If you spend any time at all in our forums, then maybe you have paid a visit to our NEC Recording Hardware Forum. This community is to say the least, a very active and knowledgeable bunch, with many dedicated and enthusiastic members. And do they ever love their NEC drives! But one of the hottest thread subjects has to be modified firmware for these devices. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most complex and difficult subjects to fully understand. Sure, you can look at the KProbe scans and notice all the squiggly lines, but other than read the comments from the poster, do you really understand how to read them? Maybe you would like to know but are afraid to ask!
The other thing is and this is the million-dollar question: Is it worth fooling with this stuff? What are the advantages, the disadvantages? This unique article will give you a primer into the world of firmware patching. It will explain the process of flashing your firmware and the results of doing so, including the testing of several media types. The purpose of which is to determine how effective it is. In addition, maybe you can see why so many in our forums enjoy this type experimentation, as you will be able to understand what is being displayed in the resulting scans. The best thing is, we get some insight as to how this hardware works and how it can be controlled. Any CD Freak wants to know this!
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How firmware patching is done:
Within the firmware there are media tables and write strategy tables. These are extracted from the firmware and edited; the editing is done at three levels:
Finally the edited strategies are then compiled and patched into the firmware BIN file |
One thing that's for sure, NEC makes some great drives as they can perform beyond their intended design. But as a company, they must focus on quality and have to take into consideration all the media out there that their customer base has available to them, then try to strike a happy medium that keeps their customers coming back! But, as CD Freaks, we only use the media that suits our needs, so we can balance quality and cost too, so why not kick that drive in the ass! With that in mind, suddenly a custom firmware becomes a tantalizing idea. Without further ado, let's take a look at this fascinating preview from forum Moderators Dee-27 and Jan S. Then, we would be very interested to read your comments here or especially in the article thread started for discussion on this topic, give us your thoughts! Is there something else you would like to see, or are curious about?
Source: CD Freaks
