RCE and your AD-600A

There has been a lot of questions whether the AD-600A can play RCE discs if you use Region Free firmware. The good news is you can!

So what is RCE? Region Code Enhancement is a secondary region checking procedure being introduced on DVD discs to stop players that have been set to Region Free (or Region 0) from playing the disc. It is done by a clever bit of software programming on the DVD disc which checks the region code of the disc to the region code on the player and if they don't match then you get a message like this:

This message is NOT the "Wrong Region" message displayed on your player if you are trying to play for example a Region 1 disc in a player set for Region 4. This message is on the disc itself as can be seen by the Universal Studios logo on the left picture and the message "This disc is intended to play on non-modified Region 1 players" on the right picture.

Here are just a few DVD's with RCE:

Charlie's Angels............................. The Patriot................................... The 6th Day

There will be plenty more DVD's with RCE in the future as the war between the Studios and the Region Free hacks for DVD players continutes to hot up even further. Without getting too political it is a war the Studio's shall not and will not win.

So how do you get around the message and play the DVD? There is a simple workaround. I have tested this with GK600, GK600A, BI-600E and N5 firmware and it works. Other firmware might work but I have not tested it.

The procedure is this:

1. Put your disc in the player and wait for the message like the two shown above.

2. When the message appears use your remote and press the "PBC OFF" button once. You will see a strange screen appear showing some technical information about the disc.

3. Press "PBC OFF" again and you will go back to the AD-600A backdrop screen.

4. Now press "DVD DIGEST" button to bring up the main menu of the DVD and proceed as normal. Alternatively you can press the PLAY button and start the movie without going to the main menu.

The two buttons are shown in yellow.

Some discs only require the press of the PBC button once and then press PLAY to start the movie. You will just have to experiment to see what works for you.

GOOD NEWS! There is now another way. If you are prepared to replace your firmware chip (or in some cases with newer players do a CDR upgrade) you can now use N6 firmware or GK600B as it now comes with RCE defeat. GK600B is region and Macrovision free, and N6 can be patched to be Region Free and Macrovision Free.

Both N6 (patched) and GK600B work perfectly with RCE discs... No RCE message!

Check this chart to see how you can get GK600B or N6 working with your player.