Ok guys, I performed some experiments today with VRCD and VRDVD.
I can confirm that shorting these two will indeed make a modded 8050L read cd-r, but no longer dvd-r.
Putting a diode across these points either way won't have any impact!
Shorting VRDVD to ground will not change anything.
Shorting VRCD to ground will have the same effect as connecting it with VRDVD.
Are you talking about just the plain orginal 8050 found in the newer XBOX w/o firmware upgrade what so ever? Just shorting those two point will do tricks?