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Author Topic: DVD Copy Protection? Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-26-2004 07:07 AM                        I have a Pioneer DV-626D DVD player, which, when I purchased it about 2 years ago, was one of the top of the line models with Dolby and DTS decoding. I have always had it hooked directly up to a standard Panasonic CRT TV/Monitor set in the bedroom and the picture using only the composite output was OK, if you are the kind of person that can overlook shimmering, dancing moire patterns all over the screen (more on that in a minute). Things were going as well as could be expected save my onslaught of bouts with epilepsy as I watched all this flickering and shimmering. Then things really got impossible when I moved the DVD player unit into my home theatre setup in the living room and tried to output it to a JVC SVHS "PowerLine" VCR via the C/Y (S-Video) signal. That JVC VCR then outputs to a variety of playback units, a CRT monitor via its S-Video, two TVs in various rooms via its modulate RF output and to an Advent VideoBeam 1000A video projector via composite. Now here's the problem. No matter what output from the VCR I use, the image constantly varies as if the video gain is going up and down in a consistant, rhythmical pattern so as to make it unusable. The first thing I thought was that it was a copy protection scheme, but I assume the copy protection is encoded into the video itself, yet what is baffeling is that the opening of the program such as that silly menu display (just play the damn movie) and on the titles such as the opening Fox home video logo and the THX logo on my disc of CAROUSEL, are perfect. But as soon as the beginning of the actual film starts with the Fox logo, the video level begins to do its pulsating thing. And as bizarre as it sounds, this pulsating will continue even when the player is put into its Pause mode!?. If you start and stop the play, you can actually get time when the picture is at its dimmest to move to another portion of the program material, telling me that this is not part of the program material itself. Now I understand the copyright owner will try to copy-protect its program material, but if this is what copy protection does, i.e., making the DVD unable to be played in my system, then I want my money back, damn it. Is this a common thing? -- if this is a dumb question, please excuse me as I am a newcomer to DVD -- I held out as long as I could with my LaserDisc collection. Of course with DVDs I am not yet quite able to do that "the emperor has no cloths" thing that most DVD enthusiasts do, i.e., completely ignoring video artifax that jitter and shimmer all over the place and thousands of little boxes of varying shades of gray and back that are supposed to represent a smooth, seamless analog fade to black. No one seams to mention these horrendous anomalies that as far as I have seen are part and parcel of the great DVD experience. Do I love my LaserDiscs....you bet. Do I barely tolerate the shimmering lines of DVD and the thousands of boxes instead of the smooth infinite gradation of grayscale that I have been accustomed to with my analog LaserDisc and even SVHS tape? I ask you, what choice do I have. But if this is the future of video, we are doomed. But back to the question -- what is my problem here? Is it macrovision or whatever the hell they call the copy protection? And if it is, is there a cure other than the class action lawsuit I fantasize in my mind against an entire industry? Frank PS -- BTW, I have the Video Essentials setup/test disc and it plays without the level changes, so it's not a problem with the player. and PPS, I refuse to have to switch between two different spellings for what is essentially different sizes of the same item -- DISC and DISK. They should pick one or the other, or I may just start calling them "record albums" by gum!  |  IP: Logged Greg Mueller Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1687 From: Port Gamble, WA Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-26-2004 09:01 AM                        How about unplugging everything else in your current set up and just run the dvd player direct? I think maybe S-video has issues. I bought a new Dish Network receiver with a tivo built in. When I hooked it up it froze my plasma display into "ZOOM" mode and wouldn't change. I spent much time on the phone with the techs and they even sent me a new unit and it didn't work right either. I don't know what all is in that S-video connection but it must be something weird.  |  IP: Logged Bill Gabel Film God Posts: 3873 From: Technicolor / Postworks NY, USA Registered: Jan 2002 posted 02-26-2004 09:12 AM                     It's the Macrovision copy protection. Or you can try getting a Multi-region player and get the disable code for Macrovision for that deck.  |  IP: Logged Thomas Procyk Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1842 From: Royal Palm Beach, FL, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 02-26-2004 09:13 AM                     Frank, what you describe is MacroVision protection. This has been around since VHS tapes back in the 80s. If you are connecting the video source directly to a monitor or TV set, you'll have no problem. But if you connect it to anything that is also a recording device, (dunno how they find THAT out) then the picture brightness and color will pulsate -- rhythemically -- through the whole feature. This is especially annoying for people like me, who have a portable TV/VCR combo. Can't connect ANYTHING with MacroVision to that TV because it thinks you want to make a copy through the VCR and scrambles it. They sell little "black box" thingies to disable the MacroVision, but most of