Answer for Macrovision copyright protection on VHS

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CCABW

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HELP PLEASE: Playing a commercial VHS tape on my PC with TV tuner card

I feel stupid.
Got a PC TV Tuner card (early gift from Santa to me for being good all year :) with the intention of using it as a second TV set), but having this thing installed is taking years off my life. It simply will not play any of my kid's VHS tapes - at least not the movie bit.

Test signal and blah blah writing plays just fine, until the movie starts - then snow and white noise. Tried plenty of apps, TV plays fine, old reader's digest VHS taped got from my father works just fine, but Disney, star wars, you name it (Commercial - copy right protected:confused: )- all snow.

Read about interlacing on the net, not a lot of help out there in terms of getting the damn thing working.

Card is a Theatrix Sapphire (ATI chipset) - works just great for everything I don't need...

I need help from a guru, or prosac...
 
I Also got a tv card and it is also conected with the VCR and I dont have problems. I connected a "scart" plug to the VCR and at the other end of the "scart" plug I connected it to the Audio and video in RCA conectors of my tv card and it works great
 
Try This

Hey buddy i know all about this,the problem you experience is macromedia protection and or regional settings.The tape thinks you want to make pirate recordings of the tapes.Try changing your pal reception to ntsc[american]if this fails change your input eg. if you're using the old female co-axial cable connection,use the rca inputs.As a last resort attach a second vcr to the current one and that should cancel basic macromedia protection.Let me know if this fails.
 
demon angel said:
Hey buddy i know all about this,the problem you experience is macromedia protection and or regional settings.The tape thinks you want to make pirate recordings of the tapes.Try changing your pal reception to ntsc[american]if this fails change your input eg. if you're using the old female co-axial cable connection,use the rca inputs.As a last resort attach a second vcr to the current one and that should cancel basic macromedia protection.Let me know if this fails.
Click to expand...

Thanks man! I will give it a bash tonight, and will post back. PS - I am using PAL_I, region SA and the RCA cables at this point in time.

I wonder if my choice of VHS player has anything to do with this - Got a LG that even whines about copy right protection when you record from normal TV...
 
listen get a old vhs player to connct toyour pc,cost about 200 bucks.rmember ones with rca video out and audio out to
use a convertor to mini jack with the audio to plug in the pc
 
Tried the change to NTCS, analogue cabling, hooking up two VCR units and playing through - Macrovision plently - CCABW 0 :-)

Old VCR, or Macrovision filter seems to be the way to go. Anyone with good experiences in the filter arena?
 
CCABW said:
Thanks man! I will give it a bash tonight, and will post back. PS - I am using PAL_I, region SA and the RCA cables at this point in time.

I wonder if my choice of VHS player has anything to do with this - Got a LG that even whines about copy right protection when you record from normal TV...
Click to expand...

LONG weekend of plenty frustrations behind me - no joy at all...:(
 
A while ago I posted on my struggles to make legal! copies of the VHS tapes that we have collected over a number of years.

Macrovision (screws up the auto gain control) thwarted my every effort until now.

I went through the expensive route of buying a combo VHS / DVD writer unit from LG - refuses to copy with "copy right protected error", then bought a PCI TV tuner card - no picture, just snow when playing any macrovision protected VHS tape, changed connections from RCA to Coax, played through another VHS machine, changed to NTSC, you name it, no joy...

It took a visit to Margate to get my frustrations put to rest. Popped to family living down here over the Xmas period, saw them ripping PVR recordings to DVD via a R400 USB device called KWORLD DVD Maker. Plugged my VHS machine in, ripped a number of tapes, quality same as seen on the VHS, no issues with Macrovison, plenty output formats supported!

Now need to buy one for home, local vendors are all out...
Been googling a few SA sites, seems to be easy to find, but watch out, in true SA style, some sites list the card for over R600, others for R399...
 
for what its worth, as a former Betamax owner - if you have an old Sony Betamax VCR lying around - all you need to do, to enable copying of VHS tapes - is run audio/video out of the VHS, and into the Betamax, (as the copy-protection software doesnt 'see' the Betamax).. thereafter, just reverse the patchcords, (instead of audio/video in, switch them to 'out' - and dump your copy back to VHS, now copy-protection free..
 
Maybe there's a reason for them making life for you this hard? Maybe it's because you are copying legal material? which has a copyright? I don't know, but thats where your issue could be right there...
 
AcidRaZor said:
Maybe there's a reason for them making life for you this hard? Maybe it's because you are copying legal material? which has a copyright? I don't know, but thats where your issue could be right there...
Click to expand...

No doubt this is true, and I support the rights of the artists / companies - hence I have bought the videos in the first place.

But I take issue with the fact that the choice of media it was released on (VHS) has a very limited life span, even shorter if the movies are from Disney and you have little kids... and I am being prevented from protecting my own investment. But hey, that is just me, maybe other people believe it is fair to have to pay a number of times for the same media - just because a VHS tape failed.

I would not be searching for answers like I have if the studios had a simple "upgrade / replace your media if something breaks" policy.

Comments?
 
Well CCABW, you seem to be forgetting that distribution companies such as Disney want you to pay for the content on each seperate format, so that you have to pay for it when you get it on VHS, pay for it again when you get it on DVD, pay for it yet AGAIN when you download it off their internet distribution websites...

Which is frankly rubbish. Hopefully companies will get their fingers burned and learn to treat their customers a little better.
 
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