OT/Old Recordings/Shameless Plug

----- Original Message ----- From: "chris" &lt;mythtech(a)mac.com&gt; To: "Classic Computer" &lt;cctalk(a)classiccmp.org&gt; Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2002 7:05 AM Subject: Re: OT/Old Recordings/Shameless Plug <SNIP> Pretty much any copy protection system for video can be defeated by putting a time base corrector in the analogue signal path between the source and whatever you are recording it on. When I worked in television and helical scan Umatic (3/4") stuff started to appear, we had to feed it through a TBC to make it presentable for on air. This also sorts out any form of copy protection, since the signal has to be playable on a common or garden tv set, not a lot you can do to it without rendering it unwatchable without special hardware. TBC's used to cost a packet, (the one we had was worth around $20kAU at late 70's prices and was the size of a big desktop pc.) now they are a single chip and any half decent camcorder has a much better one. Some systems can also be defeated by looping the signal through an old beta machine, then feeding it to your vhs box. (The beta I have neatly regenerates the syncs, getting around the commonly employed sync amplitude variation protection system by replacing them with normal .3v sync pulses.) You can recognise this method by the slow cyclic variation in picture brightness in a copied tape. You can get external TBC's for a few hundred bucks these days. Note that they work on the analogue video signal, direct digital to digital is an entirely different can of worms. <SNIP> Geoff in Oz