Hi,

Are cheap blister pack DVD to TV modulators immune to macrovision?

A*s*i*m*o*v

.... Well I defragged my TV and went all the way back to basic cable!

"Asimov" wrote in message
...
| Hi,
|
| Are cheap blister pack DVD to TV modulators immune to macrovision?

They should not be affected but equally I see no reason they wouldn't pass
the MacroPuke crap through to a VCR.

N

"NSM" wrote in news:khQwd.2765$nN6.2720@edtnps84:


"Asimov" wrote in
message ...
| Hi,
|
| Are cheap blister pack DVD to TV modulators immune to macrovision?

They should not be affected but equally I see no reason they wouldn't
pass the MacroPuke crap through to a VCR.

N




Sony Beta format was immune to Macrovision,IIRC.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik-at-kua.net

Sony Beta format was immune to Macrovision,IIRC.

That's a myth that I've seen proven untrue countless times.

AAMOF, I've had Beta machines, including Sonys, which reacted to MacroVision
with video that dimmed and brightened repeatedly. - Reinhart

"Jim Yanik" . wrote in message
.. .

| Sony Beta format was immune to Macrovision,IIRC.

RCA CED had no Macrovision AFAIK!

N

NSM wrote:
"Jim Yanik" . wrote in message
.. .

| Sony Beta format was immune to Macrovision,IIRC.

RCA CED had no Macrovision AFAIK!

N
Possibly because it had no customers.
gg

"NSM" wrote in message news:iV%wd.5690$KO5.557@clgrps13...

wrote in message
oups.com...
|
| NSM wrote:
| "Jim Yanik" . wrote in message
| .. .
|
| | Sony Beta format was immune to Macrovision,IIRC.
|
| RCA CED had no Macrovision AFAIK!
|
| N
| Possibly because it had no customers.
| gg

Incredibly wrong. Try a search on eBay.

N



Certainly some people bought them, in fact there were a couple arcade games
that used them (rather than the more common Laserdisc games) but from what
I've read, the discs were played with a stylus that badly wore the areas
used for the attract mode.

Still in the grand scheme of things they were a flop, compared to VCR's and
optical Laserdisc they effectively had "no" customers. In 20 years of
fiddling with electronics I've never once encountered one or even anyone
who's ever mentioned owning one. By contrast I've come across thousands of
VCR's and hundreds of laserdisc players in homes and businesses over the
years.

"James Sweet" wrote in message
newsH4xd.265$_62.212@trnddc01...

| Certainly some people bought them, in fact there were a couple arcade
games
| that used them (rather than the more common Laserdisc games) but from what
| I've read, the discs were played with a stylus that badly wore the areas
| used for the attract mode.
|
| Still in the grand scheme of things they were a flop, compared to VCR's
and
| optical Laserdisc they effectively had "no" customers.

I have two players, the stereo adaptor, and over 100 movies. When movies on
VHS were running around $80 each, I was able to buy then from a mail order
dealer for around $7 each and got one free for every two I bought.

I'd sell them on eBay but the weight makes shipping a bitch.

N

In article pH4xd.265$_62.212@trnddc01, says...

"NSM" wrote in message news:iV%wd.5690$KO5.557@clgrps13...

wrote in message
oups.com...
|
| NSM wrote:
| "Jim Yanik" . wrote in message
| .. .
|
| | Sony Beta format was immune to Macrovision,IIRC.
|
| RCA CED had no Macrovision AFAIK!
|
| N
| Possibly because it had no customers.
| gg

Incredibly wrong. Try a search on eBay.

N



Certainly some people bought them, in fact there were a couple arcade games
that used them (rather than the more common Laserdisc games) but from what
I've read, the discs were played with a stylus that badly wore the areas
used for the attract mode.

Still in the grand scheme of things they were a flop, compared to VCR's and
optical Laserdisc they effectively had "no" customers. In 20 years of
fiddling with electronics I've never once encountered one or even anyone
who's ever mentioned owning one. By contrast I've come across thousands of
VCR's and hundreds of laserdisc players in homes and businesses over the
years.

