How do you FULLY KILL macrovision?

[Phire]

Ok macrovision is starting to piss me off with the addition of other problems i have with my card.

Can someone please tell me a device that gets rid of ALL macrovision. I own an RX-II and it doesnt work very well, It clears out the macrovision distortions except the distortions sneak in every minute or so and color distortions appear alot also still.

The crack for RRG/G400 for macrovision does absoulutly nothing for my case. It just forces recording.

Or does anyone know where i can buy a VCR with no macrovision on it?

[DrMordrid]

How about some hardware to clean video of level 1 and level 2 Macrovision? It's the SIMA SCC color corrector. Videoguys sells it for $129 USD.

http://www.videoguys.com/sima.htm

Dr. Mordrid


[This message has been edited by DrMordrid (edited 03 May 2000).]

[wkulecz]

Danger Will Robinson!

I have the Sima SCC box that Doc has mentioned. The claim is it removes "level 1 and level 2 copyguard" (whatever that is!).

I can assure you it doesn't remove all "macrovision". Perhaps someone with more experience can explain the details better, but here is my experience:

I'm not a big movie fan and have very few comercially produced tapes. Given the poor quality of VHS dubs, I'd never tried recording from a mass-market tape before. We rented "The Mummy" and enjoyed the farce, the opening scene with the Pharoh's Mistress was hot and I immedieately suggested "there is next Halloween's costume" to my soon to be wife. So I tried to grab the short clip of the Pharoh's Mistress' outfit on my Marvel to file away for reference. Got the macrovision error message. No problem, I'll just move the SIMA box to the input and record it. Didn't work, still got macrovision error message. Tried recording onto a D8 tape, apparently the "macrovision, or whatever" prevents the recorder from entering record mode (even after going thru the SCC box!) I have recorded non-mass market VHS tape to D8 sucessfully, so it must be the "macrovision" causing this, not some dumb hook up error.

Conclusion:
"The Mummy" VHS tape has some copy protection scheme that the SIMA SCC can't do anything about. So don't run out and buy one unless you need one for some other reason. I've no idea if this scheme is something "new" or simply the way "macrovision" works nor how widespread it might be.

Solution:
I hooked the VCR to a system with an AIW-Pro and captured the clip wihtout problems.

If you think I "bitch" too much about Matrox, don't get me started on ATI :-)

I do recommend the SIMA SCC box if you are having color balance problems recording the output of your Marvel or want to "correct" something on capture. Videoguys service has been outstanding in my experience and their total price + S&H was close enough to the best price I could find on a web search, that I wouldn't risk trying an unknown vendor.

--wally.

[elister]

http://www.videoguys.com/sima.htm

I have both models of the Sima macrovision blockers. They seem to work well enough. I have one connected to a DVD-Rom (in the front room) to export to TV/VCR. And another one for vhs 2 vhs dubs or to export from my DVD player to my VCR.

To not use these products would make watching or renting DVDs 100% useless as none of the TVs in the house have svideo or composite inputs.

[Phire]

Do you know if the SIMA fully eliminates the macrovision? I'm having problems with this tape that has macrovision..

I currently own an RX-II and i've fiddled with its potentiometer and installed a new battery, and that doesnt help. It eliminates most of the macrovision distortions but they still sneak in every minute.. and sometimes it causes the top of the picture to turn purple or green for a frame or two, this is extremely annoying and way sensitive on video capture.. I'd actualy prefer it if the marvel dropped those frames but it seems to accept them and go into the video.

I also learned that VCRs dont have macrovision built into them, they have auto gain control and the macrovision is on the tapes.. it exploits the auto gain control. This isn't really fair to the consumer considering that even just viewing the video normally into my TV-IN triggers the macrovision. Does anyone know where i could find a vcr that has manual gain control with or without time base correction? and does anyone know what impact Auto Gain control does to the video and how it would look without it. Another question, couldnt the marvel somehow tell the vcr to NOT trigger the macrovision.. obviously there is something that triggers it becuase it doesnt start the distortions on a TV.

