Hi- i'm the owner of a Philips DVDRW824K/00 which supports DVD+R/RW at 8/4/12. Philips have given me the option of adding 2.4x DVD-R/RW for 7.50 Euros (not much, granted - but what the hell is the point in 2.4x dvd-r?)

Philips have brought out a new product called DVDRW824K/40 which is the same as the above but supports DVD-R/RW at 4/2.4.

Now, being the overclocker that i am, i tried the firmware for the new product on my one and, to my surprise...

it worked!

And i'm able to burn DVD-R's without having the newer player, and without paying royalties.

Now, does this even count as being illegal? Its Philips own stupid fault for not putting any checks on the firmware upgrade in my opinion!

(Oh, and btw - i now have my philips 824@BenQ 822a = DVD+/-R/RW at 8/4/12, with a new firmware coming out in september for dual layer support, which may or may not work with my drive (30% chance i saw somewhere) )

I cannot believe that they would do something like this, but it cannot be deemed illegal unless there is a license agreement associated with the file that you agreed to in order to obtain it. It can't be illegal otherwise since you made no modifications to the file

BTW, I've been trying to find a place to buy one of these drives, but it sure is difficult. No where near as easy as it is to obtain a Liteon drive.

I own a 824k/40 with the latest (and it seems the last, since it was removed a few days ago from Phillips support site) firmware P3.3. It burns like a charm and also support PI checking (even though it's veryyyyy slow ~ 1x) .

A little picky with lousy media, and a little slower than average, but makes excellent 4x/8x DVD+R burns and very good 4x DVD-R burns.

ReD, do you mean you got a full 8x +R/-R and 4x -RW/+RW with BenQ822a firmware? Which version did you use?

Hehe - i haven't actually tried using 8X DVD-R's, but i have read on many other forums people having success burning at 8X with BenQ 800a's running with 822a firmware. The BenQ 800a is an exact clone of the Philips drive (so all internal hardware is the same).

If an 800a can, i'm sure yours can also burn at 8X with -r's, although i'm not actually sure what the physical differences between your drive and mine are (although yours can only be better).

I'm using B3IC (the latest from BenQ) and i find that its very reliable (although the Philips firmware was very reliable too) and will upgrade to the dual layer firmware when it comes out next month.

To flash using BenQ firmware, download WinDWFlash.exe and the B3IC (for BenQ 822A) firmware from this page:
http://dvdpro.club.st/firmware/BENQ_FW.htm

Should be a pretty safe procedure - many others have done it, and if your drive doesn't like it, i've got a copy of the original Philips firmware (for both /00 and /40 versions).

Ah wait- just remembered something. Try flashing straight to B3IC first - but if that doesn't work, you'll need to download the patched B3HC first and them apply B3IC after.

Thanks, I might try it indeed, since Philips seems to have stopped firmware development for this drive, which is quite sad. What is even more outstanding was that my /40 was built in April/2004 and now is already "dead"...

They didn't seem to publicise it much before or after they released it did they...

They'll probably put some new firmware out - probably just putting in a couple of previous firmware or hardware check :-)

But if i were you, i'd def try the BenQ Firmware. It essentially means a one in three chance of a free dual layer drive upgrade!

DL support is not that important to me for the months to come, since media is outrageously expensive and I mainly backup data files, so I do need reliability, which I haven't seen much on the DVD burn scene. Speed comes as a bonus, but would like to update the firmware to support new 4x/8x discs coming out.

I've got also a Sony DRU-530A, which is quite good, but doesn't make such reliable burns (higher PI/PO than those burned with 824K). Heck when we reach 16x, maybe I'll buy a Plex My old faithful Plex 2410TA has the best CD burn quality I've seen so far. Even burns totally crappy Z-Grade discs

Yeah - £10 a disc is a bit steep for dual layer media at the moment. But the thing is, buy the time DL media is cheap, things like blu-ray and hd-dvd would have come out - and their prices are supposed to be similar to DVD's!

do you think this firmware could be used for an hp dvd 400i which is internally the same drive as the philips 824/benq800a?

yes check this thread
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=92188

Philips DVDRW824K/00.
I red your post about Philips DVDRW824K/00.
I' tried to install the benQ firmware but now my DVD is no more recognized by NERO .

Where I can get the older firmware version and reinstall it ?

Sorry for the question but Im just a newbie .

thanks in advance

Lu

If it was a bundled nero, and the drive name changes, it may not accept it as a burner - in that case, the simplest answer is to look in some low places for a keygen - illegal, yes, but in this case probably not immoral.

Or try to purchase an OEM version that works with anything, often available very cheap (it SHOULD be sold with hardware, but who cares)

Thanks, I flashed mine to DL firmware.

hello everyone,
i want to buy a Philips DVDRW824k/20. Can it be flashed to support dvd-r and dvd-rw media ?

please be sure it's the 824K/20 (not the 824k/40 which i know it does)
thanks for your reply

Max

I bought a DVDRW824K/20 in March 2004 and it came with -R/W support out of the box (had P2.2 firmware which I later flashed to P3.3). If you buy one new now I'd expect it to have -R/W support out of the box already just as well.

Anyway, the K/20 model can be flashed with the P3.3 firmware for the K/40 which supports +/- (in fact, back at the Philips site there's a download for the K/20 P3.3 version but the file is identical to the one for the K/40 )

Hi,
i´m new and a bit late with a question to philips dvdr824p (<-nero info tool says, but i think its a dvdrw824k/00, i can burn dvd+r).
I upgraded the firmware from 1.2 to 1.4 with dvdrw824k_00_fus_eng.exe to get the feature to burn dvd-r, which was a big mistake, because then i read about flashing it to rw824/40.
I tried it, but i cannot flash to 824k/40 nor to benq 822a with the tool winDWflash and the files b3hc.cvt and b3ic.exe.

The messages are :
"flashing failed
"this firmware version cannot be upgrade"

can i flash the drive back to the old firmware 1.2, and then upgrade it to 824k/40 or benq ?
if so, where do i get it (didn´t find it so far)
I would be very thankfull for a little help