought two Pioneer DVR-116D drives, because my old Pioneer burners got
somehow a final burnout. This you can see happening when burning on proper recordible's,
like RITEK 8x DVD-R, the burning software keeps hanging during "Performing OPC... ". It means,
I think, that your laser got smudgy due to sublimation/deposition of the recordable layer. One
can try to clean your laser from this, but i don't think its possible. Anyway.

When I started burning with the new Pioneer DVR-116D's i didn't get coasters, on the contrary,
the end result was very solid, and i could play the discs perfectly from the same drives (116D).
The problem was that my old Pioneer DVD-player DV-535 didn't like the freshly burned DVD-R
discs produced by my DVR-116D's. This became a serious problem. I think I just found a solid
solution to this nasty compatibility problem, by a Flashing procedure which some have called
"Cross-Flashing". Here's what I did :

1. Download the 106 Firmware for the Pioneer A16 drive, which _IS_ a Pioneer 116 Series,
from : Firmware/DVRA16_106.zip

Code: Select all

[jackson:stock]:(~/temp/DVRA16_106)$ ls -l A001543*
-rw-rw-rw-  1 stock stock  131072 Jun 19  2008 A0015430.104
-rw-rw-rw-  1 stock stock 1966080 Jun 19  2008 A0015431.106
[jackson:stock]:(~/temp/DVRA16_106)$ md5sum A001543*
84c27f0925a544b9c67733219feba413  A0015430.104
0998685906b5b14070d364ef665486c2  A0015431.106
[jackson:stock]:(~/temp/DVRA16_106)$


2. download from the Utilities
DVRFlash : http://dvrflash.rpc1.org/DVRFlash_v2.6.0.zip
and MCSE : http://ala42.cdfreaks.com/MCSE/MediaCodeSpeedEdit.zip (which is now at V1.1.0.22)

3. Force Flash your DVR-116D with firmware 1.08 etc. to a DVR-116 with firmware 1.06 using DVRA16_106.zip
My Pioneer DVR-116D drives are connected at D: and E: inside Windows .. (I run windows 2000 server
for Flashing on a small partition). :

DVRFlash.exe -ff D: A0015430.104 A0015431.106 and
DVRFlash.exe -ff E: A0015430.104 A0015431.106

Now you have two DVR-116 Drives in factory default condition with firmware 1.06 in RPC-2 mode.

4. Edit A0015431.106 with MediaCodeSpeedEdit (MCSE V1.1.0.22) and select RPC-1 (region free) and
leave the rest untouched. (MCSE only runs on Windows, hence my Windows 2000 server partition).
Save the result, and overwrite A0015431.106.

5. Flash your DVR-116 with firmware 1.06 in RPC-2 into a DVR-116 with firmware 1.06 in RPC-1 (region free) :

DVRFlash.exe -f D: A0015430.104 A0015431.106 and
DVRFlash.exe -f E: A0015430.104 A0015431.106

6. Checking the result under Linux and cdrtools ossdvd (see http://crashrecovery.org/oss-dvd.html) I then
get the following :

Code: Select all

[jackson:stock]:(~/temp/DVRA16_106)$ ./DVRFlash -s -v /dev/hda

DVRFlash v2.6.0: Pioneer DVR firmware flasher
by Agent Smith, et al.,  July 2008

Commandline:
  ./DVRFlash -s -v /dev/hda


Drive Information:
   Description : PIONEER DVD-RW  DVR-116
  Firmware Rev : 1.06
Firmware Date : 08/06/19
  Manufacturer : PIONEER 
Drive is in normal mode.

Additional Drive Information:
Serial Number : HHDP127454WL   
Interface type : ATA
DVR generation : 0015
   Kernel type : PIO_ADV
   Normal type : PIO_ADV
Kernel version : 0001

        Status : RPC-1 (region free)

[jackson:stock]:(~/temp/DVRA16_106)$ ./DVRFlash -s -v /dev/hdb

DVRFlash v2.6.0: Pioneer DVR firmware flasher
by Agent Smith, et al.,  July 2008

Commandline:
  ./DVRFlash -s -v /dev/hdb


Drive Information:
   Description : PIONEER DVD-RW  DVR-116
  Firmware Rev : 1.06
Firmware Date : 08/06/19
  Manufacturer : PIONEER 
Drive is in normal mode.

