Well, here it is, $400.00 after I bought my father this great dual deck (vhs to dvd) transfer machine, and I now discover that due to Macrovision, I cant use it!!!!... The reason I bought it for him is that in addition to being able to transfer home movies from his 8mm camcorder to dvd, He's got approximately 1,000 (yes u heard it right) movies on VHS. Most are store bought, and due to space and age of the format I wanted to get him this recorder so he could move to the new millenium lol. Problem is, as soon as I try to record a tape onto DVD it stops the dvd recorder. Even tried to hook up my vcr to his recorder and that wont go through either. Does anyone know a way that this Stand alone machine can record his collection to DVD without me buying him another VHS player and a descrambler? The whole point was for this to be an easy fun project for him. Mind you, I am not trying to get around the legal ramifications of Copyrights, because it is for his personal use and not piracy, so why is it apparently illegal for him to move up in format quality? Ive read a little about some hacks or secret screens that are available on many recorders, and was wondering if anyone out there has any info for this machine. Chip mod, different remote.. sledgehammer???? Please help, this was the best Christmas present he's ever gotten but now its nowhere near as valuable because hes stuck with this enormous collection of video tapes and a few home movies he'll be able to make into dvds... doesnt really seem worth the money now does it?
Ditto, here! I thought that by buying it, I could transfer all my VHS tapes to DVDs and save a WHOLE BUNCH of space ... apparently not! Although I've tried only one (so far) ... I could record only the sound (no picture). Are we doomed to keeping all these VHS tapes forever? Does anyone have any thoughts on how to complete this task without going to the expense of "pirating" of sorts?
You can thank Mr. Clinton and congress for the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) of 1998 for your frustrations. Any stand-alone DVD recorder will not copy commercial VHS tapes if they are "copy protected." There is some kind of video signal on most commercial VHS tapes that the DVD recorder picks up on and won't allow you to copy it on to a DVD. The only work-around I'm aware of is using your computer for the "middle-man," with a video capture card. Then you can use the A/V inputs on the capture card to make a DVD from a VHS tape. However, it ties up your computer and since VHS tapes can only be played back at real-time speed, it would take a computer completely dedicated for this process. I have copied a couple of commercial VHS tapes toDVDs using this method, but if I use my computer for anything else while recording, it causes momentary freezes in the DVD video. The DMCA really sucks, and all manufacturers are taking every precaution possible. If you live in the US, best bet is to write your congress people and complain "big-time." 321 Studios tried to persuade congress that people should be able to make backups of their commercial movies, but congress is out of touch and 321 has gone out of business. There may be a way to block the copy protection signal on VHS tapes, but I'm not aware of any at this time. You might try searching Afterdawn and other websites to see if there's a way to block VHS copy protection.
A video stabilizer should remove the macrovision from the VHS tapes. I've had one for ages and it's allowed me to backup VHS to VHS and DVD to VHS tapes. They run between $20-$40.
I just got a Panasonic DMR-E500 DVD/HDD Recorder with a 400G hard drive. Using my "line-in" (RCA & S-Video) to hook up my VCR, I've been able to record copy protected VHS tapes. Mind you, I've only tried a few so far, but they have all recorded to the built-in hard drive. From there, I've been able to then burn them onto DVD-R 8x's (this machine will not accept DVD+R or any RW for recording and it's best to use 8x discs). I have yet tried to record directly to DVD-R - with a hard drive as big as this, I have plenty of room to store video (XP: 89 hrs, SP: 177 hrs, LP: 355 hrs and EP: 532 or 709 hours, depending on EP mode setting). Audio levels can also be adjusted prior to recording. Once I've tried all the features of this unit, I shall post a review. Good luck!
