Killing that #$@*ing Macrovision!

Factual Questions
1

I just purchased a video that I’ve wanted to see for years:
“The Castle of Cagliostro” directed by the sublime Miyazaki. It seemed potentially perfect: Letterboxed and subtitled, IMHO the perfect way to see foreign films.

However.

The idiot company who released the video tape put Macrovision copy protection “for my benefit” on the %&$ing tape. This means:
#1 to watch the thing (and every time I want to watch it again), I have to dig behind all my stereo equipment and rewire my VCR to go directly to my TV, I can’t have my DVD in between, or all I can see is green flashes.

#2) After doing said rewiring, apparently my RCA cables were too long, as I still got the protection bleeding through.

#3) After going out and buying new cables, there was still a tiny bit of Macrovision bleed through (I tried on 2 different VCRs and two TVs). Normally, I wouldn’t mind a bit of distortion, it can be ignored…except when it’s about 2/3ds of the way down the screen…on a subtitled film, rendering the subtitles unreadable. I can’t return the video, it was a special order (I’ve got no hard feelings for the dealer, I was warned in advance that it was unreturnable).

This isn’t the first time I’ve had this happen with Macrovision “protected” films, although this is the worst case I’ve experienced.

I’ve seen ads in the back of magazines, and on the web for devices that apparently “break” or “remove” Macrovision. Has anyone tried them? What were your results?

Is there any other way to disable this stupid copy-protection? I’m not trying to pirate the damn thing, just watch it.

Thanks

Fenris

2

‘I’ve seen ads in the back of magazines, and on the web for devices that apparently “break” or “remove”
Macrovision. Has anyone tried them? What were your results?’

Yes, they work, but we can’t encourage using them :wink:
Some vcrs are immune to it.

3

I promise that I’m not using the thing to pirate movies. Why would I want to? I already paid for the video. I just want to watch it.
If I acknowledge that with great power comes great responsiblity and promise to only use the device for good (like watching subtitled Miyazaki films), can you recommend any specific brand? Can you tell me anything I should look for in an ad?

Steve

4

i think they sell these at radio shack. they are called vcr “picture signal enhancers”

5

I have one, it says on the box that its for clearer Closed Captions. Works for that too. There was a time macrovision would take the captions off because, as you noticed, if you run the signal thru too many boxes [like the closed captioning box] it’ll show macrovision protection [black & white bars on the top during FF]…

So, those that mention clearer closed captions ought to do it.