[PS3] - Cobra USB

This could get very interesting, a new USB dongle for jailbreak. Although in the beginning it will only run on FW 3.41, but further upgrades are planned.

The 2 things that could be really nice is the Blu-Ray region free feature, and the ability to run games with files bigger than 4GB from external disk (although I have to admit that splitting the files works just fine too, only takes some time to do).

Of course running PSX ISO games from HDD is worth to mention too.

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** Blu Ray Movie region free functionality
** Allows you to play Blu Ray movie ISO’s from HDD
** Allows you to play DVD movie ISO’s from HDD
** Integrated support to play PS1 game ISO’s from HDD
** Integrated support to play PSP mini games from HDD
** Enjoy PS3 games with files >4GB on external USB HDD

* Supports FAT and SLIM PS3 consoles any region
* Supports versions up to 3.50 (console must be running 3.41)
* Play PS3 games from internal HDD
* MCU firmware and flash firmware updatable using easy to use free PC updater
* First class customer support and free regular firmware upgrades
* No need to open your console, just plug and play
* High quality components and materials used throughout
* Unique and built from scratch Cobra USB manager featuring slick U.I. and customized options with easy navigation
* Actel based encryption engine onboard to prevent device cloning
* Fast onboard 2 Mbyte SPI flash for firmware storage
* High quality onboard MCU
* Easy mode selection via switch (PC update, PS3 downgrader, regular PS3 device mode)
* Downgrader functionality included free of charge, allowing users to upgrade firmware to and from 3.41 at will.
* Multi lingual user interface (English, Spanish and French as standard with more languages to be supported later)

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sounds very nice. If it is later able to support 3.60 then i will def get one.

Some updates:

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14 - 05 - 2011

Support to load ps2 backups in iso format without the need of any other product will be added in revision 2.0 of the firmware and Cobra USB Manager. We're in the process of implementing this feature and expect to release 2.0 in 10-14 days. This feature applies only to models with backwards compatibility: CECHB01, CECHA01 and CECHE01.

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18 - 05 - 2011

We are pleased to announce that we are currently working on a solution to enable Cobra USB on PS3 firmware 3.55, with the release expected to take place a few weeks from now. This will bring all of Cobra USB's ground breaking features to the more up-to-date firmware, with the added bonus of removing the need to perform the power/eject cycle to enable the dongle - this will become totally automated. Support for 3.55 will be provided simply as a Cobra USB firmware update, meaning ALL Cobra USB dongles will be supported without the need for a new hardware revision. We will make further details available as the release draws near, keep an eye on this website for updates!

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20 - 05 - 2011

We have released Cobra USB firmware v1.2, which is available from the downloads page. Changes in this release include:

Fixed compatibility issues with some games in discless mode
Fixed a bug that prevented Cobra from detecting a PSX CD-R if it was inserted too early in the boot process

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Homepage: http://www.cobra-usb.com/

Again some news. Hopefully they will support 3.55 soon.

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18 - 06 - 2011

We have released Cobra Firmware v2.0 and Cobra USB Manager v2.0, which are both available from the downloads page. Changes in this release include:

- Added the ability to play PS2 ISO backups from CECHC and CECHE backwards compatible consoles. Support for the remaining backwards compatible models, CECHA and CECHB, will come in a future update
- PS3, PSX, DVD and BluRay ISO's can now be played without a real disc inserted in the PS3. Support for discless PS2 backups will come in a future update
- Added an option for those users without a PS2 backwards compatible PS3 (including Slims) to test PS2 original games and ISO backups using the PS2 software only emulator which is by default included with all PS3's. Please note however that as the software only emulator is slow and very buggy, this feature is disabled by default and is only intended as a gimmick
- Cobra USB manager can now make PS3 ISO's from backups in the standard "Jailbreak" directory format, using the copy function
- Cobra USB manager is now less strict with cue/bin filenames
- Bugfix: Cobra USB Manager was unable to get the PSX CD-ROM/CD-R title, and displayed "PSX-CDROM" instead
- Bugfix: Under rare circumstances, Cobra USB Manager could dump invalid PS3 discs

The user manuals have been updated to reflect the changes in the v2.0 release. In addition, we have released a PC-side genps3iso tool which can convert backups dumped in the standard "Jailbreak" directory format to the ISO format supported by Cobra. As mentioned above, this is also supported directly within Cobra USB Manager however the process is faster and in our opinion easier to perform on the PC.

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how much software needs 3.55 to run? And do you know if anything needed 3.6+ yet? we are now officially on 3.65 as of a recent update a couple of weeks back.

