[kwlug-disc] are you going to be a criminal?

[unsolicited]

John Johnson wrote, On 06/05/2010 10:27 PM:
> At 21:23 2010-06-05, you wrote:
>> I was not stretching it.
> 
> Point taken. And to be fair, I think there was talk at one point about 
> putting a lock signal in the NTSC output of a VHS tape that would be 
> picked up by another VCR to prevent copying. I do not how far this idea 
> made it into the wild.

I'm trying to remember the specifics, thus my question in the other 
post. But ...

It was never in the NTSC, but has been present in devices for a very 
long time now. With a protected tape (Macrovision?), you cannot go to 
another (VHS?) recording device. Even, e.g., you play out from the VCR 
to the TV, and out from the TV to another VCR, the TV is passing 
through the protection (I forget whether it's a signal, a flag, a 
what, but - remember, this is an analogue medium, still, at this 
point.) [Even so, IIRC, the Rogers boxes wouldn't pass some received 
NTSC to a recording device / VCR, or something. Not sure whether that 
was an NTSC thing, I don't think so, or a Rogers thing. (Likely.) It's 
been so long.]

I know I copied what few VHS tapes I wanted. I tried from my VCR into 
my PVR (this is all S-video, by the way) - but I don't remember 
whether I gave up because it wouldn't copy, or because I didn't like 
the result, in terms of buying me anything / being useful. [I know I 
did it from my digital tape camcorder to the PVR - I suspect because I 
was looking for a DVD result, at the time.]

I did copy from a VHS hooked up to my Hauppauge USB-PVR2, 
successfully. I don't remember if that's because it was one of the few 
or only ways that worked, or that because, really, only a hard disk 
version was ultimately desired / useful. (Which may be why I didn't do 
this on the PVR - a hard disk .mpg result being far more useful than 
having a disc lying around.)