Archos AV500 recording / Macrovision protection

[bicklet]

So I have some old movies on VHS that haven't been released on DVD yet and I want to transfer them into the digital realm for viewing on my computer and other devices. I used my AV500 to record one tape with Macrovision protection but due to the built-in protection on the AV500 this file will only play back correctly on the small screen of the AV500 - it won't output to TV from there and is not viewable on a PC. When opening this file in any PC video program (Windows Media Player, for instance) there is only one frame of video which displays an image file that says 'Copy Protected Video File' and 'Can only be played by the original recording device' - all the audio plays fine underneath this image and the clip shows the correct length and can be navigated like a normal video file, but the only video that displays is this one frame. If I open the file in VirtualDub I only see this frame and the file displays as one frame long - it cannot be played back with audio. I have tried to recreate the index at the end of the file but the program I used could not accomplish this task. This doesn't appear to be a DRM protection but rather some trick encoding or specific corruption of the file that fools any program trying to display the video into thinking that this one frame is the only picture in the video while the AV500 correctly detects the format and plays back fine. Does anyone have any suggestions into how I could get this file to display correctly on my PC? I'd prefer not to have to get some hardware device to remove Macrovision protection and re-encode the file. Thanks!

[gusimosa]

Hi,
I have recently faced the same problem.
Do you have meanwhile a solution?
Thank you in advance!
Regards

[geowharton]

Hardware - TBC.

[yoda313]

Aside from buying new equipment try another vcr you have laying around. You'd be amazed that some players emit the signal and others don't or at least not at the same strenght and still allows copying.