[Tutorial] Region free and RGB DVD Player for PS2

As you may know, while the PS2 system software is stored on hard ROM, it is designed to support updates from memory card or internal HDD (except for "non-softmoddable" SCPH-900xx's with ROM version 2.30; indeed, FreeMCBoot works by installing itself as an OSD update). Notably, the earliest Japanese consoles did not have builtin DVD player software, but rather came with an update installation CD!

Multiple DVD Player updates have since then been developed, with features such as:

• IR remote support
• New console support (Slims have a region setting in the write-protected part of the EEPROM; on previous models region-specific roms are used)
• Time display
• Progressive scan (only on SCPH-500xx and above, and only with component video)
• Random/Program title order
• A-B segment loop

and misfeatures:

• Movie region lock bypass button combo removed
• YUV/YPbPr mode forced instead of RGB (as RGB skips Macrovision copy protection)

These updates have been inconsistently released to the public as update CDs, although not in every region, and not the same versions for every region.


Luckily for us (all sixty people who watch movies on PS2), krHACKen of AssemblerGames has dumped the final version of DVD Player (Japanese 3.11) and developed a hacked version that is region free and outputs interlaced video as RGB!
It is also made in a variant runnable from USB, for the lazy people or the Memory Card (8MB) (for PlayStation 2) free-space challenged

As most commercial software, it's not legal in most countries to redistribute it, however thanks to The Internet you may find it with the keyword "3.11J_PROGRESSIVE3_FINAL.7z".

Limitations (unconfirmed by me):

• No progressive scan for PAL movies
• No component support in 480i mode? May have been about an earlier version of the RGB-unlocking mod

Running from USB:

1. Inside the archive, enter the "USB" folder.
2. Enter the folder with the desired language for the DVD Player software itself.
3. Copy all the files to the root of a PS2-compatible USB drive. No exceptions, subfolders are not supported (except for the actual .elf executables)
4. After inserting a DVD Video disc, run the software in any applicable way (such as via a file manager, modchip, Swap Magic 3.6, FreeMCBoot menu or hotkeys, ...)

Note: JAP.ELF and US_EU.ELF differ in which button is OK and which one is Back.

Installing on MC as update:
Note that DVD Player updates, like all memory card applications, are locked to the individual memory card MagicGate ID and to the console's MagicGate region; additionally, DVD Player updates are locked to the console's DVD region, but the following steps will take care of everything
The card with the update can however be used on any other console meeting the same requirements.

1. Boot your console with no memory card, internal HDD, or optical disc connected.
2. On the main OSD menu, press triangle for "Version". Note the current DVD Player version; it will end with a letter, which represents the DVD Player region.
3. Inside the archive, enter the "MC" folder.
4. Enter the folder matching your console's DVD region. (Check out the table at the end of this post)
5. Enter the folder with the desired language for the DVD Player software itself.
6. Extract the B?EXEC-DVDPLAYER folder to your PC.
   
7. You will now need to install FreeMCBoot to the same memory card as the one you wish to install this DVD Player to, if you don't already have.
   It can be removed afterwards, if that's what you prefer.
8. Use any method, such as a file manager like wLaunchElf/uLaunchElf, to copy the main FreeMCBoot executable to your computer. (Copy mc?:/B?EXEC-SYSTEM/osdmain.elf to USB).
   (This file is encrypted with MagicGate, and we will use it to copy the key from)
   
9. Download and extract KelfTwinSigner, made by SP193, on a system capable of running x86 Windows software.
10. Fire up a command line and run KelfTwinSigner, with the path to your osdmain.elf as first argument, and the path to B?EXEC-DVDPLAYER/dvdplayer.elf (inside the folder we extracted earlier) as the second one.
11. The program should display the keys, then "Kbit and Kc transferred successfully!".
12. Copy the B?EXEC-DVDPLAYER folder, with all its contents, to the memory card.
    
13. If you go back to the Version screen with the memory card inserted, the DVD Player version should show as "3.11J (RPC-1)". This proves the files have been detected by the console.
14. After inserting a DVD Video disc, run the DVD via the console's Browser as usual.
15. If instead after a black screen you get back to the browser, and you get a "DVD Player was not setup correctly" error, the issue is in the encryption.

$ony DVD Region list:
A: Asia (3?)
C: China (6)
E: Europe (2)
J: Japan (2)
M: Mexico (South America) (4)
O: Oceania (4)
R: Russia (5)
U: North America (1)

Source code of KELFTwinSigner 1.00.

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There @Mariomaster2011, now you know!

 

No, foreign game discs are blocked in hardware (as a side effect of the anti piracy), the only way to read them on a PS2 (for any purpose, even just seeing the files in WLaunchElf or ripping to HDD) requires a chip or the swap trick

(Of course you can use a computer to backup them, then use a backup loading solution to run them; but at that point the PS2 is never seeing the original disc, so it doesn't count )

 

What did you even ask for?

That option selects whether, in the standard TV resolution interlaced video mode (the default for the boot menu and all games), the 3-component video output pins will output RGB (like a PS1) or YPbPr

PS2 (and DS, Wii, ...) settings are more like guidelines, commercial software is supposed to respect and implement them, but there are exceptions (like the official unmodified DVD Player itself, which only supports YPbPr)

 

I actually never tried the USB version (but I know it must be in the root)

Yes, as far as I've read, it doesn't enable progressive scan mode on unsupported consoles (it checks the GPU model, then just to be sure the console model, since the 390xx also has the right one)

YPbPr should on paper be superior to RGB for movies (which are encoded as YUV since you can pull off a lot more good-looking lossy compression in a color-and-intensity model), of course the PS2 always internally converts to RGB so it doesn't really matter - and many video processor chips convert RGB to YUV to RGB, so that tint and saturation settings can be applied!

Cable quality matters more, pretty much everything on the market is unshielded crap, scalped original cables, or expensive but serious 3rd party ones (I think it would be cheaper to buy the shittiest one and replace the wires yourself with 5 quality RCA cables)

If you DO have a console with official progressive scan DVD support, then this version goes a little funky - if the console is configured for RGB, interlaced mode is RGB and progressive YPbPr; if set to YPbPr, hilarity should ensue in progressive mode...

 

There are three versions of the HDDOSD (1.00 and another from Japan, 1.10 from the USA), countless cracks/mods of them, and unfortunately all three display as 2.00; for whatever I know, they should not influence memory card update loading at all (and indeed I use successfully the HDDOSD 1.10U + ATAD 3rd party disk patch, with RGB DVD player, memory card/X-confirm/English version)

What happens if you go to the browser first then insert the cards?

Could be a corrupted card, you might want to try to copy them to USB, reformat (MC-Annihilator or FMCB installer), and copy stuff back (remember to copy Magicgate signed stuff, like the DVD player, back to the same card)

 

Check out WPgg0SzS on pastebin

 

Not having to build your YPbPr to RGB converter - since many European TVs support the latter but not the former, unlike American ones

There wouldn't be an intrinsic quality advantage in either case as the conversion, regardless of how you do it, would theoretically be lossless (well, as lossless as analog addition and division can be)