Question on the Importance of Macrovision

[whoster69]

I'm getting ready to buy a player and wanted to know how important being able to turn off macrovision would be in the following situation.

I have a DVD-ROM drive on my PC. Can I use it to make backup copies of my DVDs easily or if I used a DVD burner? Or do I need to copy my DVDs to VCR tape with Macrovision off?

In other words, how important is it that I get a player that can turn it off if I want to backup my DVDs?

Thanks.

Shannon

[solarfox]

I'm not quite sure what you're asking, here; I think you're mixing scenarios, somehow.

If you have a DVD-ROM drive and a DVD-R(W) burner on the same machine, and you want to do a disc-to-disc backup, then Macrovision is irrelevant. In this situation, making additional copies or backups of DVD-R's you've already made is easy, since they're neither region-coded nor CSS encrypted; making backups of commercial DVD's, on the other hand, will be more complicated since you'll need to "rip" the files from the disc, and may have to re-encode them to make them fit on a 4.7Gb DVD-R.

If you're buying a standalone DVD player, and are planning to make backups of your commercial DVD's by capturing the video to your PC via some kind of capture device, then turning off Macrovision may be an issue since many capture devices will abort the capture once they detect the Macrovision signal. On the other hand, if your DVD player can't do this, or you don't feel like flashing the firmware, there are devices one can obtain that will strip the Macrovision signal from the video. Go to Google and search for "video stabilizer".

Recording your commercial DVD's onto VHS is what Macrovision was designed to prevent, so you'll definitely need a player that can disable Macrovision (or one of the above-mentioned "video stabilizers") to do that.

If none of this is what you had in mind, then give us some more detail on what equipment you have and/or are planning to get, and what you intend to do with it, and we might be able to give you a better answer.

[whoster69]

Thanks for your reply solarfox. As you've probably guessed, I'm learning about this and, unlike PC's, I know little at this point.

My main concern was that if I'm going to start collecting DVDs I want to be able to back them up. I would prefer to do this with a DVD burner on my pc (since I'm comfortable working with things pc) and would be able to put the backups on DVD (either -R, -RW, +R or +RW). I assumed that a DVD was the same size as a DVD-R and it would be a simple matter of copying (much like copying a music CD to CDR). It sounds like I was vastly mistaken here.

What is the best method, in your opinion, for making backups of DVDs? Is this something that is easy to do? It sounds like I could copy the DVDs to tape, but tape has a short lifespan as perhaps VHS does now.

Thanks again for your post. Part of my problem is not knowing the full extent of this. You're helping me get a better idea what is going on and what the factors are.

Shannon

[MOVIEGEEK]

sbradfor,
The cheapest way is to use a video stabilizer($50),if money is not an
issue then DVD-ROM to DVD-R is the way to go(best picture quality).

http://www.dvd2dvdr.com/

[epo]

DVD and DVD-/+R(W) layers are of same size. Problem is: most commercial DVD-s are dual layer and DVD-recordables single layer. Dual layer DVD-recordables do not exist (and nobody knows, will they be). There are methods to backup DVD to 2 DVD-Rs (or to 9.4 Gig one) and also some dual layer DVDs can be packed up to "normal" DVD-R without reencoding, stripping some content. Read the guides to the left!

[offline]

There are three levels of macrovison and symptoms.

Level 1: The dark/brightness effect with or without unstable video.
Many VHS, Most DVD's

Level 2: Striping in pink or purple lines
Some New DVD's

Level 3: floating logo. Maybe introduced soon on some DVD players.

While level 1 can be overcome by a video stabliizer/enhancer,
level 2 and level 3 must be disabled in the DVD players hardware
or corrected by a standalone TBC or color corrector.

[whoster69]

Thank you all for the information. I can see that I vastly underestimated what is necessary. I'll read up on DVD Writing and read the info at:

http://www.dvd2dvdr.com

If I have more questions after reading this information, I'll ask them here.

Again thanks for your help.

Shannon