Copyright bypass, anybody tried this??

[Traderx25]

Hi, I just switched from ATI Radeon Aiw to Matrox G450-eTV to my biggest dissappointment, the blasted copyright protection. None of the help or hacks in here seem to help. When viewing some copyrighted material, the whole video got some kind of copy-guard thing and washed the whole screen with blinkin color mess.

Very dissappointed.

However, I've heard and seen in the past they sell those copy-guard filter boxes, that allows a pass-thru for filtering those copy-guard videos and does not make the video look bad or have those brightness + contrast problems.

Has anybody tried those pass-thru boxes or have experience with them???

[Traderx25]

Thank you for your review of these things. I ordered a SIMA Copyguard and hopefully it will do what it claims, that is give me a clear, un-distorted, and clean picture without all those mess.

That should allow my G450eTV to capture videos without the copyprotection in the drivers.

[Mike_wdf]

Yes, I have one of this things, called 'Video enhancer' with scart-in and scart-out connector. It allows to copy from DVD-player to VHS, or from DVD/VHS to my Marvel G400. No problems, excellent video quality. By capturing from VHS it is necessary to use it for me (doesn't matter if the tape is copyrighted or not), because of the buggy macrovision guard included in the matrox capture drivers.
The price - about 80 german marks ~ 38$.
Mike

[Dr Mordrid]

SIMA's SCC is better and eliminates more versions of the Macrovision protection.

Dr. Mordrid

[Traderx25]

Just got a SIMA Copyguard, it doesn't do jack for the Matrox G450eTV. DVD, bad tapes, and macrovision enabled tapes. No good. I better go return this piece of crap.

Does the SIMA SCC work?

[LvR]

I have a VITEC 9000 unit keeping an eTV happy.

------------------
Lawrence

[cjyo~]

I have the cheap SIMA box and it never did anything for my Marvel G200 - it still detected real and false Macrovision (old/noisy tapes). The SIMA boxes are mainly for making ANALOG tapes - a Macrovision tape to tape or laser disc to tape copy. The more expensive SIMA box (SCC?) does work to make analog tape copies of DVDs, but again does nothing for the Marvel. Even the high-end SIMA doesn't allow you to copy DVD or older macrovision encoded video to a DV cam - the camera has similar copy protection detection (like the Marvels). A side note - I have an old Apex DVD player which allows you to turn off Macrovision. With the Apex, I can make a DVD copy to tape, DV camera or Marvel without any patches. (Of course, the Apex has otherwise very mediocre picture quality.)

This is why people are interested in Macrovision software patches.