Sony DAVS400 region-free hack

Unfortunately, this hack isn't very straightforward as it requires the use of a PALM based PDA (certain models can be picked up quite cheaply from ebay). If you have one or can borrow one then its pretty simple if you follow the instructions below.

1) Go into the services menu by doing the following:

- Turn your S550 on with no disc inside.

- (ON THE EQUIPMENT NOT ON REMOTE) Press and hold both the Display and Stop keys while turning the volume control to the right. When your TV screen fickle, release the buttons. You should be seeing the Service Menu now.

This should be fairly easy. I got to this step without any troubles.

2) USE the PALM with OmniRemote (http://www.pacificneotek.com/software/OmniRemote.zip) and Sony_DVD_hack.pdb (http://dev0_2000.tripod.com/).

3) I send numbers 1 to 5 with the PALM as suggested and tried it a number of ways such as sending 1 1 2 2 3 3 etc.

I did NOT see any "data reset" or anything else displayed on the screen as reported in the forums elsewhere. That's why I kept on trying for about an hour with various codes and just as I was about to give up, lo and behold, I tried playing a region 1 DVD and it WORKED. The morale of the story is that keep a bunch of DVDs (with various codes) handy and try it out.

While pressing the buttons 1 2 3 4 5 I did not notice anything unusual except button 2 would put the display into some kind of toggle mode but probably it is irrelevent and safe to ignore.