wisny: I have had my Filter plugged in since I got it..over a year ago and it is cool to the touch.

As far as your recordings, I have experimented with setting the video aspect for the TV, as well as my TV remote's zoom button and DVD player zoom and aspect setting...with the purpose of filling the screen and getting rid of bars as much as possible. I do use the 4:3 as well as my 16:9 screen TV. The best seemed to be as far as playing...is for the DVD Player to be set to the wide TV aspect. This showed 16:9 as it should be and if I watched the small screen, this made the DVD fill the screen with the center okay and the sides off.

My experiments were with commercial DVDs...that had full screen, wide screen, enhanced for wide screen. Full had no problem with small or wide screen. a widescreen 1:85:1 DVD will fill the screen without bars but a widescreen 2:35:1 will have bars on either screen and I had to use my Zoom to fill the screen on playback. The numbers I mention are what is written on the DVD jacket. So if I buy a widescreen DVD...I would prefer the 1:85:1.

You might try these buttons (zoom) (wide)..whatever your TVs have and DVD player has on its remote and see if your dubbed DVD can look more normal on one or the other or both tvs. Also, trying the setting of the DVD player's TV aspect to the 16:9 and playing it on both tvs.

wisny: I have had my Filter plugged in since I got it..over a year ago and it is cool to the touch.

As far as your recordings, I have experimented with setting the video aspect for the TV, as well as my TV remote's zoom button and DVD player zoom and aspect setting...with the purpose of filling the screen and getting rid of bars as much as possible. I do use the 4:3 as well as my 16:9 screen TV. The best seemed to be as far as playing...is for the DVD Player to be set to the wide TV aspect. This showed 16:9 as it should be and if I watched the small screen, this made the DVD fill the screen with the center okay and the sides off.

My experiments were with commercial DVDs...that had full screen, wide screen, enhanced for wide screen. Full had no problem with small or wide screen. a widescreen 1:85:1 DVD will fill the screen without bars but a widescreen 2:35:1 will have bars on either screen and I had to use my Zoom to fill the screen on playback. The numbers I mention are what is written on the DVD jacket. So if I buy a widescreen DVD...I would prefer the 1:85:1.

You might try these buttons (zoom) (wide)..whatever your TVs have and DVD player has on its remote and see if your dubbed DVD can look more normal on one or the other or both tvs. Also, trying the setting of the DVD player's TV aspect to the 16:9 and playing it on both tvs.



Thankyou, microladyusa :). I agree with all, my Video Filter is still cool to the touch, I haven't unplugged it since I received it.

On the aspect part of your conversation, are you saying this is how you get the picture to show up so that it fills your whole screen, but the people aren't squished?

I have not had squished people. My problem has been to get rid of bars as best I can.

You might try setting your DVD player to 4:3 TV aspect and seeing how your DVD disc looks. Also you could try 4:3 Pan and Scan to fill the screen and the final try is 16:9. I would try all 3 on the player to view on your 4:3 TV and see what difference you see on playing the DVDs on that TV.

for the widescreen, again I would try setting the player again and see the difference in all 3 settings to see if any shows unsquished people.

Another thought is to copy from the VHS using the aspect ratio of 4:3. This might produce a recording not squished to begin with and then it should look normal on the small TV and you can stretch it and see what it looks like on the big one.

I don't really know how you have set your recording and TV aspects on your DVD recorder and if you are looking at the small TV doing all this or doing it all using the wide screen TV. Do your original tapes look okay on the small tv? What do they look like if you play the tape on the bigger TV screen? What does your new DVD copy look like on the small TV screen? on the bigger TV screen?

Anyone have current info on where to order the Video Filter from?

http://home.roadrunner.com/~filter/

A real interesting thing happened last weekend. My current project is converting my wife's work-out VHS tapes to DVDs. These things have CP of some kind on them because the machine (a Panasonic DMR EH75) won't copy them without a device on the video signal. Well, yesterday I discovered a VHS tape that would not copy even with my trusty Video Filter in line. The other tapes did, but the one would not--tried it twice! I replaced the Video Filter with my Sima, and then the copy worked. I have no explanation. This is the first time such a thing as happened, maybe the first time such a thing has been reported? Well I went back to using the Video filter, and about 20 tapes later, the same thing happened, a tape would not copy using it, but did using the Sima. I can't imagine what might be "special" about those particular tapes. I would have thought that the CP on VHS tapes would be pretty easy to defeat.

With the first tape, it got part way through, maybe 25 minutes or so, then the recorder went into pause mode for most of the remainder of the tape. It seemed to unpause for the closing credits. The recording had an icon that (on page 40 of the EH75 manual) says, "Title that was not recorded due to recording protection (Digital broadcasts, etc.)" The second tape caused the recorder to go into pause immediately. I never checked to see if it would ever unpause by itself.

Weird!

Interesting...perhaps the creator will respond to this. There is a thread in this forum from 2005 where apparently Panasonics were most likely to be too picky on copying and the creator did do tests and said the Panasonic Units only honors the Copy Always command if the video doesn't have the Macrovision Colorburst phase shift scheme. The AGC Maco protection is handled without a problem by the filter. He did tests with a DMR-ES10. Although it seemed the problem then was DVD to DVD. He was going to see if anything could be done about Panasonics in future revisions of the Filter. I don't know what the result was since mine does work but then I am not using a Panasonic.

Did your filter work to copy other VHS tapes using the Panasonic?
Sometimes I read in forums where members have had problem when they worked with exercise VHS tapes..don't know if they are recorded any differently than other commercial VHS tapes.

From the message you got, it certainly looks as though with these particular tapes, the Panasonic is ignoring the copy flag. I have only read of this happening with Panasonic (in year 2005 posts).

You might try the copy on a machine other than Panasonic and see how the filter handles the same tape on a different player. Interesting to see your Sima came to the rescue here. Will be interested to see other responses you get to this.

Also interesting is the fact that some tapes were okay with the filter but not all of them. Wonder if the ones that were not were from the same company as the ones that did work on the Panasonic.

Definitely...a mystery here....calling all sleuths....
(I would have ended with a picture face but can't find where to pick one out). I see at the bottom that Smilies are enabled..but never saw how to get one.

microladyusa

1) Did your filter work to copy other VHS tapes using the Panasonic?
My Video Filter has worked flawlessly until now. I have copied many VHS tapes with no problem. I have made backups of many DVDs, and even UK and Italian region 2 PAL DVDs with no problem. This was the first time EVER that it has not worked for me.

2) You might try the copy on a machine other than Panasonic and see how the filter handles the same tape on a different player.
This sounds like a good plan. I have finished the project, and all 40+ of the tapes are back on my wife's shelf. I am waiting to make the DVDs. The tape contents are all in my recorder on the HDD, and I have to edit out the useless stuff and title them properly. The trick now will be to find the bad tapes again (2 out of 40):)

3) Also interesting is the fact that some tapes were okay with the filter but not all of them. Wonder if the ones that were not were from the same company as the ones that did work on the Panasonic.
All the tapes were from the same company, but there is no guarantee that the tapes themselves were made by the same sub-contractor. SOme were in paper sleeves, some in plastic, but that means nothing too.

I guess a clue to finding the 2 tapes would be...you said the first one was discovered the day before you posted here. Check your HDD drive for what you recorded on that particular date in the area where these files are to see if you get a clue as to the title of the VHS tape. I assume your HDD does post creation file dates...that might be a shorter way to the first tape. And since you mentioned 40 tapes....I think I would be inclined to just check out the first one that hopefully can be found rather quickly...and check it out on another machine. If the tape still has a problem with the VF but not the Sima...there is an answer in that. If the tape and VF do not have a problem...another answer exists. If the tape and VF AND Sima have a problem...well, then...we have created another question, haven't we? (smile).

If the results are that the tape has a problem with the VF but not the Sima....and you said the other tapes had no problem (other than that pesky one later on....) it just might be that those 2 particular tapes were recorded using a different machine than the other tapes, at the manufacturing place, and if so, then there is no answer because you would not know exactly what the different machine was.

It is frustrating to have a piece of equipment work flawlessly and so come to depend on that result...and then have something trip it up for some unknown reason.

Like I said, maybe the creator, Logic Design, has some answer since you could ask why did the Sima work and the VF not work on the same tape. I assume by creating the VF he looked into how other similar devices were created.

Would be interested in your trial on another machine but also do understand if you just say...the heck with it..now that it is done.
And just wonder.........

I'll look into it.

I guess a clue to finding the 2 tapes would be...you said the first one was discovered the day before you posted here. Check your HDD drive for what you recorded on that particular date in the area where these files are to see if you get a clue as to the title of the VHS tape. I assume your HDD does post creation file dates...that might be a shorter way to the first tape. And since you mentioned 40 tapes....I think I would be inclined to just check out the first one that hopefully can be found rather quickly...and check it out on another machine. If the tape still has a problem with the VF but not the Sima...there is an answer in that. If the tape and VF do not have a problem...another answer exists. If the tape and VF AND Sima have a problem...well, then...we have created another question, haven't we? (smile).

If the results are that the tape has a problem with the VF but not the Sima....and you said the other tapes had no problem (other than that pesky one later on....) it just might be that those 2 particular tapes were recorded using a different machine than the other tapes, at the manufacturing place, and if so, then there is no answer because you would not know exactly what the different machine was.

It is frustrating to have a piece of equipment work flawlessly and so come to depend on that result...and then have something trip it up for some unknown reason.

Like I said, maybe the creator, Logic Design, has some answer since you could ask why did the Sima work and the VF not work on the same tape. I assume by creating the VF he looked into how other similar devices were created.

Would be interested in your trial on another machine but also do understand if you just say...the heck with it..now that it is done.
And just wonder.........
I eventually found one of the tapes that triggered the CP in my EH75. It is completely consistent in that at exactly 42 minutes into a 60 minute workout, the EH75 stops with a protected content warning message. I ran this through several times, and it stopped at the same spot each time. Ther was nothing noticeable about that spot on the tape. At least not to me. (I m using a second EH75 as a VHS playback machine. Hey, it was convenient...:))

Taking your suggestion, I got another VHS playback device, in this case, a JVC combo unit and, SURPRISE, using the Video Filter, I was able to make a copy of the whole tape without incident. I don't know if this is unusual or not, but my EH75 DID stop with a CP error when I used any kind of transport control other than play. If I put the tape into pause, fast play forward, or fast play reverse, the EH75 immediately said the content was copy protected.

So, I wonder what the EH75 playback was doing that allowed the CP to slip through the Video Filter, but only at that exact point, on that tape, and presumably at some precise point on the other tape. There was a very small amount of "tearing" at the bottom of the screen, but I could only see it using the HDMI output, the composite output cropped the image a bit so it was not visable. I didn't check the component or S-Vide outputs.