It's not just VCRs, many old tellies had problems w/ MV, also. When I was a teen (~25 years ago), my dad bought a MV-killer for our 70's-era 19" telly. The symptoms on that set were usually a black bar from the top of the screen, down to about 1-1.5" & the rest the picture flashing, fading &/or rolling. And we weren't feeding two VCRs, just one to the RF aerial terminals on the set.

@12voltvids

8 жыл бұрын

+Madness832 Yes it did cause problems especially with rf modulators as the bright white pulse would over modulate the carrier so the rf modulator would "ride the gain" with an agc just like a VCR.

@Dev-tw1og

5 жыл бұрын

@ Madness832 Interesting... I wonder if you used a HDMI converter it might smooth out the signal.

Some DVD players, especially off-brand models, can be configured to disable MacroVision encoding and region locking. It usually involves pressing a special combination of buttons on the remote to enter a hidden service menu with those options. The TBC in Sony DV Handycams is almost good enough to remove MacroVision but there is still a slight and brief but noticeable brightness dip whenever the bright white boxes kick in. I've seen MacroVision encoding cause brightness variations even when just watching a movie, not trying to dub or record it.

@12voltvids

8 жыл бұрын

+VWestlife (backup account) Macrovision is evil.Yes I know unlicensed DVD brands could disable it.This wasn't intended to specifically target DVD, it was just to show how it works. Cable and satellite box use of macrovision is what most people would need a scrubber for so that hard copies can be made of encrypted programs on premium channels like HBO.

Thank you for explaning this. Great Demonstrations.

Somehow I think I missed this video when you first put it up. I used to use umatic high band for "prolonged" rentals. It seemed playback was more of a problem then recording. SO since I didn't have a macrovision box I made up a photo interrupter out of a loop of transparency sheet attached to the top of the umatic drum. Two carefully placed pieces of electrical tape on the sheet triggered the playback machine's vertical blanking ('mute') function via an op amp schmitt trigger I set up. This was "adjustable" and did effectively mask the VBI macrovision although the edges of the mask had interesting jitter (likely from the photo interrupter 'flapping in the breeze'). A slight tweak to the burst flag period 'window' (or whatever that's called) would chop off the bad portion of the burst flag and the machine would regenerate it, I believe. This did actually work for playback on a finicky monitor (which was my best one). I wanted to try it on the recording end but I don't think there was a way to regenerate burst flags before recording. But I think I could have used the photo interrupter VBI setup for r3cording and dealt with the chroma on playback. Makes me want to go back and try this again when I have time.

Cat: scuicide ? :3 time to die You: no

Great demo!

Both devices seem to replace signals in the blanking intervals, only differently. The macroscrubber only replaces most of the VBI, the TBC seems to replace the entire set of blanking intervals, and offsets the signals somewhat, for counteracting that little time shift that switching between two video heads causes. That's how it looks like to me. So far I thought, it's only the square pulses in the VBI. Very informative video, thanks!

@12voltvids

5 жыл бұрын

The macroscrubber uses a sync pulse generator for TV camera, and gen locks to the incoming signal to produce a blanking signal to mute video in the first 21 lines after vertical blanking. The TBC digitizes the entire video signal strips all sync information and generates new sync, then converts the 4:2:2 component digital signal back to analog, completely rebuilding sync and burst signals with new sync and burst, and in the process removing jitter, or tibe base errors as they are known which all analog video formats will have due to variables in analog tape playback. Temperature, humidity tape age, how many times it has been played (tapes stretch slightly) andslight alignment differences between machines all cause slight differences in the timing signals as they are read off the tape by the spinning head.

What is it about certain older VCRs (before the DMCA) that they do not react to Macrovision? For example, I have had the following RCA models made from 1989-1996 (I believe they were rebadged Panasonics and/or Samsungs) and all could properly record an analog Macrovision encoded signal from another tape (DVDs I do not know): VR625HF, VR740HF, VR603HF, VR603AHF, VR605HF, VR613HF, VR617HF, VR618HF, VR672HF? Also, would such a Macrovision immune VCR have been able to record a CopyGuard protect tape?

I was waiting for this.

very interesting, Thanks

thanks for sharing ...

I worked on the embedded software of a DVB digital satellite receiver once. The back-end (video output) chip was probably the same as one that was used in many DVD players. It was capable of inserting all kinds of MacroVision interference, based on I2C commands from the microcontroller. But not only was there another version of the same chip that didn't do MacroVision and would have been a drop-in replacement (pin-compatible and everything), but also it would have been easy to intercept the I2C bus and not let any MV commands through, or even simpler: block all commands once the chip was initialized a few milliseconds after the set would come out of standby. I'm not saying that copyright violations are okay, but anti-piracy measures are always a pain for the regular guy who just wants to e.g. make a copy of a DVD to play on their kids VCR (which is fair use), never for the actual pirates that make money off it.