the time they don't work too well and I think they were outlawed for some reason. A lot of older VCRs (pre-1985) will not recognize the MacroVision signal and give you a clear picture. A few studios don't use it, saying the extra encoding is just space being taken up that can be used for a better picture. I think Paramount, WB, New Line, and maybe Sony don't use it. Paramount is selective. (They MV'ed Titanic but not South Park) Another option would be to make a backup copy of your DVD and strip away the MacroVision protection in the process. (see the DVD copying software thread) Kind of a hassle to go through to watch your own, paid-for discs though. =TMP=  |  IP: Logged Scott Norwood Film God Posts: 8146 From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas) Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-26-2004 09:41 AM                        Macrovision works by inserting signals in the vertical blanking interval (the 25 lines of picture that doesn't normally show up on a normal TV set) that confuses the automatic video gain control in most consumer VCRs. A time-base corrector (standard piece of broadcast equipment) will defeat it, as well a VCR with manual video gain adjustment (which includes all professional models). As such, macrovision is essentially useless, yet for some reason it is still used. Go figure.  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 02-26-2004 04:12 PM                        Like everyone else has said... that's Macrovision for ya. quote: I refuse to have to switch between two different spellings for what is essentially different sizes of the same item -- DISC and DISK. They should pick one or the other, or I may just start calling them "record albums" by gum! Disk is the American spelling of the way everyone else spells disc. Disc predates disk by a whole lotta time. The way I see it, disks are square, and discs are round. Disks aren't sqaure you say? OK, they're really round discs in a square (or rectangular) package. As bizarre as it may be, the way I see it actually falls in-line pretty well with the way industry sees it. Disks = floppy disks, hard disks Discs = comapct discs, cd-rom discs, digital versatile discs (DVDs), disc brakes  |  IP: Logged Adam Martin I'm not even gonna point out the irony. Posts: 3686 From: Dallas, TX Registered: Nov 2000 posted 02-26-2004 06:36 PM                     Daryl, Daryl, Daryl ... Digital Versatile Discs!  |  IP: Logged Daryl C. W. O'Shea Film God Posts: 3977 From: Midland Ontario Canada (where Panavision & IMAX lenses come from) Registered: Jun 2002 posted 02-26-2004 07:33 PM                        Say what?  |  IP: Logged William Hooper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1879 From: Mobile, AL USA Registered: Jun 99 posted 02-27-2004 03:03 AM                        The disk thing showed up with computer disks. Previously, the world had disc jockeys.  |  IP: Logged Darryl Spicer Film God Posts: 3250 From: Lexington, KY, USA Registered: Dec 2000 posted 02-27-2004 09:50 AM                    Does the DVD have the component video outputs. and does any of your gear support it. If it does go with that. It will give you the best picture, far better than Svideo and there is no hassles of going through the VCR. My DVD player goes straight to the TV using the Component outputs. No use spending all that money to get rid of the copyguard unless you intend to make copies of the material in question.  |  IP: Logged Frank Angel Film God Posts: 5305 From: Brooklyn NY USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 02-28-2004 05:40 AM                        Thanks guys. I imagined as much. And of course the solution is to buy more expensive equipment or as Greg suggests, just go directly into the Video Beam (CRT projector) with composite. Naturally I would prefer RGB, but unfortunately the projector doesn't support component inputs -- it's 30 yrs old. Although, I have toyed with the idea that since its design is so modularized, it should be a fairly easy thing to find the RGB input points and insert the DVD component outputs directly. TBCs are not cheap -- the lady would never go for it. I will probably just have to go direct composite out from the DVD to the CRT projector; as far as the other household TVs for her, I could use an inexpensive RF modulator should work fine to send the signal to the other sets, which is mainly what the woman is most concerned about in the first place -- not the quality of the picture, but that she can see it while she is prepairing a lavish meal in the kitchen (frozen dinners in the microwave). She also does understand why we need to make all that fuss over 6 channel surround sound when the mono sound that comes from her little table top TV is "perfectly fine." Pretty scary, huh? Frank  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 02-28-2004 07:07 AM                     I used to work for Guthy-Renker. They mass duplicate the Dean Martin Show, and countless pointless exercise videos in Arden, NC. Just before I left, they bought Macrovision equipment. When I left, they were making new Macrovision masters of all of their stuff. I was not impressed. Was not the first home video release in Macrovision "The Cotton Club" (1984) ?  |  IP: Logged Jesse Skeen Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1517 From: Sacramento, CA Registered: Aug 2000 posted 03-02-2004 08:13 PM                     Yes it was, I remember it being mentioned in several places. I have that movie on CED Videodisc, which never had Muckrovision. My Pioneer LD/DVD player is fixed so the Muckrovision's always off, since it was messing up the picture going directly to my TV. Still haven't made any copies with it!  |  IP: Logged

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