Sima Copymaster to DV camcorder question

[gonzalimator]

I own many original Disney VHS tapes that I want to backup. I recently bought a MiniDV camcorder (for reasons other than this one) that has realtime analog to digital conversion abilities. You know, VCR to camera, then camera to PC via firewire. I just read in its manual that anything that is copy-protected (I'm guessing that they mean Macrovision) will not dub through the camera. Crap! I thought that I had a solution for my backup wishes.

I looked on the web at these Sima Copymaster products to defeat the Macrovision, but I read on one of the sites that it will not work when sending the signal to a DV camcorder. Is this true? Does anyone have a Sima Copymaster and tried this?

Please don't tell me to buy a capture card. I'm sure I'll get better quality through the DV cam and I will buy one if this absolutely won't work out.

Thanks for any help/opinions.

[gonzalimator]

Anyone tried this? My camera is the Canon ZR65.

[Feuerwehr]

The Sima CC and other macrovision eliminators will usually will allow you to copy analog to analog OK. The problem is besides Macrovision there is digital copy protection built into almost all Region 1 NTSC DVD's which prevent digital recording devices such as your Canon DV camera from copying. CGMS is one digital protection scheme, there are also others.
The good news is that your old Disney tapes PROBABLY have only Macrovision protection and the Sima may work O.K. for you.

[gonzalimator]

Thank you!

So you're saying that I will most likely be able to get my Disney videos filtered properly by the Sima, but not DVDs? Well that's OK, because I will backup DVDs with Smartripper and all that. Thanks for the response!