Additional Drive Information:
Serial Number : HHDP127451WL   
Interface type : ATA
DVR generation : 0015
   Kernel type : PIO_ADV
   Normal type : PIO_ADV
Kernel version : 0001

        Status : RPC-1 (region free)

[jackson:stock]:(~/temp/DVRA16_106)$


So now we have migrated two Pioneer DVR-116D burners with non-portable DVR-R burning
results into two Pioneer DVR-116 drives with firmware 1.06 RPC-1 (region free) and a portable
and compatible DVD-R burn result.

Cheers,

Robert
--
Robert M. Stockmann - RHCE
Network Engineer - UNIX/Linux Specialist
crashrecovery.org stock@stokkie.net

Your right about that. But my aim was compatibilty, and since my problems started in Januari 2009
i smelled a kernel rat inside the newer firmwarez from Pioneer.co.jp.

What i did was a last resort to "revive" two dead 116D drives. I basicly picked them back
from my dumpster and started messing around, as they only produced non-portable mess.

What's important is that one needs to DVRFlash your 116 drive once. Simply running R116D.exe
doesn't do the Job here. My 116D's were reported as RPC-1 (region free) but any disc burned
with them was non-playable elsewhere.

Hi,

There sure is a rat in the kernel part of the Pioneer.co.jp official
firmware. Or at least the policy of Pioneer.co.jp regarding publishing
official firmware. Since 2009 Pioneer instituted a new policy by only
publishing the normal firmware file.

rpc1.org likewise does not have the official kernel firmware file
which comes with firmware 1.09 for the Pioneer DVR-116D.

It's a abomination that today, I, apparently, can only make my 116(D)
drives "workable" again by using DVRFlash and a old kernel firmware
A0015430.104, which was published with the release of firmware 1.04.

As to your question "I'd like to know what kind of discs/ were "not
playable everywhere" and what devices are everywhere in this case".
I use the following DVD-R recordables :

DVD-R 8X Ridata (Ritek05)
RIDATA DRD478RDCB100 DVD-R 8X Silver / Purple 100 Pack
http://www.cyberguys.com/product-detail ... ctid=12871

The following simple test was conducted :

1. Burn a dvdmovie.iso to a DVD-R 8X Ridata disk with the command :

cdrecord -v dev=ATA:0,1,0 driveropts=burnfree speed=8 -dao dvdmovie.iso

using the Pioneer Burner DVR-116D with firmware 1.09 RPC-1 (region free),
made region free by using :
DVR-116D_FW109EU2.EXE
http://files.rpc1.org/index.php?act=view&id=5557

2. Burn a dvdmovie.iso to a DVD-R 8X Ridata disk with the command :

cdrecord -v dev=ATA:0,1,0 driveropts=burnfree speed=8 -dao dvdmovie.iso

using the Pioneer Burner DVR-116 with firmware 1.06 RPC-1 (region free),
which is the same burner as with test 1. but Cross Flashed according
the procedure in my initial posting of this thread.

The burned disc's from both tests were inserted in a Pioneer DVD-Player
DV-535. The burned DVD-R from test 1. stopped playing within a minute,
where the burned DVD-R from test 2. could be played until the end
without a hick-up.

Best Regards,

Robert
PS.
details of cdrecord :

Code: Select all

[jackson:stock]:(~)$ cdrecord --version
Cdrecord-Clone 2.01.01a04 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu) Copyright (C) 1995-2006 Jörg Schilling
NOTE: this is OSS DVD extensions for cdrtools and thus may have bugs
   related to DVD issues that are not present in the original cdrtools. For
   more information see http://crashrecovery.org/oss-dvd.html. The original
   cdrtools author should not be bothered with problems in this version.
cdrecord: Warning: Running on Linux-2.6.15
cdrecord: There are unsettled issues with Linux-2.5 and newer.
cdrecord: If you have unexpected problems, please try Linux-2.4 or Solaris.
You have new mail in /var/spool/mail/stock
[jackson:stock]:(~)$


--
Robert M. Stockmann - RHCE
Network Engineer - UNIX/Linux Specialist
crashrecovery.org stock@stokkie.net