There is a website with all sorts of information on CED:
http://www.cedmagic.com/selectavision.html

--
If there is a no_junk in my address, please REMOVE it before replying!
All junk mail senders will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the
law!!
http://home.att.net/~andyross

Still in the grand scheme of things they were a flop, compared to VCR's
and
optical Laserdisc they effectively had "no" customers. In 20 years of
fiddling with electronics I've never once encountered one or even anyone
who's ever mentioned owning one. By contrast I've come across thousands
of
VCR's and hundreds of laserdisc players in homes and businesses over the
years.

There is a website with all sorts of information on CED:
http://www.cedmagic.com/selectavision.html

--
If there is a no_junk in my address, please REMOVE it before replying!
All junk mail senders will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the
law!!
http://home.att.net/~andyross
My brother in law was in on the design and prep for production for the ced.
He had already worked with the Japanese engineers on the RCA Selectavision
VHS machines. He said the step from the very, very sophisticated
electromechanical vcr to the ced system was like going from LP's back to the
cylinder phonograph. I saw some ced video demo at a Radio Shack in the
eighties, not too bad, but knowing what a kludgey mechanical system it was
kept me away from it.
Tom

"t.hoehler" wrote in message
news:6Xixd.220160$V41.34442@attbi_s52...

| My brother in law was in on the design and prep for production for the
ced.
| He had already worked with the Japanese engineers on the RCA Selectavision
| VHS machines. He said the step from the very, very sophisticated
| electromechanical vcr to the ced system was like going from LP's back to
the
| cylinder phonograph. I saw some ced video demo at a Radio Shack in the
| eighties, not too bad, but knowing what a kludgey mechanical system it was
| kept me away from it.
| Tom

In 1982 the video quality of the Radio Shack/Hitachi and these disks was
much better than the VCRs of that time. But look at how many variations of
media we have had with the same content: 35mm and 16mm film, VHS, Beta, CED,
Laser Disk and now DVD. What's next, crystal cubes?

N

In 1982 the video quality of the Radio Shack/Hitachi and these disks was
much better than the VCRs of that time. But look at how many variations of
media we have had with the same content: 35mm and 16mm film, VHS, Beta,
CED,
Laser Disk and now DVD. What's next, crystal cubes?

N



Supposedly DVD using a blue laser, allowing much higher data density. Once
they get the recordable/re-writable thing down solid and the price of
recorders and media drops to something acceptable I think VHS will all but
dissapear and we'll be with a DVD technology of some sort for at least as
long as VHS has stuck around. Even without recording ability, DVD has taken
the market by storm, I've never seen a new technology take hold so quickly,
it spread like wildfire. It works, very well, and it's cheap. I'm sure it'll
be around for a while.

"James Sweet" wrote in message
news:Hylxd.2288$hc7.166@trnddc06...
|
| In 1982 the video quality of the Radio Shack/Hitachi and these disks was
| much better than the VCRs of that time. But look at how many variations
of
| media we have had with the same content: 35mm and 16mm film, VHS, Beta,
| CED,
| Laser Disk and now DVD. What's next, crystal cubes?
|
| N
|
|
|
| Supposedly DVD using a blue laser, allowing much higher data density. Once
| they get the recordable/re-writable thing down solid and the price of
| recorders and media drops to something acceptable I think VHS will all but
| dissapear and we'll be with a DVD technology of some sort for at least as
| long as VHS has stuck around. Even without recording ability, DVD has
taken
| the market by storm, I've never seen a new technology take hold so
quickly,
| it spread like wildfire. It works, very well, and it's cheap. I'm sure
it'll
| be around for a while.

I'm bound to admit that the weight and size of DVDs is superior to that of
VHS. I assume the life of burned DVDs will be better than VHS also, although
that still seems to be up in the air. Now all I have to do is transfer 700
VHS tapes to DVD!

N

Once
they get the recordable/re-writable thing down solid and the price of
recorders and

The thing about recordable optical is that it's much less re-recordable than
magnetic tape.

