First, I would like to say that as far as I know, there are no upgrades available for the EuroLine 6620! I have heard rumours about an upgrade to allow players that cannot play VCD/SVCD discs to be able to do so, but this upgrade also involves replacing of the flash memory in the player to another type of flash type. As far as I know, this upgrade is not available for download anywhere.
I have opened up my EuroLine 6620, removed the BM29F040 from it's IC-socket and dumped the firmware in it using a PROM-programmer. If anyone is interrested, the firmware for my 6620 player can be downloaded here (this is from my EuroLine 6620 without VCD/SVCD capabilities).
I took a closer look at the firmware using a hex-editor, and located all text-strings within the firmware. Here is a listing of the text-stings I found. I have replaced all 0x00 values in the listing with CR/LF. At some places in the listing, you can see text looking like this: <0xXX>. It means that instead of an ASCII character, there was an unprintable hexadecimal value at that position.
If you look at the texts in the listing, it seems that this firmware is some kind of generic firmware that is used in several different DVD players. There are text-strings that has nothing to do with the 6620, for example "SET CENTER DELAY TO 1 MS", "SET SURROUND DELAY TO 12 MS", "SET FRONT AND REAR SPEAKERS" and "DO YOU HAVE A SUBWOOFER?". Since the 6620 has no Dolby Digital 5.1 analog outputs, these strings must be for another DVD player model.
Another interresting string that I found is of course "SET MACROVISION OFF". I have confirmed that the 6620 has Macrovision turned on, so maybe there is some way of turning it off since there is a string that indicates that.
As the box that the unit is delivered in states "Flash upgrade", it should be able to upgarde its firmware from a CD burned in the proper format. As I could not find any instructions about how to do this, I had no idea how this should be done.
But after I got a mail that the EuroLine 6620 probably was a clone of the Elta 8891 DVD player (which has a firmware upgrade available), one guy downloaded that firmware and tried to upgrade the EuroLine 6620 with it. As it turned out, the player was totally unusable after the upgrade! He even had to take the player apart to get the CD out of the drive! But at least it proved that it is possible to upgrade the players firmware from a CD.
If you do not know what you are doing, please do not try to change the firmware in your player. If it goes wrong, your player will be unusable!!!
There seems to be different versions of the 6620 player on the market, one without VCD/SVCD capabilities and one with VCD/SVCD capabilities. I have just seen mine (no VCD/SVCD) and one with VCD/SVCD capabilities. The main difference on the main PCB in the player seems to be this:
I have also verified this with a United 3155 DVD player (with VCD/SVCD capabilities). It has a TSOP48 M29F800AT flash soldered to the PCB! That 3155 also had a ES4408F Video Processor Chip instead of the ES4318F in the 6620.
I don't know if this is the same for all 6620 with/without VCD/SVCD capabilities, but for the moment I think so.
As the two versions have different flash-memory with different internal layout, I suspect that it may be impossible to use firmware from one of them in the other. As the M29F800AT flash also has 1024kB memory instead of the 512kB of the BM29F040 (twice as much), it is probably lack of flash memory that prevents VCD/SVCD capabilities in the players with a BM29F040 flash.
I can only say that what I describe below works for my 6620 (without VCD/SVCD capabilities). As the two (that I know of) different versions have slightly different hardware inside, don't try to upgrade your VCD/SVCD capable 6620 with the firmware from my player. It will probably render your 6620 unusable!
The VCD/SVCD capable 6620 player seems to have the flash-rom soldered to the PCB, so if something goes wrong you cannot simply remove the flash and program it in a PROM-burner.
Both the EuroLine 6620/6650 and the United 3155/3155 seems to use the same method of upgrading the firmware in the player.
The only thing that needs to be done to upgrade the firmware is to burn a CD with the firmware in the form of a file called "bank30.rom". When this CD is inserted into the player, it recognizes the CD as an upgrade CD and tries to upgrade its firmware.
And again: If you try to change the firmware in your player and the upgrade fails, you will probably end up with an unusable player!!!
If your player "dies" after an upgrade, and the flash memory in the player is not soldered to the PCB, you can program the flash-memory using a PROM-writer. Of course you need to have a PROM-writer and the knowledge on how to do, but it is possible. If your player has the flash-memory soldered to the PCB, there is not much you can do. So think twice before trying to changing the firmware in your player!
I have tried the upgrade method described above on my 6620 player using the firmware I dumped from my 6620 player. I took that firmware and altered a single character in the text for the setup menu. I altered the text "SETUP MENU -- MAIN PAGE" to be "SETUP MEN1 -- MAIN PAGE". I then used Nero to burn a CD with altered firmware. Here are the setting I used in Nero (v5.5.9.0):
When I inserted the disc into the EuroLine 6620 the following happened:
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The player looked for the CD and found (and displayed) the BANK30.ROM file. |
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It then begun to write the new firmware into the flash ROM. It displayed the "WRITING" screen three times. |
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Then it displayed "DONE" for a short while, and then turned off the display. |
I then turned the player off and on again with the poewr switch. Then I quickly pressed the "OPEN/CLOSE" button to get the upgrade CD out of the player (to prevent it form upgrading again).
I then pressed the "SETUP" button on the remote control, and this is what I got:
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As you see, the player has been upgraded, and the menu now says " SETUP MEN1 -- MAIN PAGE". |
This indicates that the firmware has no CRC check, as I only changed a "U" to a "1", but the player still upgraded without any problems.