I have added support for BTC 1004/1008/1108 DVDRW binary firmwares to my MediaCodeSpeedEdit tool for LiteOn DVD-Writers. It allows to change the burning speed and replace unused media codes by media codes previously unknown to the firmware. Renaming the media code name can be used to change the used write strategy.
The tool patches the 1 MB .bin files which can be flashed with mtkflash.

This is for experienced users only. Flashing patched firmware is on your own risk and will void your warranty. Only use the tool when you known what you are doing and when you have successfully flashed an unpatched 1 MB .bin file with dos mtkflash to your drive before.

Sweeet Where were you when I need it a couple days ago

Thank you for your work. Now I'll wait for OmniPatcher for BTC to change the strategies.

Thanks again.

First, speedhacking for the BTC does not work well. You can bump up the speed, but unlike LiteOn drives, such burns will almost always coaster. See this thread:
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=98919

Also, I do not plan on making an OmniPatcher for BTC drives. The kind of strategy-changing done here in the form of replacing names is easy to do, but carries the downside that no two media codes may use the same strategy. The kind of strategy changing done by the OmniPatcher is fairly specific for LiteOn drives and can't be easily adapted for other MediaTek-based drives; it would be a lot of work to implement that kind of strategy switching for other drives.

@ala42

Once you add support for Artec and TSST drives, you might as well rename your tool to "for MediaTek Drives".

I never do care about speed hack, all I do is add lower speed anyway, more of a the strategy swap person myself, but oh well.

The tool works for .bin, but BTC has always used .hex, so could ala42, code65536, or anyone recommand a hex to bin tool?

I tried using the software for eeprom programmers, as well as other hex to bin programs I can find on the internet, they load up or convert correctly up to 0XFFF0h, then the rest becomes FFFF all the way, and some tools don't even convert.

Where the correct bin should have more data from 0X10000h to 0XFFFF0h, with couple address of blanks (FF) separating each "island" of data. While TheDangerousBro does have most of firmware in .bin, they didn't have the latest V0151, so what I had to do was flash twice, once with the update from BTC, read it off with DOS MTKFlash, then hack the bin, and flash again.

Looks like you allready found a way to convert hex to bin

Try this tool. I only made a short try, HEX2BIN.EXE /L65536 all0.hex seams to work.
Create the batch file allhex2bin.bat with these lines
call it withand it will create the 1 MB all.bin file from the all?.hex files.

Why use an external tool ?

An updated version is available now. Here are the BTC related changes:

Ala42, I see that I can patch the RPC version of the 0159 (0059) f/w for the 1008IM, but Drive settings>Read speed settings box is greyed out.

What's the reason behind that?

This option is available since last Sunday and supports increasing the read speed for all media to 16x for benq 1620 type drives only at the moment. I do not have a BTC drive and it was really hard to find with the drive I have, so I doubt that it will be available for BTC drives until someone tells how to do it.

C'mon somebodies!

Thanks for what you did so far, though. (I can change the write speeds for different media)

Definitely worth getting if you're a BTC owner.

Call me stupid, but I would like to know what you are going on about, only I don't understand it!!

Could you explain a bit more as it sounds interesting

Cheers

Ala wrote an application that patches (rewrites) the firmware of certain drives so that the speed settings can be adjusted for the media they support, as well as increase (unlock, actually) the maximum reading speed of the drive.

So far, he hasn't been able to increase the BTC drive speed yet, but using his app, I have control over the speed limitations BTC applied for certain brands of discs.

Sweet,

Thanks for explaining that.

Does that mean that you could effectively burn a 4x disc at 8x? Or just burn a DVD-R (current limit of 4x) at 8x?

(This is all on the BTC1008 btw)

The -R limit is caused by the used chipset. You can rename the media code names to allow 8x burning strategies being used on 4x media. This method usually changees the name-strategy mapping and works on all kinds of dvd burner firmware.
MCSE also allows to modify the speed id byte used in most mediatek chipset based firmwares. If this really increases the write speed and leads to acceptable results depends on the firmware implementation. It works e.g. with Liteon 811/851 firmwares. Later 1xx3 firmwares use separate tables for different speed ranges, so here the first method has to be used.
I can not tell you if the speed id method works on 1108 firmwares.

It would seem Adammartin and I, both have 1008IMs, though.

That appears to be the more widely owned drive, so perhaps you could take that firmware on first?

Adammartin, here's a screenshot of my 1008IM firmware in MCSE:



As you can see, I have the choice of adding or removing set speeds for that particular media, but the increase read speed option (lower right) is disabled.

I unlocked the read speed on my BenQ 1620 to 16x with that.

i have MediaCodeSpeedEdit 1.4.3 and when i load the firmware EXE into it nothing comes up. can someone please help me?

There's already a thread on MCSE and BTC drives:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=131110

Hi,

you need to load the .bin or the .hex file from the firmware not the exe file.
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread....9&page=2&pp=25
see post 32 regarding the .hex file.

If you have a zipped or rar'd version of the firmware there is a .bin file you can use.


RmF

Any chance of MCSE ever supporting CD codes? My 1016 does not support my LeadData CD-Rs from Fry's and it would be great to add that support myself.

If you can handle a hex editor, check this posting.

Sorry,k ala42, I missed your reply on that other post. Your idea worked perfectly!!! I just changed the last 2 hex numbers from 00 08 to F7 A8, which is what another media that burned at 48X had, and I was able to burn my LeadData CD-R media at 48X!! You da man!

Nice that it worked for you. It would be fine if you gave more details about what you exactly did, as I have not changed the cd tables before myself .
Which code does your media have ?
Was it in the table before ?
Did you take the $FA $A8 values from the post I pointed to to replace the values you already found in the table behind the code and capacity values ?
Have you made quality scans to show that your media works fine with the patch ?

The media code was already in the table (which surprised me). Code was $97 $26 $54. The second 'capacity' code was $79 $59 $74. The final 2 hex numbers were $00 $08. I changed them to $FA $A8. I did this because this is what other media that did record at higher speeds listed. When I did this, my GQ media which before would not burn at all would now burn at 48X. I ran a Nero CDSpeed quality test and it scored 97, with absolutely no PIF errors and just a few PIE errors.

Oh, and one other thing. I think the 4 in the $54 (3rd hex number in the media code) represents the dye number used in the media. I am guessing this because when I tried several different media, the dye number always equaled that digit. Not sure what that means, but just an observation.