HISTORY OF THE AD-600A

The Apex/Hiteker AD-600A has had many changes over time even though the players all look the same externally. Let's start right at the beginning:

In the beginning there was a player which was CALLED an Apex AD-600A but it could not play MP3 and had a lot of problems playing DVD's. This model of the Apex AD-600A is rare but some do still exist. BEWARE! These players are NOT hackable and are NOT the same as most AD-600A players on the market. The main board is made by Toshiba and the DVD loader is not an IDE interface unit. The case looks the same but the main circuit board is totally different. This is what the main board looks like:

Toshiba main board. Top Side (left) and Bottom Side (right)

After the Toshiba main board version came the first of the now famous "loophole" firmware which allowed you to change the region and turn off the Macrovision copy protection. This was the first model to use the ESS processor chip and a standard IDE interface DVD-ROM loader. The first firmware for this model was called "A4" and was thought to be rare, however more recently (year 2001) it has started to re-appear in Canadian sold machines along with the ADV7175 video processor chip (see below about the different video processors).

The were three more "popular" versions of the firmware with the loophole menu feature:
"A6" for the Australian Hiteker AD-600A, "A8" for the Apex AD-600A, and "A7" for the Apex AD-600A player with the ADV7175 video chip (more on that later).

As stated before the Loophole Menu was designed to allow changing of the Region and turn off Macrovision copy protection. This was originally designed for the manufacturer only but the PASSWORD leaked out and word soon spread.

After a short while the loophole menu firmware was removed from the player to stop people changing regions, making the player region free and turning off the Macrovision copy protection. This step was done under pressure from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) because the original agreement made with the Picture Company's was to have a DVD system that was split into regions all over the world. This made it possible to control the release of movies and therefore increase the Picture Company's profits.
Think of it this way: A movie gets released in America in the cinema. Shortly after the DVD (Region 1 for USA) comes out. In Australia the movie might not get released in the cinema until AFTER the movie is released in America in DVD. Australia has been assigned Region 4, so therefore buying a Region 1 copy of the DVD will not work in a Region 4 player... Right? Well, almost.... If you can change the region of your player or make it region free then it will play.

The other thing the loophole menu did was remove Macrovision. This is the copy protection signal put onto the Video Out line of the player to make it harder to copy a DVD movie to VHS tape. The Loophole Menu made it possible to switch off the Macrovision signal and therefore make perfect copies of the DVD.

The MPAA soon realised the Loophole Menu was becoming common knowledge (instructions were sold with new players... I witnessed it myself more than once!) so the Loophole Menu was ordered to be removed from the player.

A new version of firmware was released called "A9" for the Apex which had no improvements, only the removal of the Loophole Menu.

Soon after a major bug was discovered in the AD-600A which meant a lot of new discs would have trouble playing in the AD-600A because a DVD feature called "Seamless Branching" was becoming popular. Seamless Branching is a technique where the DVD can skip sections or branch to other parts of the movie/features without any pausing. The old A6, A7, A8 and A9 firmware was not coping very well with this Seamless Branching feature. This is evident playing "The Abyss Special Edition" or Disney's "Dinosaurs" so new firmware was released to fix the problem. The new firmware released was "A10" and "A11"

"A11" was for normal Apex AD-600A players, while "A10" firmware was for the Apex AD-600A with the special video chip. Again, neither version had a Loophole Menu.

What is the talk about a "Special Video Chip?". For some reason a slightly different video chip was used in the AD-600A. The standard video chip is the "ADV7170" and is located here:

However, maybe due to a shortage, another similar chip the "ADV7175" was used instead. Even though basic operation is the same it is different enough to need it's own special firmware - "A7" and "A10". If you have enough skills the ADV7175 can be removed and replaced with an ADV7170 so more firmware options are available.

It was possible at this point in time to remove A11 or A9 firmware chips and put in A8 to get the loophole menu, or if you have the special video chip remove A10 and put in A7.... but all that was about to change.......

