What is the need of firmware CD/DVD ROM

[vikasg03]

hy
I want to know every body says that u must update ur CD/DVD firmwares/drivers etc. in case of other hardware ..updating drivers is OK and necessary,because they are not working until we install there drivers!. but what is the need of update or install driver/firmware of CD/DVD ROM/WRITERS. I have CD ROM and CD writer and DVD ROM for the last 2 years. All are working fine. I never install driver/firmware for these drives..still they running properly. Also in DVD rom i don't choose any region,but still i run all DVDs in DVD ROM and watching movies easily in media player classic.
vikas

[Sourabh]

Well firmware upgrades are generally for unlocking the potential of a optical drive so that newer/better functionaility can be added. The CD/DVD roms you have never needed firmware upgrades because there wasnt much happening back stage about those formats. The speeds they would write at were max mostly @ 52x, their read speeds were also the same and formats were same.

However with newer DVD Rewriters, they require new firmware upgrades at times. Many a times it is to support newer formats like DVD-RAM and likes, even higher read/burn speeds than in the default firmware.

As for DVD regions, mostly what you get are region 5 or 0 so that could be the reason that all dvd's play on your system. moreover there are workarounds for the same besides ofcourse the 5-6 region changing limit on the optical drive.

[JGuru]

Firmware updates are for fixing the bugs in your CD/DVD drives & also add newer
features or functionality.
Regarding DVD region locking. you don't choose or set any region!! It's set by the
DVD you play!! You can change the Region settings upto 4 times. The 5th time it's
locked!! And that remains your Region setting!!! Suppose your Region settings is
locked to Indian region. Then you can't play US region DVDs.

[kalpik]

^^ But there are RPC1 firmawares available everywhere to make the drive region free. Or you can even use a utility like AnyDVD to make the drive region free. Firmware Updates are usually done to make a drive compatible with more media.