macrovison killers

[ChristineCB]

I sort of wish we'd asked Norman which of his tapes were afflicted with the Macrovision stuff. I tried to do still-captures of my INVISIBLE MAN tape once and found the Macrovision prevented THAT! Jiminy. Boy, we're so lucky - no telling how many billions I could have kept Universal from making by me selling a still of Claude Rains, all bundled up, trudging thru the snow.

[Norma Wisdom]

Thanks for that JohnB -I've pm'd you again!

[Norma Wisdom]

Sorry ChristineB It's 'Mr Love' and I bought the NTSC tape from America. I think it was an ex-library or rental copy - which explains the fierce copy-protection. By the way it is a Warner Bros tape.

[ChristineCB]

And of course it doesn't seem to have a DVD version available. Of course... grrr...

[Norma Wisdom]

Yes - and it's a lovely, gentle British comedy. A fellow forum-member is trying to work her 'magic' on all the nasties; but if she does not succeed - it won't be for the want of trying! I'll let you know what happens -TTFN.

[JohnB_Toronto]

The good news regarding your tape is that there's no difference between the Macrovision that's applied to a library or rental tape and that which is applied to any other retail copy. An image stabilizer unit will handle it very easily. I borrow NTSC tapes and discs from the library or rental stores here all the time and there's never any difference between transferring these and transferring a regular retail copy. Macrovision is an independent company that sells its system to the tape manufacturers who would have no knowledge of who the eventual buyer would be - libraries or consumers.

The protection works in two ways - it throws off the vertical hold while also causing flashes or surges in the strength of the colour signal... like someone cranking the TV's colour knob up and down. It's a single system so whether it's sold to Warners or MGM or Universal or whoever, the protection is the same for all of them. It's not as if there's a Warner version and an MGM version etc etc. The only people who have their own system are the good folks at Sony, who wreck your Windows installation with their Aarcos protection system if you try and copy their discs (fortunately Fab Decrypter solves the Aarcos problem).

Macrovision is expensive to licence, which is why you're more likely to see it on new big hits than on releases of older, collector-type films with a more limited market, or on budget labels.

By the way, the reason there are no longer any new versions of DVD DeCrypter available on the Internet is that they were bought out by the said Macrovision company for the sole purpose of shutting them down. It seems Decrypter was doing a better job of cracking than Macrovision was doing its job of protecting.

The key to transferring between PAL and NTSC is to remember that there are three separate and completely unrelated factors, each requiring its own separate solution:

A) PAL/NTSC signal conversion - not much problem for most of you in the UK because your players seem to be universally multi-system. Conversion can also be handled at the IFO/VOB level with IFOedit software (thanks for that tip, Alex). After decrypting the DVD, IFOedit lets you can go in and edit the line of code that designates the IFO file's PAL or NTSC preference. When you create the ISO file from those IFO and VOB files and then burn it to disc, the resulting disc will be in the edited format.

B) Region Coding. Not much technical about it. A pure marketing gimmick and nothing whatsoever to do with PAL or NTSC formatting as many think. It's the insertion of a single digit code at the start of the datastream on DVDs that limits their playing to the regions of the world where they were licenced to be sold. It's solved by "hacking" the player to make it region-free or else transferring the disc while removing the region code. It's a fact that most NTSC discs are region 1 and most PAL are region 2 but there's nothing to prevent the issuance of a PAL region 1 disc or an NTSC region 2. The only thing stopping it is who'd want to buy it? Still, the two are unrelated factors when it comes to transferring discs or tapes. Making a disc region free is not the same as converting its format (PAL or NTSC). Shrink and Decrypter both remove the region code.

C) Copy protection - requires some sort of filter. Either a software filter (like Shrink or Decrypter) when you're using a computer for the transfer ... or, such as in the case of tape transfers or other player-to-player transfers, a hardware appliance (a black box) that removes the encryption as the signal passes between the two machines. This is where you'd use the digital image stabilizer than I mentioned in my earlier post.

If you're playing discs from various regions on your computer, remember you can only re-set the region code on your drive 7(?) times before it locks you out from any more changes. Best solution? Get yourself region-free DVD player software such as DVD X Player ... it plays PAL and NTSC from any region using your computer without ever having to change the DVD drive's region setting. My drive was factory set to NTSC. It's never been re-set and I play my region 1, 2 and 4 films all the time, which is why I can never remember how many region changes I'm allowed on the drive. I've never had to look it up or keep count.
http://www.dvd-x-player.com/

On this side of the pond all this nonsense has become a bit of a daily event for those of us who collect British movies on tape or disc and who've had to jump through hoops to get our hardware and software setups "just-so". I think we all envy you in the UK having such easy access to multi-format systems and players. Anyway, feel free to PM me if any of you have any questions and I'll try to help.

[Norma Wisdom]

Great News!
The transfer has been a success - 'Mr Love' anyone??

[ron7885]

how to change region codes on dvd players, on your computer,type in dvd player hackers list,this list will tell you which players you can change region codes on,philips,cyberhome and rca,are the easy to do for the most part,on the other hand panasonic are not adaptable for change on most of their dvd players. why buy a region free playe,when you do it yourself free.cheers ronald larkin

[lordtednfs]

If you are looking for a "macrovision killer" Amazon sell them very cheaply from 15.99 and upwards. Go to Amazon.co.uk: Used and New: HQ Macro-Plus Copy Decoder for definetly the cheapest I have found so far.

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