[wkulecz]

As I stated a comercial VHS tape of the movie "The Mummy" will not be captured by my Marvel even after going thru the SIMA SCC color corrector. I've never encountered the false macrovision problem with my G200 Marvel so I don't think mine is "over sensitive".

So unless my SIMA SCC is somehow, defective only it its copyguard removal function, the answer is a definite NO. The SIMA SCC does not "fully remove" macrovision or whatever it was that was used on "The Mummy".

--wally.

[cjyo~]

Level 1 Macrovision causes the screen to pulse from light to dark. Level 2 Macrovision (color stripe) causes pulsing horizontal color stripes through the picture. Most protected films have both.

The old (cheaper) Sima CopyMaster, which I have, eliminates the light to dark pulsing, but the color stripe remains (on a VHS tape). I don't have the new Sima box, but I assume it fixes both problems ON A VHS COPY.

If you look at a copy protected DVD on a professional monitor with a "Pulse Cross" setting, you can actually see off the edge of the video to see Level 1 and 2 encoding marks (B&W patches and colored bars on the outside of the video frame), along with Line 21 (closed caption data). The Macrovision signal is not in the video source, but is produced by your VCR or DVD player, when the video is marked to turn on Macrovision.

Although the Sima boxes allow you to make a clean VHS copy of the film (without pulsing or color bars), the Macrovision encoding marks remain on the video (outside the picture frame). I assume the DV/D8 cameras and Marvel look for these encoding marks, which remain on your "clean" VHS copy. Even if you try to run them through the Sima box, the Marvel and DV Cams will not let you record, because the Macrovision signal isn't really gone.

The Apex DVD player (and others) allow you to play a video without producing the Macrovision signal, which should theoretically allow you to record clean VHS (like the Sima) and record video on the Marvel or DV/D8 (unlike the Sima).

In my experience, I have had major problems with the Marvel falsely detecting Macrovision on my own student film/video projects on areas with quick cuts or white flashes (which occur at the beginning and end of every take in a motion picture film camera).

The only solution for this false detection is to use the Macrovision patches.

[DrMordrid]

Makes you wonder how long that Apex will be on the market if it can do that. The DVD police should be starting to circle about now....

Dr. Mordrid

[Phire]

"Level 2 Macrovision (color stripe) causes pulsing horizontal color
stripes through the picture. "

I guess this explains those green/purple horizontal bars i get at the top of the video sometime. So i guess i'll have to shell out 120$.

Few more questions to go through..

"The Macrovision signal is not in the video source, but is produced by your VCR or DVD player, when the
video is marked to turn on Macrovision.
"

Yes, but what the Macrovision is doing to apply the distortion is exploiting the Auto Gain Control.. I've heard VCRs with no Auto Gain Control can't get Macrovision distortions.

My question now is what actually causes your VCR to trigger macrovision? Does it send or recieve some type of signal from your television to verify it? Isn't there a way you could somehow trick your VCR into thinking its plugged into a TV from your computer?

[DavidHM]

Additionally, I don't know about the new Sima device, but the original Sima Copymaster did not remove copy protection enough for the Marvel. The Marvel would still detect Macrovision and refuse to record.

Before the Macrovision patches, I considered the Marvel G200 extremely flaky and unusable. Especially when you're recording for say 10 minutes and suddenly it stops recording with no warning because it picked up a bad part of the tape that it thought was Macrovision. You let it keep "recording," and then when you're done an hour later, you realize you only have 10 minutes of recording!

[mynx]

The VCR always applies the macrovision signal no matter what it is hooked up to. There isn't any detection that occurs.

[cjyo~]

<a href="http://members.fortunecity.com/videoguide/index.html">MacroV Diagram</a>

This is a rough diagram of Level 1 and 2 signals (outside the video frame). The white/grey boxes (Level 1) along the bottom pulse between black and white to activate the auto gain. I guess the stripes along the left side (Level 2) work the same way, forcing the VCR to incorrectly compensate for the strange high contrast hues.

David - Like I said, the MacroV patch was the only way for me to get anywhere with my film dailies, without the problems you describe.