@cartoonfan959

4 жыл бұрын

chinese DVD players didn't have this crap

I did this by dvd to vhs, and on funai vcrs and some others can when being black it can get wavy and black and white on playback, and a certain apex dvd player has the option to disable macrovision.

That's when the copyright protection has set in 1977 when the General Assembly order companies protect their copies on Video Format include their fictional movies, documentaries, etc. that way their copies will be protected.

@12voltvids

8 жыл бұрын

+Bluethunderboom The reason they had to implement copy protection was not so much for consumers, it was for video stores! Believe it or not when video stores first stared operating, movies were really expensive. Not uncommon for movies to run 150.00 per copy. So stores would be nervous renting out the original copy, and they would make a copy, and rent the copy out. Back in the early days people didn't complain, they were just happy to be able to watch a movie at home. Video store owner figures that if he could get away with 1 copy, why not make 20 copies and rent out 20 at once. Will make his money back much faster. Holllyweed struck back with the first version of copy guard, which was just modified vertical sync, as that would make the drum servo on early machines drift in and out of sync.That was easy to combat with a few transistors and a 555 timer.The next version was Macrovision, and that one stuck. As a content producer I used to encode my commercial tapes, at much expense to prevent clients from copying my corporate videos. When I did a video for a company, I built in the copy rights to my profits. When company "B" was quoting the client 10 grand to do their corporate video, and I was quoting them 5 grand to do the same thing, but I was charging 5.00 for each of the 2000 copies they were requiring, I certainly wanted to make sure that they bought those copies from me. Some companies thought it was OK to get the video done for 5 grand, and then order 1 copy, and go and hook up 2 VCRs and make those copies themselves. You can imagine the look on the face of the guy trying to do it when the copy came out looking like crap, and he had to come back and get them from me. Sure I had to farm the copies out to a duplication center to be done on a sprinter, so that eats away at my profits, hence the 5.00 a copy, but it kept me in business.

I found similar Videonics equipment. But its name is "Titlemaker". Will it have this wonderful TBC too? And maybe I did not understood correctly but where do you switch from flex to infinite time window mode TBC in this thingy?

@12voltvids

4 жыл бұрын

No title maker has a genlock to sync the title over the incoming video but not a frame store.the mx1 has dual infinate window frame store. The difference between fixed and infinate is how much the video can be off to be corrected. With stable signals then fixed works better as there is less delay. With crap signals from sources such as vhs then infinate window is better, it will correct a full frame, but if the source is fast or slow it will skip or drop a frame to get back in sync. Fixed is great when used as a live switcher for live productions from cameras of digital video sources like DV because they will always be rock steady. Infinate for crapy analog tape sources like vhs beta 8mm ect.

@Zcooger

4 жыл бұрын

@@12voltvids Thanks, good to know before I bought it.

Great demonstration!I wanted to know for a long time how Macrovision works.I have read somewhere that Betamax VCR's tend to ignore this signal, is it true?

@12voltvids

8 жыл бұрын

+moshe zaharia Yes many Betamax machines ignored macrovision.I never had any problems recording anything on Betamax.

Is it possible when you are digitising tapes on a program like Elgato or Roxio to connect a DVD recorder with TBC (such as a Panasonic DMR-ES-10/15) in between the VCR and the USB capture card and actually receive a signal? 🇦🇺Cheers from Australia!🇦🇺

@12voltvids

4 жыл бұрын

If you have a DVD recorder why not just use that to record your videos. The digitizer in a dvd recorder is superior to what is in those cheap capture cards. If you want a file, stick the finished disk in the computer and rip the disk and make an mp4 file. That is what I do because the quality is higher..

@blakeradcliffe6110

4 жыл бұрын

@@12voltvids Great advice, but I don't know which DVD recorders can bypass Macrovision without having to use a Macro-Scrubber.

You need a sync-pulse regenerator....like the Copymate Deluxe CM-2 for example.

The scrubber also eliminates the closed captions that wouldn't be good if you need them.

@12voltvids

11 ай бұрын

Right but you can't copy s tape or ppv signal that has macrovision so losing the CC data is a small price to pay to be able to record vs not record.

A Kentucky fried cat LOL

why does this crt make such an awful noise? mine doesn't do that...