After A10 and A11 firmware the AD-600A went though a major production change. The main circuit board was re-designed and a new main processor, the ES4318 was used. Another change was the two SRAM chips were removed. The decision to remove the two SRAM chips is what makes it harder to use firmware with a Loophole Menu.

Here are pictures showing the changes between the two boards.On the left is the original board with an ES4308 processor (under the grey metal heatsink I added to my player) and the two SRAM chips on the left side of the firmware chip with the white sticker on top. Ignore the yellow box around the Karaoke chip - more on that in another section.
The picture on the right is the newer board with an ES4318 processor and no SRAM chips as shown by the red box. The yellow box is firmware chip. It is possible to solder in the two missing SRAM chips and use "A8" firmware if you are confident enough. There is very little difference between the ES4308 and ES4318 processor and firmware for either board can be interchanged no problem.

With the new board came new firmware. For the Apex there was a brief run of "N3" firmware before an "N4" version was released, and then soon after that "N5" was released and became the standard. Of course, still no Loophole Menu. Just recently there has been the introduction of yet another "N" series of firmware: "N6". N6 is the best of them all and on par with GK600B. N6 is CDR upgradable and the patched version (found on this website) is also RCE proof!

At the same time as the changes to the Apex were happening the Hiteker AD-600A was also getting some changes.The Hiteker started appearing in Australia with a new firmware called "GK600" which has a nice "swirly" background:

The Hiteker also had a board change too. It is very similar to the above right-hand board but this time the Karaoke chip is removed too, as shown by the blue box:

The Apex AD-600A player also had this type of board released too without the Karaoke chip and the firmware to go with it is called N1-2 (or N12 on some stickers) and also another release called N1-3. There has also just been a release called N1-4. Karaoke is still possible but now it only had limited ability because there is no controller chip for the effects. You can spot a newer Hiteker or Apex because instead of having two "Mic Level" controls on the front of the player there is one "Mic Level" and one "Mic Echo" control.

For the Apex, N1-4 (for non-karaoke chip players) and N6 (for karaoke chip players) is the last release of the firmware and any Apex players purchased now will have either N1-4 or N6 firmware depending on what the microphone control knob layout is.

For the Hiteker AD-600A the story continues a little further. GK600 firmware comes in two releases: GK600 or GK600/ADV7176. GK600 is for the normal ADV7170 video chip while GK600/ADV7176 is for a release of the Hiteker AD-600A player with a different video chip, the ADV7176. The video chip is shown by the blue box in this picture:

Why the different chip? For some reason someone thought it would be a great idea to turn off Macrovision permanently by removing the original ADV7170 and putting in an ADV7176 chip that does not make the Macrovision signal. However this also meant making different firmware (GK600/ADV7176) because the ADV7176 is not the same as the ADV7170.
The silly thing is that by this time a patch was available for the original GK600 firmware to turn off Macrovision by software so the video chip change was not needed. Unfortunately before this was realised many GK600/ADV7176 machines were sold.

Unfortunately the original GK600 and GK600/ADV7176 firmware has a bug in it that subtitles always default to on when a disc is first played. Turning off the subtitles is done by pressing the "SUB-T" button. There has been a release of GK600, called GK600A which fixes up the subtitle bug. This is only for GK600, not GK600/ADV7176.

GK600B is the newest firmware for the Hiteker AD-600A and it is the best firmware so far. Not only is it Region Free and Macrovision Free, but the subtitle bug is fixed and the RCE (Region Code Enhancement) has been defeated. Even better there are two versions of GK600B - one for normal (ADV7170) video chips and one for the ADV7176 video chip. GK600B is also CDR upgradable.

CANADIAN AD-600A PLAYERS

More recently there has been a re-birth of the AD-600A being sold in Canada. These appear to be refurbished units from the USA and have several version of firmware in them. All units ARE hackable to make Region Free and Macrovison off but the procedure for each model varies. For more information look HERE.