ok I've been searching around for a few days now. I have read alot, read the stickies and everything, I do know how to search I know how to read etc, but my brain is fried.
Here goes... and I know it's been asked several times before (yes I have read those threads) Anyway, I'm trying to decide which firmware to put on my 3500. All I want is riplock disables and bitsetting. I'm going to be burning onto DVD+RW's, and DVD+r's mostly because I can get them pretty cheap (TDK brand)
Now I thought the 218btrpc1 would be perfect for me. But then I found some people saying no don't use that it's bad (although they never really gave a reason why other than "it's old")
One of my DVD player will play DVD+ the other wont, so I want bitsetting so I can set it to DVD-ROM in the hopes that both my DVD players will then play them fine. Also I want the riplock disabled because I'm not very patient 
can someone please set me straight? From what I've read and everything and the description of 218btrpc1 it looks perfect for me, but why are some people saying it's bad? If it's bad what else should I use? Some people even said just to use the official NEC release and that will work, but I thought that doesn't support bitsetting at all and the riplock of course won't be disabled? ARGH Some one that actually knows please advise me.
I know this question has been asked over and over. Please bare with me though. I'm not a lazy n00b, I have searched but I'm getting contridicting information from people.