You can run almost all software, emus, homebrew and stuff on 3.55, only the Cobra USB dongle supports 3.41 so far, but they are working on it to get it running under 3.55.

Latest games need 3.6+, although sometimes a patch is released to get them running under 3.55, but the very new ones still will need 3.6+. Most of them games patches contained 3.55 keys, so they were able to compile a patch for the game, but that changed some days ago, and there won't be 3.55 updates for games anymore. Not every 3.6+ game has official patch with 3.55 or earlier SDK compiled executable.

Finally the Cobra USB works for 3.55:

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24 - 07 - 2011

The Cobra Team is proud to present the Cobra 3.0 firmware pack, available from downloads section. In this release we enabled the Cobra USB device on 3.55 via use of our own cfw. Enjoy the release and look forward to many new features to come in future releases. Please be sure to read the updated user manual for detailed instructions on upgrading and usage!

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Anyone sportin' the Cobra will be happy to know you can now upgrade to their 3.55 custom firmware, letting you take advantage of all the latest features Cobra 3.0 has to offer. Features like what?

Features like this:

Blu Ray Movie region free functionality
Allows you to play Blu Ray movie ISO’s from HDD
Allows you to play DVD movie ISO’s from HDD
Integrated support to play PS1 game ISO’s from HDD
Enjoy PS3 games with files >4GB on external USB HDD
Integrated support to play PS2 ISO's on CECHC,CECHE, CECHA and CECHB backwards compatible consoles.
Partial support on other PS3 consoles to play PS2 ISO's via software emulation
Supports FAT and SLIM PS3 consoles any region
Supports versions up to 3.55
Unique custom Cobra firmware acts as OFW when dongle not inserted
Play PS3 games from internal HDD
PS3, PSX, DVD and BluRay ISO's can now be played without a real disc inserted in the PS3
MCU firmware and flash firmware updatable using easy to use free PC updater
First class customer support and free regular firmware upgrades
No need to open your console, just plug and play
High quality components and materials used throughout
Unique and built from scratch Cobra USB manager featuring slick U.I. and customized options with easy navigation
Actel based encryption engine onboard to prevent device cloning
Fast onboard 2 Mbyte SPI flash for firmware storage
High quality onboard MCU
Easy mode selection via switch (PC update, PS3 downgrader, regular PS3 device mode)
Downgrader functionality included free of charge, allowing users to upgrade firmware to and from 3.41 at will.
Multi lingual user interface (English, Spanish and French as standard with more languages to be supported later)

That's pretty cool. If you're looking to upgrade you can find all the latest downloads on Cobra's website right here. That includes their 3.55 CFW and Cobra USB firmware.

Note: If you do not own a Cobra USB stick, then you need not upgrade to their custom firmware. But know this: Hackers are working to reverse the Cobra, figuring out how it all works, and it is a safe bet it'll be open sourced, flashing its way onto our USB dev. boards ... sooner or later.

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The last part might be interesting :)

Nice that a disc is no longer needed in the drive to run ISOs. And it is great that they have continued work on this.

If only someone would release something similar for the current 3.6.x firmwares.

Some more nice updates:

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01 - 09 - 2011

Cobra Firmware 3.1 is out, minor release to fix bugs.

- Fixed stability problems. Cobra users are advised to update to this firmware as soon as possible.

- Fixed compatibility issue with Mortal Kombat.

- Fixed PAL/NTSC issues in psx games.

- Bugfix: some few specific psx titles such as Langrisser Final Edition wouldn't play in other regions.

- Fixed a possible discless bug under very rare circumstances.

- Cobra USB Manager can now understand the ".001, .002, ..." name convention used by hjsplit and other similar programs and rename them automatically to
".0, .1", name convention. Users can use hjsplit or any other similar tool to split iso files in the PC.

- Added functionality to the core to implement a cobra firmware updater in the PS3.

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05 - 09 - 2011

Cobra Firmware v3.2 More Features and bugs fixed.

- Added support for PS2 backups in optical discs (CD-R/DVD+-R)

- PS2 original games are now region free too.

- Fixed a bug that caused incompatibility with several PS2 backups in iso format.

- Fixed some remaining PAL/NTSC problems in PSX games.

- Cobra USB Manager will output now a mds file too when dumping a dual layer DVD or PS2-DVD. This file is not used by Cobra at all, but it can be used
for burning to a dual layer DVD+-R while keeping original layer structure. This is mandatory when burning dual layer PS2 dvd's.

