VHS w/macrovision > Sony TRV120 camcorder>hardrive>

[samcut]

Has anyone been able to turn off the macrovision protection when capturing via this method? I can capture VHS without Macrovision without a problem. Will the Sigma copyguard stabilizer work? Any other idea's.

Samcut

[vhelp]

samcut,

sorry, anything DV'ish will have MV guard protection built-in.
You can't stop it, as far as I know - - at least based on my Canon ZR-10's
experience, I can't either!

Just capture the VHS w/ a a good'ol analog capture card. I use my
ATW for this, and capture at 352x480, NOT 352x240, unless your system
is that finicky to allow a resolution past x240.

If you can do 352x480, do so w/ huffy codec, to save hd space. I know
that the ATW card will pass through MV, so if you have this card, give it
a shot, else try another card (or whatever you have currently) for VHS
capturing/encode projects.

Good luck!
-vhelp

[yg1968]

Since you have a Sony, I am assuming that you have analog pass through (i.e analog to digital conversion feature). Anyways, if you use the pass through, the macrovision is disabled when you capture the video on your computer. I have gotten Ulead VideoStudio to capture macrovision protected material without any difficulty.

(In case, you are wondering I owned the original VHS tape. I was testing the capturing process.)

If you only want to see the analog film on your computer screen in full view, there is a shareware program called TV viewer that is useful in order to achieve this.

Hope this helps,

YG

[samcut]

Thanks, I'll try it again. I thought I was using the analog port on my camcorder. The cable has three RCA plugs for the VCR (only need 2) and one plug that goes to the camcorder. I backed up one VHS without a problem...then I ran into what I believe was MAcrovision. When I get it to the computer, I plan on burning a VCD. My 1 1/2 year old is really hard on the tapes!

Thanks, let me know if you have any ideas-

Samcut

[yg1968]

I have a Sony TRV25 which is a miniDV camcorder. However, the manual should tell you how to use the analog to digital conversion feature on your camera. In my case, I have to plug the RCA cable to my camcorder and plug the firewire cable to the computer. I also have to enable the DV out in the Menu on my camcorder. The process might be different for your camera. I don't know. Incidentally a great (freeware) capture program for DV is AVIO. See this website:

http://www.carr-engineering.com/dvio.htm

You can then use the avi (DV) file in what ever authoring program that you use to convert it to mpeg.

[EricB]

Well, I have the TRV120 and you cannot copy Macrovision protected material with mine. It doesn't just do a poor job (flashing colors) it brings up a message saying copy protected material.

With the ability to rip DVDs, I rarely have a need to copy a Macrovision tape anyways.

[tom28]

I have the TRV320, the passthrough method works. Of course you cannot record directly from VHS to the TRV but the pass through works.