If I remember correctly, I did one test (over a year ago) with the patched PD4.26/VT1.21, which allowed me to record a macrovision encoded clip with the Marvel (without the Sima), but when I output the same clip from the Marvel to tape, it still had the signals forcing AutoGain on the VCR. So I ended up hooking the Sima in between my Marvel OUT and my Record deck, which solved the light/dark pulsing problem.

The point being that the Macrovision patch doesn't remove Macrovision, it just allows the Marvel to capture it.

[This message has been edited by cjyo~ (edited 04 May 2000).]

[This message has been edited by cjyo~ (edited 04 May 2000).]

[This message has been edited by cjyo~ (edited 04 May 2000).]

[This message has been edited by cjyo~ (edited 04 May 2000).]

[Technoid]

There must have been some confusion on the differense between DVD and VHS somwhere down the line!

On a DVD disk there is no Macrovision at all: it's added by the player either standalone or for an example an matrox card with tv out, on computers the macrovision won't be added if the software doesent recognise the dvd movie as a dvd movie (ie ripped ).

On VHS tapes the macrovision is added to the material.
VHS players has a compensator on the output system, but not on the input recording systems. (English is not my first language and a more exact description is beoynd my abilitys at this hour )

I had an old thompson toploaded VCR that was alergic to any new movie that had any copy protection scheme, they all looked like 3d generation copy's

If you could get two VCR to stand comunication over the RF out and in line you probably would get rid of macrovision togheter witrh quality and stereo sound

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INTEL PIII550 MSI 6163
G400Mill 32MB SGRAM + RRG
SBlive
256 MB RAM CAS2
43GB HDD Space!(Actual 40GB) (13+30 Quantum drives)
Pioneer 104S DVD 10x CD 40x SLOT IN
SONY CRX100E 4/2/24 CDRW

[Migou]

Phire:
On some old videos, there's an adjustment of the AGC ( automatic gain control) ... some reported that with some adjustment, you could limit the macrovision effect..
I've tried it without succes on an old vcr...
AGC is present on ANY VCR, it's purpose is to keep the level of the video signal recorded at about the same level.. so the contrast ( brightness) on the tape won't vary if you record different tv channels, from 2 different sources, or simply to even a signal that has a lot of contrast changes ,etc..

Macrovision level 1 ( pulsating dark image) adds DC pulses to mislead the AGC...and make the VCR think the signal level is too high.

this macrovision IS present IN the video signal of rented tapes. The VCR doesn't know if then video it processes is protected or not... The AGC in it just does it's job.

if you remove AGC, you may have poor quality recording of normal video.

Also, Macrovision , since it's added to the video, WILL be present on the RFout of the VCR, again, doing it's job...

On DVD, macrovision is GENERATED by the Graphic card used to output the video to the TV...
for exemple on the matrox g400 dual head, it's the MATROX that receives the command to turn on macrovision and adds it to the video sent by the DVD player...
The command is present in the navigation files on the DVD, that's why if you rip one without those files ( .ifo) and play only the .VOB , you won't have macrovision... ( if you rip the COMPLETE DVD, you WILL still enable macrovision if you play it in the same maneer as a real DVD )
i've read that Video cards manufacturers that have the Videoout ability in their cards, MUST apply macrovision when a player sends the command...

hope it helps

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Hardware:
Maxtrox Marvel G400-TV AGP.....|.Windows 98 SE
PII 400 Mhz ( no overclock )......|.Maxtor 9.1 Gb (IDE)
Asus P2B...............................|.Western Digital 8.4 Gb (IDE)
256 Meg RAM..........................|.Maxtor 27.2 Gb (IDE)
SB16 AWE32...........................|.Lexmark 7000
Cable Modem



[This message has been edited by Migou (edited 06 May 2000).]

[pederbc]

I'm not sure how you do it, but using the patched files for the VT it will absolutely tear off the MV! I use this a lot, both from DVD and VHS. You don't need to capture, just start the VCR program (vith the parched files), hook up DVD or VHS to the input and another VHS to the output. Works foolproof! and you can copy that "copy" without problem (except quality). I found this out when I was using the IOMEGA BUZ (which didn't have any MV protection in it at all).
Another good way of copying DVD is to use the Creative's DXR3 card to which there is a couple of MV removal programs to. This is a cheap and good quality player.