Page 1 of Sampo DVE-620

I just purchased the Sampo based upon the great information in the forum. I have been able to get to the "loopholes" menu and have turned off Macrovision and CSS. However, the DVD will not play after I do this so I am wondering how I can copy to VHS. Can someone help me? By the way I checked the firmware and the player is using Version 3.3.

Thanks for the help !!

Put the CSS option back to Auto, not Off.

There that was nice and easy....

Thank you .. works like a charm.

Can you please help me to understand why this was the solution and exactly when I need to change CSS to Off?

DeCSS (which STILL is wrangling around in the courts) removes CSS protection from DVD`s which allows them to be copied on to a hard drive and played as a regular .mpg file. If you copied the file to the laptop (without removing CSS) you wouldn`t be able to play it.

As the DVD drive is a PC based drive (uses a HD cable and all), maybe they put it in for something PC related? I dunno. Turning CSS off makes it so you can`t play any DVD`s with CSS protection. Leaving it set to AUTO allows you to play a DVD regardless of CSS protection. Why someone would turn it off... NO IDEA!!! You will never want to turn it off (of course unless you don`t want the babysitter using your DVD player).

Out of curiosity, was that a region 1 DVD player or was it something else? When I purchased my 620, they sold it for 70 bucks above everybody else because they said the US made 620 wouldn`t allow any of the codes to work and only the one imported from Taiwan would work. Sampo America said he was wrong but I want to find out...

-MikEy

mail me McHALE

ku_1maldeb[at]ku.oc.oohay

i

I am in the US so I am assuming that it is Region 1.

I was originally looking for the Apex-600A but was unable to find any around my area. I called a local TV dealer in a last ditch effort to find the APEX and found that he had the Sampo DVE-620. They had absolutely no idea of the capabilities of the unit (other than it would play .mp3`s), I was unsure so I tried it right there in the store and found all of the Sampo 560 codes to work flawlessly. (I found the codes in "Region Hacks") I have watched 3 movies so far, the player is excellent and the VHS copies are absolutely amazing !

I have another question ... some of the DVD`s indicate a 2.35:1 view but the player does not have this as an option ... is this a feature that can be found on other players? I really prefer to see the picture fill more of the screen if possible but most of the DVD`s around here are 4:3 or 16:9, and don`t seem to have Pan & Scan as an option. Any thoughts?

Thanks for all your help !!

... Mark

This item was edited on Monday, 8th January 2001, 15:11

I bought mine from www.neworleansx.com for 212 plus shipping and stuff. They gave me 2 codes (not the good one) when I got it. After I ordered it, I found one on the web for 149 bucks.

The one I got was made in Taiwan so it was designed to be any region and changed before shipping. The one`s made in the US are programmed region 1 but the guy from Sampo America (who didn`t speak English so good) said they were exactly the same and the codes all work. If you still have your box, see if it says made in Taiwan or Made in the US on it. That will be the clincher for me

Anybody reading this that wants the link for 149, post interest and I`ll put it up here. It is a pretty decent DVD player and if the 149 buck job has all the bells and whistles it`s a definate must have for anyone looking to get one...

-MikEy

MikEy,

I`ll check the box and let you know.

Any ideas on the questions I had on the last post?


- Mark

I dunno. One thing you will find if you attempt customer support is it is very poor (not at ALL like Encore which this unit basically is I think).

When you go into Setup and change from Pan and scan to letterbox to widescreen, I don`t notice a difference on ANY of the DVD`s I`ve tried.

My nephew had an Apex 600 (new one). When you hit any of those three, you would get something different every time regardless of the dvd.

I also have a problem once in awhile where you will be watching a DVD and the movie will just stop for a couple seconds and then continue. Once I had it where I paused the movie and when I hit play again, it wouldn`t. I had to stop it and track back to where I was. Overall I`m basically happy with the player but p***ed I paid 80 bucks too much for it.

Here`s all I have for the complete list of Sampo codes. If anyone has any more, please post them... STILL LOOKING FOR ROM FILES IF ANYONE HAS THEM TO SEND!!!!!

SETUP 12345
CHECK FIRMWARE VERSION (mine is VER 3.3D C2 E 2000/08/09)

SETUP 38883
CHANGE REGIONS

REGION ID>>REGION 1 (USA & Canada)
REGION 2 (Europe, Japan, South Africa, Middle East)
REGION 3 (South-East Asia)
REGION 4 (Central & South America, Australia, New Zealand)
REGION 5 (Former Soviet Union, India, Pakistan, Africa)
REGION 6 (China)
BYPASS (Will Play ALL Regions except some Region Code Enhanced Discs)

SETUP 590419
SET CSS AND MACROVISION
CSS >>AUTO (Plays ALL DVDs)
OFF (Will NOT Play Copyrighted DVDs)
MACROVISION >>AUTO (Copyprotection ON)
OFF (Copyprotection OFF)
SETUP 72555
TOGGLE PAL/NTSC/MULTI MODES
(Europe/USA/all?)
SETUP 8888
cycles the output from composite round the other options from the setup menu.

SCART COMP, SCART RGB, SCART S-VID, S-VIDEO


Side Note: Region 7 = Reserved
Region 8 = Special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.)

If you set the DVD to bypass, will it allow Region 7 (if ever available) and Region 8? COOOOOL!!!!!!!!

-MikEy

Sure you haven`t visited my website, even tho` it`s not quite finished yet ?

The latest firmware version is 3.3E, with another on the way as we speak to cure faults on Toy Story, Fantasia, Sleepy Hollow and Magnolia.

Mind you I`ve got 3.3 (the original version) from 5/00 and it works fine !

The stuttering problem you`re getting is a known fault on some discs (which one was it ?).

Aside from that, you`ve got all the hacks that are known.

Will publish my URL once the site is finished (weekend most likely : still got to write up PLAYBACK OPTIONS which shouldn`t take too long, and tart up the front page a bit)