Mark Zenier wrote:

ooohhh. Good Question. I have a horrible feeling that they might
enable copy protection in the video if the right/(wrong?) bits in
the datastream say so. I wonder what the government certification
requirements said...

My VCRs are analog. They have no circuitry to recognize the copyright
"flag." They just react to Macrovision's AGC circuit fooling signal,
which isn't present in digital TV signals. I will probably get a
coupon/box (if/when they are available here) and try it out.

That's what I mean. They built Macrovision into DVD players. Did
they put it in these boxes too? Maybe just downconverting to SD
resolution was enough to feed the copyright sharks.

I really don't know what you mean. The "AGC fooling" Macrovision was
embedded in the video signal. It was not built into the VCR. The "do
not copy" flag is also embedded in the video of the DVD. It enables
an anti-copy signal created by the DVD player and sent to a digital
recording device. The "flag" must exist in the video signal. As far
as I know, the video from digital TV signals contains no such "flag",
so putting recognition capability into the conversion boxes would serve
no purpose.

--
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens.