Does anyone know what kind of copy protection is employed by a VHS copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 25th Anniversary Edition? The GREX can't handle it whatever it is. Another movie giving me trouble is Star Trek First Contact. For another example of a problematic movie, there is Alice in Wonderland, the animated one by Disney.
Considering I have a right to play these tapes privately as many times as I want on as many VCRs as I want, it stands to reason that I should be allowed to copy them to a personal DVD or to a personal computer. As long as I don't give away or sell the copies, these are just backups in more convenient formats. Though I am trying to save space, I am keeping the original VHS tapes for proof of purchase. A computer with a large hard drive is easier to work with than a pile of DVDs or a pile of VHS tapes, so there is a convenience issue as well as a space issue. VCRs are going away, so there is an issue of losing access to this media entirely if something isn't done. Is there any way to hook a VCR up to a Linux system directly to get around copy protection schemes that the GREX doesn't handle? Macrovision isn't the only scheme in widespread use. I think the VHS DVD combo recorder that I have, which I am feeding video to via component jacks, GREX in the feed, from an external VCR, is getting anti copy codes from some tapes. This suggests a scheme(s) that the GREX is not designed to handle. I need to know whether the undefeated scheme(s) are video or audio schemes. I also need to know if there are reasonably priced hardware devices that defeat them. Barring a hardware solution, is there a Linux compatible software solution? Out of about 100 tapes, I have maybe 10 that didn't copy. Is there any way to fight industry use of anti copying technology? One of the reasons to stay away from Windows 7, digital restrictions management. I have heard horror stories of people not being allowed to access their own personal movies. The industry by and large has the computers belonging to most people wasting CPU cycles to determine whether or not they should be permitted to view a particular media source. This in my opinion is not what most people buy a computer for. If more people knew what Windows 7 is doing and they knew about Linux which is DRM free, I bet there would be more Linux users. _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