We go through about one VHS tape a year, with a programme or two recorded
almost every day (the evening news, specifically). I understand you get less
than a hundred cycles on a CD-rewritable, and I don't know about DVD-RWs.

In fact, I've noticed the "tapes only last a year" thing and became suspicious
it might be the fault of an inferior VCR (recent 'Sylvania' Funai product,
replacement for an old-but-dying Magnavox)
--
Marada Shra'drakaii

On 18 Dec 2004 17:28:46 GMT, (LASERandDVDfan)
wrote:

Sony Beta format was immune to Macrovision,IIRC.

That's a myth that I've seen proven untrue countless times.

AAMOF, I've had Beta machines, including Sonys, which reacted to MacroVision
with video that dimmed and brightened repeatedly. - Reinhart

Most of the Beta macines I've owned were immune to Macrovision. A few
were affected by it, but the vast majority weren't.
Andy Cuffe

-- Use this address until 12/31/2005

-- Use this address after 12/31/2005

"Andy Cuffe" wrote in message
...
Most of the Beta macines I've owned were immune to Macrovision. A few
were affected by it, but the vast majority weren't.

My understanding is that, early on, a significant number of VHS machines were
relatively immune to macrovision as well. Macrovision (at least in its basic
form) works by exploiting the fact that a VCR's input (recording) AGC
circuitry's time constant is much faster than that of a regular TV's video
inputs, so a recording (or just passing the video through a VCR) will follow
the brightening/darkening caused by jimmying the average video level during
the VBI, but a regular TV won't (so much... there is the unusual TV out there
that shows noticeable screen changes too!).

Anyway, the rumor was that after Macrovision had been designed and
implemented, Macrovision (the company) began "encouraging" VCR manufacturers
to ensure their AGCs were is the rate that would "work" with Macrovision (the
technology). (Something I don't know is whether or not the AGC rates were
part of the original VHS spec and hence whether Macrovision was really just
encouraging manufacturers to actually abide by standards that were already
around but perhaps often ignored or whether they really were trying to
institute new specs.)

In any case, I suspect it's very possible that Beta machines were more immune
to Macrovision than VHS machines only because AGC timing was either different
on Beta or else simply not yet as standardized as it is today. You can bet a
nickel that if Beta hadn't died, Macrovision most certainly would have gotten
around to creating a version of their technology that "worked" on Beta
machines as well.

Although piracy of videocassettes and cable TV is not something to be
condoned, there did seem to be a certain sense of "adventure" between the
folks building the analog video scrambling systems and those trying to undo
them. I remember when Popular Electronics (or was it Radio Electronics?) had
multi-part articles of building various descramblers, and one could learn an
awful lot based on studying the designs. I expect this adventure is still
on-going with digital encryption systems, but a lot of it has been driven
underground with the advent of so much legislation making a lot of reverse
engineering downright illegal. One really wonders just who the FCC and our
politicians are serving when you see media providers push through the use of
such silliness as the HDTV "broadcast flag" these days (see:
http://www.eff.org/broadcastflag/).

---Joel Kolstad

"Joel Kolstad" wrote in
:


One really wonders just who the FCC and our
politicians are serving when you see media providers push through the
use of such silliness as the HDTV "broadcast flag" these days (see:
http://www.eff.org/broadcastflag/).

---Joel Kolstad




That is to prevent people from recording HD movies or TV shows off cable or
air onto DVDs of their own,instead of buying commercially-produced DVDs.
(Protecting the DVD industry/anti-"piracy";that's who they're serving.)

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net

"Jim Yanik" . wrote in message
.. .
That is to prevent people from recording HD movies or TV shows off cable or
air onto DVDs of their own,instead of buying commercially-produced DVDs.

Yes, and it's a pretty poor reason. The same argument was heard (in the form
of people taping shows off cable or the air instad of going to movie theatres)
some 25 years ago when VCRs first came out. If a film owner doesn't want
people taping the show, fine -- don't sell it to the broadcasters! As it is
now, movies end up on DVD in stores _long_ before they show up on broadcast TV
and significantly before they show up on the cable movie channels. Trying to
prevent viewers from taping the movie for their own re-use to squeeze out just
a couple of extra DVD sales (even when the home viewer's tape will lack all
the DVD extras anyway!) is just being greedy, IMO.

