Cannot play region 2 UMD on Jap PSP

I have a white V1.5 Jap PSP (model: PSP1000) which I bought from a friend with 3.03 OE firmware and I updated to 3.40 OE recently-it lets me load ISO files and play Region 2 UMD's with no problem so a friend of mine ordered a black Jap V1.5 off Ebay.
His was a PSP1001 model but it had no English language option on it-strange.
So I installed 3.40 OE and upon reboot I had access to English language and all other options as per my PSP, I tried a UMD game (Ridge Racer) and some ISO's; all fine.
But when I put in 'Alien' UMD movie Region 2 it told me it could not play it back due to region error.

So, two Jap PSP's running 1.5 and 3.40 OE firmware but one won't play a region 2 UMD. Any idea what is going on? I checked all the recovery mode settings and they are identical-messing with fake UMD region etc. had no effect.
Feel bad for my friend as he is puzzled why a similar machine does not work the same way.
Can anyone help?

Set it to "Fake Region" in the recovery menu.

(Hold R when booting from a coldboot. (Take the battery out and put it back in if you don't know what that is.))

Nah, Fake region has no effect.

Try UMD region free.

Cloudy

Ah, I've never needed to worry about region, so I wouldn't know.

guys, none of the region options in recovery cures the problem. No idea why!

Why not just download the movie and convert it for psp. You'd need at least a gig memory stick.

I have no problem doing that but this is a friend's PSP and he is not too tech literate so I am helping. He just bought it and is considering returning it as it had no english language and now cannot play region 2 UMD's. It all seems a bit weird really, I mean what sort of PSP has no english language option but just about every other european language?

Out of curiosity, could the guy selling this have done something to it to make it look like a 1.5 which could be causing this problem? Can't always trust ebayers!

why didnt he just get a euopean psp? wouldnt it be abit easier? anyways.... i would say you may have a valid point there in saying that the psp may not have been running 1.5 when you bought it and that you may need to put on and english version of 1.5 instead.