Smashing, i enjoyed that :-D The scrubber just seems to blank out a section of the video, it possibly uses the sync to trigger a fixed blanking period to chop the unwanted part out, ok for video tapes but not quite right for dvd's. Many years ago..... i copied an original vhs tape of startrek the movie (original cast), i didnt think anything about it at the time, but years later a frend said "You cant copy them, they are protected". i was a bit confused, i was playing the tape from an ordinary vcr into my old jvc piano key video for recording, the jvc didnt use the blanking period as a reference for the agc, the piano key had a slow agc too, it didnt give a dam about what it recorded lol :-D Oh the copy was still copy protected ha ha ;-D

@12voltvids

8 жыл бұрын

+zx8401ztv close. The scrubber is a home built unit I built when I was studying video engineering. It is based on an old RCA LSI chip, a sync pulse generator for TV camera. It is generating black video h an v sync an color burst. There is also a sync separator that genlocks the sync generator to incoming video, and then a count down is triggered by vertical sync from the generator which gates in the new sync for the portion of the vertical blanking do the first 22 lines. It is actually a complex little circuit. I showed it in the other video. Has a few surface mount chips and the big dip package just soldered down to the component side of the board because I was lazy. I did that in 1982 when I was taking my first year engineering course but I ended up landing a job with Sony the next year while on summer break and took their in house training, only to land at a service center the next year where I stayed for 20 years. It was during that time I started my video production business as a part time gig and ended up working on many corporate, and private video productions. I worked in a TV station for a couple of years too. I actually wanted to do broadcasting full time, as an engineer but that didn't pan out. Didn't have good enough math grades in high school to get into the 4 year program. I had algebra, but skipped out on the advanced calculus because my stupid high school councilor said I didn't need it. Go figure.

@zx8401ztv

8 жыл бұрын

+12voltvids At least i was having a guess lol :-D It sounds like you acheaved so much, you are a very clever and experenced man, leave the mathmatics to computers lol. Thats why i enjoy your videos :-D, you are a no nonsense man that gives sharp understanding without confusing your audience. You should have been a teacher of electronics :-). Most teachers dont have the feel for the subject they are teaching so its hard work to understand them.

@jrmcferren

5 жыл бұрын

Prior to being mandated by US law, some Consumer VHS VCRs were not vulnerable to the Macrovision signal. Note there are two key words in the above sentence, Consumer and VHS. The legal requirement for copy protection only applies to VHS and later formats as well as consumer equipment. Due to the law coming in late, Beta was exempted as it did not reach the sales needed for the law to take effect. As you noticed, any time there is no Time Base Corrector in circuit, a successful dub will contain the copy protection signal. This means you can't bypass it by adding a Beta generation. DVD to Beta will work, but the Beta to VHS copy won't work. When using a professional VTR you may be able to use it on the playback side as some units have integrated Time Base Correctors. Of course, this is only a discussion of what is technically possible, even if you can bypass the protection, you are still bound by copyright law. Bonus info: The reason Closed Captioning and Text is deleted by the Macrovision strippers is due to the way they treat the blanking interval. The strippers usually black out all of vertical blanking, this includes Closed Captioning, Channel/program information (yes this did exist on Analog on higher end sets), Rating Data (for V-Chip), as well as any other data in the Vertical Blanking Interval.

I had a Sony SLV-920HF which had a bit of what I thought was quite an oddity. If I set it to SP, it reacted to Macrovision. If I set it to EP, it did not and I was able to make copies of Macrovision protected tapes that way.

@12voltvids

3 ай бұрын

That is strange because macrovision affects the auto gain control in the modulator and it is the same circuit regardless if the speed. Betamax was unaffected by macrovision primarily because betamax was considered a higher quality format that Sony modeled after the professional 3/4" umatic using the same circuits that 3/4 used. In other words they didn't have the macrovision detection that VHS had built into the chips. On hi8 they had a little plug in board that you could remove to defeat it.

@sneskid78

2 ай бұрын

⁠​⁠@@12voltvids Right, that’s what always caught me off guard about that particular deck. It was almost as if setting it to EP disabled the video AGC for some reason. Some weird design flaw maybe? I don’t know. That was the only VCR I had that did that. I actually have come across a Betamax that Macrovision messed with … hmmm.. actually, it was Sears model, OEM’d by Sanyo, so maybe that doesn’t count lol

it is like the Videocrypt (system used by SKY PLC) data signal at the top of the picture area.

@12voltvids

8 жыл бұрын

+DAVID GREGORY KERR Well, not exactly. Videp chypher uses a similar system for analog NTSC satellite, where they replaced the entire horizontal and vertical blanking area with data. If you look at the pulse cross portion of the picture, everything except for the active picture area, and the color burst (the green stripe at the beginning of each line) was replaced with digital data. This digital data was actually the audio for the program feed, and the subscription data for the descrambler board. I remember seeing some old chipped boards that would unlock the video, and for a period of time would unload the audio too, but the audio was scrambled, and once the fix stopped working, it would descramble the video, but no sound. Basically only good for watching programming where the sound really didn't matter. You can use your imagination here.