The vast majority of people use video recorders for time shifting, not for
building their own video libraries.

I suppose the movie studios would outlaw Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, etc. if
they could too...

---Joel

On Tue, 19 Jul 2005 15:23:06 -0700, "Joel Kolstad"
wrote:

"Andy Cuffe" wrote in message
.. .
Most of the Beta macines I've owned were immune to Macrovision. A few
were affected by it, but the vast majority weren't.

My understanding is that, early on, a significant number of VHS machines were
relatively immune to macrovision as well.

The only VCRs I've seen that were immune to Macrovision are most Betas
(virtually all Sony Betas) and a few Panasonics from about 1987-1992.
Some early VHS machines may have been immune, but I can't remember
ever seeing any. The way I understand it, Macrovision took advantage
of the design of the AGC circuit used in most VHS VCRs, but that Most
Beta VCRs were different. I don't doubt they encouraged manufacturers
to make their VCRs respond to macrovision later on. I believe some of
the more recent VCRs and camcorders actually detect it, refuse to
record and put up a message on the screen telling you what's
happening.
Andy Cuffe

-- Use this address until 12/31/2005

-- Use this address after 12/31/2005

On Tue, 19 Jul 2005 18:23:52 -0700, "Joel Kolstad"
wrote:

Yes, and it's a pretty poor reason. The same argument was heard (in the form
of people taping shows off cable or the air instad of going to movie theatres)
some 25 years ago when VCRs first came out.

And now they make MORE money from selling videos than from the
theaters. And to think they tried to make VCRs illegal.


If a film owner doesn't want
people taping the show, fine -- don't sell it to the broadcasters!

I couldn't agree more! If their content is that valuable, don't
broadcast it. Keep it in a vault where no one can see it.

It's far easier and faster to copy a DVD using a PC, but they seem
more worried about stopping people from going from DVD to tape, or
using a DVD recorder.

I can't believe how much effort is put into preventing video devices
from working together. HDCP on DVI makes no sense to me. If I wanted
to save a copy of a HDTV program I would find a way to save the
original MPEG data (like with a PC HDTV card). No device even exists
that can record DVI. All it does is prevent people from connecting
their "old" HDTV to their new DVD player with HDCP DVI out.
Andy Cuffe

-- Use this address until 12/31/2005

-- Use this address after 12/31/2005

"Joel Kolstad" wrote in
:

"Jim Yanik" . wrote in message
.. .

That is to prevent people from recording HD movies or TV shows off
cable or air onto DVDs of their own,instead of buying
commercially-produced DVDs.

Yes, and it's a pretty poor reason. The same argument was heard (in
the form of people taping shows off cable or the air instad of going
to movie theatres) some 25 years ago when VCRs first came out. If a
film owner doesn't want people taping the show, fine -- don't sell it
to the broadcasters! As it is now, movies end up on DVD in stores
_long_ before they show up on broadcast TV and significantly before
they show up on the cable movie channels. Trying to prevent viewers
from taping the movie for their own re-use to squeeze out just a
couple of extra DVD sales (even when the home viewer's tape will lack
all the DVD extras anyway!) is just being greedy, IMO.

I agree.

IMO,the people who record movies off cable or air are not those who would
buy DVDs in the first place.It's not like a song or album that one would
listen to over and over again.I suspect that the so-called "music piracy"
was not that big an impact as the RIAA would like us to believe.Their lousy
marketing schemes are much more responsible for any drop in sales or
revenue,IMO.

Besides,they still get a cut from sales of blank media,just like they do
for blank video and audio tape.


The vast majority of people use video recorders for time shifting, not
for building their own video libraries.

TIVO and others do that now,but do not allow recording to permanent
media,IIRC.

I suppose the movie studios would outlaw Blockbuster, Hollywood Video,
etc. if they could too...

---Joel




I don't know why people would want to record movies off the air or
cable,they're all edited these days.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net