" 8mm camcorders do not have any type of macrovision or color stripe detection system."

Neither do VCR's

" Is the Macrovision protection set up in VCRs or in the actual DVD player?"

The macrovision signals are in the video signal, not generated by any machine.

" The VCR has the Macrovision, the DVD turns it on."

No, VCRs don't have any macrovision detecting circuitry.

The simplist form of macrovision puts extra puilses in the vertical interval, this messes with most AGC's in VCRs, and some TV's.

" When I push 'record' on my VCR the image gets real dark, sometimes it goes away and comes back"

You're seeing the results of a macrovision encoded signal, this is how VCRs react to it.