Golf wrote in news:1179944966.553581.136020
@q75g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:

I don't quite
understand the macrovision issue being a cause to the problem.

Macrovision messes with the AGC of VCRs to prevent piracy, creating an
unwatchable copy.

Unfortunately, some VCRs have the AGC on the video input, rather than the
video record, which makes them not useable for RF modulators for DVD
players.