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What is a firmware?

Like all recent motherboards, DVD Drives can have their "BIOS" replaced. In DVD drives (also CD drives and Hard Drives) this controller software which resides on a programmable chip within the drive itself is called a "Firmware". Since this software resides within a flash-based reprogrammable chip, it may be upgraded through a "Firmware Patch".

For DVD Drives there are two types of Firmwares. There is the Region-Free RPC1 firmware which doesn't allow for checking the Region code within the drive itself. And there is the Region-Locked RPC2 firmware which enforces a Region setting within the drive on a hardware basis.

Most drives released after the year 2000 come with a region-locked RPC2 firmware which prevents you from using programs like DVD Genie. For more information see "What can be done with region locked DVD Players?".