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Some more updates, version 4.0 released:

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04 - 10 - 2011

- Added initial support to play PSP games in iso format. Please read the user manual for instructions.
The emulator is not perfect and it currently fails in saving/loading data, but there are several games playable at full speed. We've fixed some bugs in the emulator, and it loads now more games that it originally did. In the future, we will continue to improve the compatibility of the emulator and fix the savedata issue.

- A new version of cobraflash has been released, and is required to install firmware 4.0, that uses a new format. You can find it in the download section. Drivers remain the same, there is no need to update them.
New update format is more secure against bad writes, and it will be compatible with cobra updater for PS3 which will be released along with firmware 4.1.

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PSP play could indeed be really nice.

Nice to see development continuing. When these USB dongles originally came out I wondered if they would see updates and support, or if they would just be novelty, so it is nice to be proved wrong.

The PSP support is definitely a nice addition. I also like the previous additions of full PS2 support with both ISO and discs being supported, and region free. That for me would be my biggest reason for utilising this.

Cobra USB was updated again, better compability with PSP games and able now to save PSP data.

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25 - 10 - 2011

- New firmware update, mainly focused on improving PSP support.

- Improved compatibility with psp games. Some of the games that crashed early now run.

- Added support for PSP savedata. Please note that in the previous release, savedata worked for isos that were generated from psp minis games. However, those savedata are incompatible with this new firmware. You can see psp savedatas under the ps3 savedata section in the XMB, not under the minis one.
If savedata still doesn't work in some game, please send us a message to our support email address.

- Cobra USB Manager will now give an error when trying to load a prometheus patched PSP iso, as those aren't compatible with the PSP emulator.

- Added Cobra USB PS3 Updater to the download section. With this tool you can update the dongle using the PS3, require Cobra Firmware 4.0+ to work. Refer to the manual for instructions..

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Newest update:

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11 - 26 - 2011

- Added MultiMan for Cobra in the download section.
- Support for games with split files.
- Bugfix: special keys of bdremote weren't working in showtime.

Multiman for Cobra changelog:

* Full ISO and CUE+BIN support (incl. create ISO from folder)
* Full Cobra support (PSX, PS2, PSP, PS3, ISO, BIN, CUE, BDM, DVD)
* PSP UMD game support when PSP connected in USB+UMD mode
* Support for *.0/.31, *.001/.032, *.66600/.66631 split file formats
* Join split files in file manager (select and copy the first file to get the rest joined)
* Mount ISO files in File Manager (to browse/copy contents)
* New display mode "XBDM" - XBOX Dash Clone
* Support for games with split big files (from external hdd)
* BD/DVD Region options in SETTINGS column
* Support for PS2 game covers (OPL format, i.e. SLES_123.45_COV.JPG) in /covers_retro/psx (over 2000 covers included)
* Integrated Dongle Updater (in mmCM XMMB column)
* Option to turn on blue/green dongle leds or turn them off completely
* Integrated PSX, PS2 and PSP database for names and IDs (over 13000 entries) (for PSX/PS2 discs and PSP ISO/UMD files)

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4.3 released:

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07 - 12 - 2011

Cobra-USB Firmware v4.3 CHANGELOG

- Increased the compatibility of games in JB directory format (fix for the so called black screen games, that were only working in iso format). In Cobra USB, you don't need to set any special option or key combination in multiman for these games to work, just start them normally. Unlike in regular CFW, in Cobra USB these games work also in internal hdd.
- At the request of customers, vsh.self of Cobra USB CFW can now be replaced by the ReactPSN one (only by the one of 3.55k folder) without loosing any Cobra functionality.