@Zcooger

4 жыл бұрын

FYI this is Videocrypt signal (generated with HackTV): user-images.githubusercontent.com/42012614/64849462-b6bbe280-d613-11e9-9004-c9df4055e2b6.png

its nice monitor

Thanks a lot for this interesting and excellent videos!! I have a poor english, so I think i've understood: if i want to digitalize vhs always have to use a tbc (i have mx1). always with 0 options in the setup menu? but if i want to erase mv from a tape the best option is a mv eraser box. i have one of them but i dont know if all the boxes are the same way or there are different systems... i have one of these boxes but i dont know if internally is the same than your. thanks in advance and hope to keep in touch !!

@12voltvids

7 жыл бұрын

The MX1 will remove macrovision enough to record on most devices, but a true macrovision scrubber will completely eliminate it.

@LosmundosdeENORM

7 жыл бұрын

Thanks for your answer! dont know why but mx-1 gives me a darker image than the original :(

@12voltvids

7 жыл бұрын

Yes I have noticed that too. Eveything passing though it is slightly darker, but there is a fix for that. In the setup menu there is a black level adjustment. I forget which icon it is, but three is one that compensates for it. Been so long since I used an MX1.

@LosmundosdeENORM

7 жыл бұрын

Great !! I'll test the different level option :) Thanks again! The darker image is only when there's a MV signal, isn't it? Or a tape free of MV gets darker too?

@LosmundosdeENORM

6 жыл бұрын

I'd like to ask you. The best option to capture a vhs with no MV protection is directly with no changes in the Videonics configuration and if the VHS has MV just only configure the Videonics with the black level adjustment at 3? Thanks in advance for your help and sorry for my english!

TBCs remember it well. They were expensive

@greggv8

6 жыл бұрын

Still are expensive. I have a Panasonic AG-1980 Super VHS and have been trying to find a nice full frame TBC with S-Video in and out. The VCR has a line TBC which helps to straighten up some video tapes but it doesn't do anything for macrovision. I have some old camcorder recordings that various digitizing equipment falsely detects as having macrovision. Back in 2004 I digitized some using an AGP nVidia TNT2 Ti with analog capture, but to do it I had to 'piece together' files from specific different video driver versions to disable macrovision detection. Otherwise the stupid thing would put a big white bar across the middle of every recording.

@mjlwm23

2 ай бұрын

@@greggv8 I have lots of leitch tbc

handbrake will rip protected dvd if you download dotvideolandot org pub/libc85click win64libdvdcss-2dot dll and put it into the handbrake folder in the c drive prog files

can you sell me a macrovision remover

@12voltvids

7 жыл бұрын

Sorry I don't have one for sale.

@ChristopherSobieniak

7 жыл бұрын

Glad I still have one, not selling it anyway!

@electronman32k

6 жыл бұрын

just google schematics for one and visit your local radio shack for the parts needed to build one oh wait....

@greggv8

6 жыл бұрын

Got a schematic for one that works with S-Video, and keeps it S-Video all the way through? No funny business with combining the signal to composite, de-macro-ing, then generating a fake (and degraded) S-Video output.

@electronman32k

6 жыл бұрын

greggv8 if you just feed the luminance signal from the s-video into the macro vision box and connect the output back to the s-video's luminance line it will achieve the same effect since all the sync signals for s video reside there

Thank goodness I have GoDVD!

@ChristopherSobieniak

4 жыл бұрын

I got one still sealed!

Is this how cable companies scrambled pay-per-view channels back in the day?

@Zcooger

4 жыл бұрын

That was kinda copy protection rather than viewing protection. This is how channels were scrambled (in EU): user-images.githubusercontent.com/42012614/64849462-b6bbe280-d613-11e9-9004-c9df4055e2b6.png

there is a lot i do not understand,if the law has not changed and F.B.i either under fair share act you can make one coppy of movie. i guess boot leg is bootleg what about companies that release movies to libraries? you can see previews but not the movie it self! some one tampers so it does this! In brooklyn this happens movies out on the market and i feel you pay fore it so why cant you make a coppy Net flix you tube nothing is violated! especially frome tv untill now with all these pop up messages and logo No one is being hurt and if a person does this and is willing to share the profits? There used to be a company films incoroporated they wanted half or base rental 16mm but DVDs were comming out as well

@12voltvids

8 жыл бұрын

Copyright is copyright. You make a single copy even for backup is illegal if the rights holder has placed digital locks. That is under the new dmca. (digital Millennium copyright act). Now I am not saying that the Queen's Cowboys (that's a Canadian joke to refer to the rcmp) are going to bust you for backing up your own material, but start sharing that online or selling/giving copies and that is a different matter. Recently I discovered footage that I shot 18 year ago for a company corporate video. The company went bankrupt and the new owner figured they were in the clear to use shots from the corporate video. I found it on KZread 18 years later and I still have the master tapes the images were taken from. The video has been taken down and there are legal proceedings underway right now that could cost the company that took my images, ignorantly I might add big time. So it I taken seriously