Ask Virgil

Okay, so this isn't a computer Q&A. But nothing about this forum says that it has to be. Also, I only just found this out and am now finally able to create CDs of movies that I can play back via my DVD player and TV. I had to document the procedure for posterity. <grin>

The T531 supports VCD playback, but it's not enabled by default. (Which is why I never got it to work before, despite the fact that it claimed it did.) In order to activate the VCD playback feature, you have to do the following:

1. Turn on the unit.
2. Press "Pause" on the remote.
3. Enter "1472" (display on the unit - not the TV - shows 01 ??).
4. Cursor up until display shows 04 ??.
5. Press "Program", "4", "Program", and "5" in that order.
6. Display now shows 04 dE.
7. Press "Enter".
8. Press "Return".
9. Turn off the unit

That should do it. The next time you put in a VCD burned CD it should recognize it. So far, I haven't been able to get it to play automatically (I have to hit "Play" myself), and the one disc I created only had audio come out of the left speaker. However, I haven't finished experimenting with things yet - and, this is a far better result than having it do nothing at all.

And here's another trick!

You can set the DVD playback region to be whatever you want - or make it multi-region so that it plays any/every DVD:

1. Turn on the unit.
2. Press "Pause" on the remote.
3. Enter "314159" (display on the unit - not the TV - shows Code - -).
4. Press desired region number (or 0 for multi-region).
5. Press "Pause" again.
6. Turn the DVD player off. (Wait 30 seconds before turning it back on again.)

It will now play DVDs with the region code you selected, or all of them if you picked multi-region.