gc-forever - Gamecube/Wii Forums

Hi,

I've taken the liberty to open up my Panasonic Q Game/DVD player and see how the DVD region free mod was installed.

Below are pictures of my own personal Panasonic Q which I have taken apart to see how the DVD mod was done.

Below are pictures of the Components installed to achieve PAL playback.

Top side of the PCB:


Bottom side of the PCB:

Area’s circled in RED are the added components (RAM and Caps)


All pictures are from the PCB's that rest on/under the DVD drive.
From what I could tell opening the unit untill just the Gamecube PCB is that the mods happen on those boards that are on the DVD drive assembly.
Region modding the Gamecube Part of the Panasonic Q requires different mods on the Gamecube PCB and has no connection for enabling PAL DVD playback.

Hopefully this will help some people better understand how it works.

The mod is not only adding a pic (with unknow code BTW) and updating the firmware (with an almost impossible to find authoring DVD). You also have to add anther ram chip (with decouplig caps, IIRC) if you want to enable PAL decoding. If you have a look on the ram chips on the third photo you will notice they are different)

count.zero wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 08, 2019 10:30 am

The mod is not only adding a pic (with unknow code BTW) and updating the firmware (with an almost impossible to find authoring DVD). You also have to add anther ram chip (with decouplig caps, IIRC) if you want to enable PAL decoding. If you have a look on the ram chips on the third photo you will notice they are different)

Yes, I was looking at the pictures again today and noticed the extra ram that was added as well as some extra caps surrounding it.

I phoned a Modder last satureday to ask him about the Service Disk that is required to enable multiregion playback.
He told me that he always used IMGburn to copy the Service Disk and supposedly it worked for him. He did mention that a couple of units did not respond to the Disk and he contributed that to maybe a slight revision in hardware but he was unsure.

I will update my first post.

You need a copy of the DVD, an authoring DVD burner and an Authoring DVD-r. The authoring media isn't a standard dvd-r. A standard DVD-r with a standard dvd recorder is not going to work.

For more info about authoring dvd format have a look here:
http://pioneerdvd.rpc1.org/GeneralvsAuthoring.pdf

This is a dvd for authoring media:
https://www.amazon.com/DVD-R-Authoring- ... B00D0EAOCC

Oh boy thats my jam. I have a panasonic q modded to be region free for gamecube (easy part, has a qoob pro) and region free for dvds( hard part, no kits available anymore). What i also have and what seams to be very very unique is that i can change the dvd region by using the remote itself while the machine is in standby. I found a guy who knew a guy in the beginning of 2000 who was doing region mods on dvd players and that guy made some kits specific for the panasonic q to change the dvd player region.

Also i have a burned copy of the panasonic service disc that was made with a mormal dvd burner and a cheap dvd (no special equipment involved) and from what i could gather the main problem in using the burned disk is that the dvd board inside the panasonic q has different firmwares that are hardcoded and cant be switched. The guy who did my mod used one of his spare brocken panasonic q systems and switched the dvd board from there to mine since the panasonic service disk wount work on higher firmwares that some dvd motherboard came with.

The kits back in the day used to add an extra RAM chip to the DVD module from a similar DVD player available at the time. The extra RAM chip was needed cause there wasn't enough to display the additional video resolution required for PAL discs from what I was told.

You also needed a properly authored DVD disc (not from a burner) to change the region + press buttons on the DVD remote. I would just leave it as-is and copy anything you really want to play from it and change the region on the burnt disc itself. It's not like you wanna watch a bunch of movies off of it and kill the laser

My panasonic CD for region switching is a run of the mill generic dvd with the image burned to it with a of the shelf drive. The key is the softwar eversion of the dvd player board inside the panasonic q. If thats to high no disc, genuine or not will switch regions for the dvd motherboard. Also i didnt get the last part, copy the what to where?
And yes, its just to ve the possibility to watch dvds, i dont even own that many dvds anymore and from what i can tell the panasonic q is a mediocre dvd player at best

Hey all,I’m interested in what ID or part number the ram chip is and caps are needed for this DVD region mod for PAL region.Thanks

I would also be interested in that. As well as knowing what that small chip is on the first two pictures and what it does.

foxdagamer wrote: ↑

Mon May 18, 2020 1:11 am

Hey all,I’m interested in what ID or part number the ram chip is and caps are needed for this DVD region mod for PAL region.Thanks

EthernumRasa wrote: ↑

Tue Jul 28, 2020 2:16 pm

I would also be interested in that. As well as knowing what that small chip is on the first two pictures and what it does.

I’m currently working on retrieving the part numbers and value’s.

As for the small PIC, from what I’ve gathered its a 12C508a IC. Its needed to enable the extra features of switching regions on the Gamecube side as well as interpreting the Remote button combinations to enable and disable some extra features like Macrovision and MP3 playback.

Problem is that the PIC is probably protected (code protection set high) so to read the ROM you would have to decap the IC.

I’ll try to post some more info once I have it.

Also,
Sorry for the late reply!