Multiman for Cobra 03.01.00 CHANGELOG

- Improved loading of PSP ISO files when no disc is inserted
- Added option "Detect Game Title in ISO Images" to allow using ISO filenames and *not* scan for game names in local database
- Improved scanning for retro roms/iso and covers (populating the Retro column)
- Support for ICON0.PNG for PSP ISO in Retro column
- Support for cover art for PS2 ISO/CUE+BIN in Retro column
- Support for cover art for PSX CUE+BIN in Retro column and for PSX discs
- New THEME format (.thm). One theme - one file. Easy installation within mmCM without going to XMB to install theme pkg files.
- mmTM - Easy to use PC application to create thm files from folders (separate download).
- mmCM will try to read disc volume labels and display in VIDEO column (BD/DVD entry) and in other display modes.
- >>> ISO images created from such discs (BD/DVD/AVCHD) will get the disc volume label as file name for the ISO.
- Fixed extracting ICON0.PNG from PSP ISO images saved on external USB drives
- Added indication (rotating refresh icon next to the column icon) when mmCM is loading/extracting title thumbnails (XMMB mode)
- Added support for PSX/PS2/PSP covers when browsing drives/folders in Retro column
- Added pop-up notifications when new versions of mmCM, CobraUSB firmware and Showtime are available for download
- Added pop-up notification when running low on disc space (less than 1GB on internal HDD)
- Added pop-up notification when mmCM successfully connects to nethost folders during startup (/net_host# in File Manager)
- Added support for downloading themes in a background thread (pop-up messages will notify user when download starts and completes)
- Added support for copying big (4+GB) files in File Manager to USB drives. mmCM will split source file when copying to USB.
- Added "Copy" function to SIDE menu for BD/DVD/PS2/PSP/PS3 ISO images (supports joining and splitting depending on source and destination drives)
- Changed option "Link Video Library to Showtime" - it will only create links for XMB Video files, but will not start Showtime
- Added shortcuts to BDISO and DVDISO folders when browsing internal HDD in VIDEO column (shown as "Blu-ray Video (ISO)" and "DVD Video (ISO)"
- Added support for Blu-ray and DVD covers when browsing drives/folders in VIDEO column (for BD/DVD ISO files)
- Added shortcut (virtual folder) "XMB Video Files" when browsing HDD/USB drives in VIDEO column
- Easier overall access to BD/DVD/PSX/PS2/PSP/PS3 ISO/BIN images/folders in XMMB and XBDM display modes (when browsing drives/folders)
- Added "Showtime Font Preference" option to select 10 different fonts for SHOWTIME media player (GUI and Subtitles)
- Added "Extract ISO" option in SIDE menu for PS3 ISO images (to convert ISO games to folder format).

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The newest version v5 has again very nice features added, such as ISO games playable via network, and much more like "Added dynamic firmware version spoofer capabilities."

In further releases:

From network:

* PS3 games in JB directory format (planned for 5.1 release)
* PSP isos (planned for 5.1 release)
* PS2 isos (planned, but we cannot estimate the version)

Now that would be the ultimate!!

EDIT: Btw, I just ordered one now, cannot go wrong with 33,80€ and free shipping ;)

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Changelog of Cobra USB Fw 5.0:

- Added support to play isos from a PC using network connection. No more waste of time copying between PC and ps3, play directly from the files on your computer!

Requires to run the supplied ps3netsrv server application (it is inside mmCM 04.01.00 download) on the PC, a version for windows and linux is provided (mac users can use the windows version with wine
Note: when using wine, we recommend to run directly the command line ps3netsrv.exe and not the gui).

Currently the following items can be played from network:

* PS3 isos
* PSX cue+bin or isos
* Blu-Ray isos
* DVD isos

Currently the following items cannot be played from network:

* PS3 games in JB directory format (planned for 5.1 release)
* PSP isos (planned for 5.1 release)
* PS2 isos (planned, but we cannot estimate the version)

Although Cobra doesn't restrict the isos from being loaded through wifi, wifi is too slow for most uses, we recommend to use a wired connection.

- Optimized a bit the read of PS3 isos (15-20% gain in external disk, not noticeable in internal disk)

- Added dynamic firmware version spoofer capabilities. You can set the spoof in mmCM settings. As Sony release new firmwares, the spoofer can be updated by updating mmCm, without
need of updating Cobra USB fw. No system files are modified by the version spoofer, all take place in ram.

Changelog of mmCM 04.01.00:

* Changed: Nethost PC server application "ps3serv" is replaced by new windows/linux application "ps3netsrv"

* Added support for playing PS3 and PSX games in ISO/CUE+BIN format from remote net_hosts (PCs connected to the LAN)

* Added support for playing Blu-ray and DVD-Video movie titles in ISO format from remote net_hosts

! NOTE: For best performance and compatibility of the new net_host interface, a WIRED network may be required (Wi-Fi is also supported)

! NOTE: Root folders served by remote hosts must contain /PS3ISO, /BDISO, /DVDISO and /PSXISO folders to enable remote content

* Added new option in SETTINGS column: "Network Servers" for setting up to 10 remote nethost IP:PORT values

* Removed: *nethost* settings from options[_default].ini are ignored and no longer supported

* Added new option in SETTINGS column: "System Firmware Version" for "spoofing" current FW version to 4.00 or higher

* Added support for thumbnail images for remote BD/DVD/PS3/PSX ISO/BIN+CUE files (*.jpg / *.png)

* Added support to copy files from one net_host to another

* Added support to delete folders from remote net_host

* Added support to view files in TextViewer from remote net_host folders

* Added support to copy games and ISO images to remote host from SIDE menu ([TRIANGLE] in XMMB/XBDM/BOARD display modes)

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