Okay, I recently had a new roommate move into my apartment. Her TV is bigger than mine is, so we decided that hers would go in the living room, and with it, her DVD player. I should mention that her television is one of those annoying TV/VCR combos.
In hooking up the DVD player, I use an RF Modulator because the TV/VCR doesn’t have A/V inputs anywhere. Some DVD’s play just fine on the thing. I throw in my Depeche Mode One Night in Paris DVD or Black Hawk Down and everything’s just groovy.
However, when I put in some discs (Say Anything, Chasing Amy, Clerks, etc.), it looks like there is some kind of copy protection problem where the picture slowly goes really bright and then gets dark.
So why do some DVD’s work just fine while others look copy protected? Do some discs just have an extra measure of copy protection so I can’t copy them onto video? Is there anything I can do about this short of getting rid of the TV?
I believe it could just be because she is using a tv/vcr combo. It sounds like the Macrovision protection has kicked in. This would only happen when you run into a VCR then into a TV. It’s to stop people being (reasonably) able to watch a movie copied from DVD to VHS. I assume that because it is a single box, there is no option to feed directly into the TV.
You can get Macrovision boxes (or build them). I’ve only seen one, and it worked ok, but as this is circumventing the copy protection, I am not sure the Mods would like me to be any more specific. In fact, they can delete this whole paragraph if they so wish… with advance apologies from me.
A question though. How did she get it working before she moved in to your place? If both the TV and the DVD player were hers, surely she had some protected DVDs in her collection.
From the Indiana State Univeristy Media Services Dept:
“If the video signal from the DVD player has to go through a VCR player to get to the TV, the copy-protection applied to some DVD programs could affect picture quality. If you still experience problems after checking your connections, please try connecting your DVD player directly to your TV’s S-video input, if your TV is equipped with this input.”
Some dvds don’t have copy protection. Anyway, I know there is another kind of tv-RF switch, its pricey about
$29 that you use for this kind of situation. Try your TV store. It’s a legal type of box too. It doesnt
take the copy protection off, but allows you to use your player through RF. Haven’t tried one myself
but I saw them at the store.