My SO and I have been trying to find a copy of a movie for several years now.
Last month, we found one online. Yeehaa. Happy days.
The tape arrives, we pop it into the VCR and…
High squeaky voices and no video. Drat. Drat.
Let me guess, I totally forgot to check if this was European (PAL??) or US(NTSC??) format. I think I have the terms right.
I actually do need to buy a new VCR anyway. Can anyone recommend a VCR available in the US that plays both PAL and NTSC?
Find your local Indian restaurant or Indian appliance store, they will be able to tell you where to go to get it transferred.
It’s probably not worth the expense of buying a multisystem VCR just to watch one tape. However, lots of video places offer format conversion for a relatively small fee… You might want to look in the yellow pages to see if there’s anyplace in your area offering this service.
Incidentally, the above may not be an option, if the tape to be converted is protected with Macrovision copy protection. In that case, you’ll likely have to purchase a multisystem VCR. You can probably find one on eBay for a decent price, if you decide to go that route.
The television system used in the US is NTSC. The one used here in the UK and many parts of Europe (some exceptions) is PAL. You can read more about these two systems if you want by Googling on terms like ‘PAL NTSC’ or ‘world television standards’:
http://www.michaeldvd.com.au/Articles/PALvsNTSC/PALvsNTSC.asp
Here in the UK, there are still some VCRs that will only play PAL tapes, but the majority of modern-day machines on sale will play either PAL or NTSC tapes, and it’s certainly easy to go to the store and specify this requirement. Over there in the US, this isn’t the case. Most VCRs are still NTSC only, as the manufacturers claim there really isn’t much demand for dual standard machines over there.
You can buy a new VCR that plays both PAL and NTSC tapes, but you will have to do some phoning around and shopping around to find a dealer who actually understands what you’re talking about and can sell you the right kind of machine. Golden rule: take the tape you want to play along to the store and ask the guy to demonstrate that it will play in the machine he’s trying to sell you. No demo, no sale.
It’s only worth buying this kind of dual-standard machine if this need is going to arise regularly. Otherwise, you have a few choices.
One is to get the tape itself copied using a Standards Converter to convert the signal from NTSC to PAL. There are lots of facilities houses and production places that can do this for you. The total cost is usually a low fixed set-up fee plus an additional charge which varies according to the duration of the material you want copied. If the material is under copyright, well, some places will refuse to do it and others will just ‘ask no questions’ and turn a blind eye. If you can plead an honest case that you just want it copied for your own personal viewing pleasure and you aren’t trying to sell it or make money off it, this doesn’t actually make it any less illegal but it does sometimes sway the decision of the people at the facilities house. Sometimes they’ll do the work and ask you not to tell anyone they did it.
Another option, which might be easier or cheaper, is to find a video editing card which can go into your computer and which can decode a PAL signal to play, or can convert from PAL to NTSC. You play the tape on to your hard disk and watch the item on your computer. You may need a lot of hard disk capacity to do this.
Another option, obviously, is to give up on your PAL version and try to find an NTSC copy of the same material.
Another option is to take a vacation in Europe somewhere and watch the tape in someone’s machine while you’re over here.
Think about that for a minute. 
Hmm, this option is sounding good. 
Any decent video technician should be able to strip off the Macrovision before copying the tape.
Which is illegal.
But it’s okay to pay to have a copy made?
Possibly. Or not. Whether it is or not, depends on the copyright of the original. I’m no international copyright expert, though. Yes, it’s a big ol’ can of worms, isn’t it?
How do you figure that?
The DMCA makes it illegal to sell or manufacture devices that defeat Macrovision, but I’m sure plenty of them are still around from before the DMCA was passed. Even without a specific Macrovision-stripping device, it’s still easy to defeat Macrovision by copying the video to another format and back.
This page contains excerpts from a statement by the Copyright Office indicating that it’s not a violation of the DMCA to circumvent Macrovision:
I’m unaware of any other law that would make it illegal to strip Macrovision signals.
Your interpretation of the DMCA is contrary to its wording:
I do not wish to get into a debate regarding the interpretation of the above in this forum. To me, this clearly makes it illegal to circumvent Macrovision protection, and I stand by my previous statement.
[size=1]Bolding mine.**
I must disagree. First off, it’s the Library of Congress’s interpretation, not mine. And their point is that Macrovision isn’t “a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title” - copy protection and access control are two separate things.
Macrovision makes the signal from my VCR unstable on occasion. To avoid this, I have a gadget that strengthens the sync signal, making the output look like it was originally intended and copy-protection free. Oooo – I’m illegal.
My gadget. I think I’ll keep her.
Regarding the legality of making copies at all, I suspect video art follows the same “fair use” rules as other forms of intellectual property, and making a copy for this purpose must be a fair use (similar to making a backup copy of software).
As for the Macrovision protection, I suppose someone might think it illegal to strip it off in order to allow the purchaser to view the thing at all, but again, if the user is making exactly one copy for personal use, I doubt anyone would complain.
(Sure, someone could steal the unprotected copy and make a bazillion more copies, so I guess Hollywood might protest. But I’m hard pressed to find an ethical reason to stick with the letter of the law on this one.)