apex owner writes: "Check out the APEX AD600A DVD player, sold at Circuit City for only $170. Among other unique abilities, it can be programmed to ignore a DVD's copy protection bit and output without Macrovision at all times. "

While this was true for the original Apex 600As, models manufactured the past 18 months or so no longer give access to the "loophole" menu needed to turn macrovision off. Due to pressure from the US film industry, APEX had to remove this capability, and any new unit acquired today will not have this capability. When these units showed up on ebay, Hollywood went after them, too, and ebay would not allow 600s to be sold there if the loophole capability was mentioned. I myself am also an APEX 600 user, and purchased an older model with loophole capability specifically because the APEX will also allow the playing of DVDs from any region code. Excuse me, Hollywood, but I don't understand how it can be considered a copyright violation to play legal DVDs that I purchased on my own DVD-player just because they come from different regions! The DVDs I was interested in were ONLY released in Europe (region 2), so there was no choice in even buying a region 1 DVD. But, I guess it's a good way for Hollywood to keep those darn ferrin' films out of the states!

For those of you interested in the Apex, and probably how to acquire one with loophole capability, visit this site:

http://www.nerd-out.com/

HP unveils first DVD+RW drive

[Link: news.cnet.com]

This message was edited by slocko on 08/20/01 09:02.52.

It might be worth noting here that Go-Video's full line of dual-deck VCRs (legal and on sale in most independant electronics stores) can record macrovision DVDs and VHSs perfectly with no problems...

This message was edited by adamblast on 09/17/01 18:01.48.

Don't do it

By the way do you get any DVD like results with any of these devices to defeat macrovision etc ?
Why not buy a DVD RECORDER insted?
There are many available at a decent price in many places.A good sampling is here:[Link: digitaltv.ee]
I have not personally tried them but the list and info is many.
Regards.
On 10/06/99 15:11.08, Daniel Nguyen said...

This message was edited by DEVON on 10/21/01 09:04.13.

Here is a FAQ that I copied from the Go Video home site. I would imagine that this ruling also pertains to DVD players/recorders also.

______________________
Can I duplicate copy-protected movies with my Dual-Deck VCR?

All VCRs, including the Dual-Deck VCR, are affected by Federal legislation that was passed in October 1998, commonly referred to as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. One of the effects of this new law requires that all VCRs sold after April 28th, 2000, recognize a type of anticopying signal that prevents consumers from making a usable copy of copy-protected videotapes.
__________________________

This is why the older units are able to make copies & the newer units can't.
Hope this helps.
Larry

I don't know if anyone is still checking this forum, but I have another question about recording DVD's to VCR. I have an OLD TV (Hitachi from the 80's) with just an F Connection in back. The VCR is a Memorex about 6 years old. DVD is a 2 year old Sampo that was modified to play multi-region disks.

Because we have such an old TV, we have a "DVD Video Component Adaptor" and RF Modulator from Radio Shack hooked up between the DVD player and TV. I'm trying to figure out how I can record DVD's with the VCR. We've played with the setup a few times, and either end up with just static (is this the Macrovision technology?) or whatever is playing on the cable.

I just want to record some exercise DVD's from the library to video, so the end product does not have to be "DVD Quality" picture and sound, I can live with some distortion as long as I have some video and sound.

Does anybody have any ideas about whether this can be set up, or am I just out of luck due to the old TV? I'm willing to spend some money if something reasonably priced from Radioshack will do the trick, but if it's really expensive, I'll just go buy copies of the DVD's.

Many thanks!

you know, you can buy a cheapie DVD player for like 40 bucks and save yourself quite a lot of hassle, if indeed those are truly the reasons you want to break the law - i mean, copy movies.

" 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.

It sounds like you didn't actually plug your DVDp into the VCR if all you got was static or a different source altogether. After you plug it in, Macrovision will be an issue.


However, this is illegal. Most of us won't help you further.

Try this even if you want to reverse the vhs to dvd I woudn't know why you want lores instead of hires dvd. [Link: icos-tech.com] The one you'll want to read is at the bottom aptly called the stripemaster for component 3 input to s-video or composite output to your vcr. Along the way to your vcr distractions will be removed, but I don't think you'll mind. ;)

This message was edited by grovvy on 02/02/05 01:26 ET.

Bump up post please

I have a TV with a built in VCR. All I want to do is be able to play DVDs on it. The sound and color continuously switch up and down though. I believe this is due to macrovision. Does anyone know how to turn it off on a (less than 2year old) Sony 5 disc?

Thanks

You'll need a video stabilizer to correct the color shift/macrovision signal coming from the DVD player. SIMA makes one. Check their web site.

Alternatively, some DVD players can be "hacked" to disable macrovision generation, but most can not. To find out if your model can, do a google search for "DVD Macrovision hack" or something similar.

Thank you - Will do.

It seems it may be easier to just replace my television