Macrovision-free VCRs

I know both my JVC models HR-S3911U from 2002 and HR-S5912U from 2003 can have another VCR or DVD player input a macovision infected signal into the line in and pass the signal out just fine as long as the VCR is not in record mode.

Perhaps most of the newer models will pass through fine but I can only vouch for my newer model JVCs.

A modulator saves more energy.

Also, I've never heard that a SuperBetamax/Video8 deck have had problems with Macrovision.

My 2 Superbeta decks from 1985 and 1 Beta deck from 1984 will have problems dealing with macrovision signals – the screen will flash bright / dark and in fact even when not recording and just passing a line in macro infected signal will flash bright / dark.

Gee, thanks for the answer, now I could say that a (Sony) Video8 deck probably will have the same behavior.

I believe there are older betamax decks with AGC circuitry that will have no problem or ill effects from macrovision but by 1984 Sony had to give in I guess.

Yes my '82 Betamaxes not only allowed passthru of MV sources but when installed between two VHS machines they would allow the second to record MV protected tapes.
Funny thing I found out when trying to dub those second generation VHS tapes to DVD, I got the CP warning on my DVDRs The second generation tapes played just fine by themselves but I couldn't copy them to DVD without the aid of my Sima CT-2 digital CP remover.
AFA the OPs original question, sorry I don't know the model numbers but my late 90s Samsung VCRs would modulate a CP'd signal but by the early 00's they wouldn't work even for passthru. Personally I agree with profhat, RF modulators can be had for <$20, are much smaller and take less power but to each his own I guess.

This should be the perfect thread to ask a question i have been wondering about for years.
I had a neighbor back in the late 80's who claimed that if you have 2 VCR's of the SAME make AND model,that you can dub CP'd movies from one deck to the other w/o problem.He claimed that he had done it several times,but i was never able to confirm it.He said also that if he tried to make a copy of the copy on a VCR of a diff.make/model,then he could not make a copy because the Macrovision carried to the 1st.gen.copy.
Anybody know if this was true or not??? was he just BS'n me?? anxious to finally find out the truth.

Can't see how it'd happen the way he described.

The copy-protection would still be there, being "given off" by the playback machine.

The recording machine wouldn't know it was getting the signal from its own "twin". All it'd be seeing is a video signal with copy-guard.

Some copy-guard methods didn't work that well, however. He may have only used tapes from "a certain source" which were known for being easy to copy.

He said that the Macrovision would carry over to the 1st.Gen.copy from the original,and that if someone tried to make a copy of HIS 1st.Gen. copy,then that person would be SOL cuz CP was still there and active in the 1st.Gen. copy.

He gave me an explanation for why it worked,something about "waveforms"or some such,being the same between the two VCR's,but i don't remember the explanation,just the claim.It might have been a load of crap,or an old wives'tale/urban legend,hell i don't know.

Personally I wouldn't get a $20 RF modulator nor would I get a VCR for composite to RF pass-thru. I don't know were the OP lives but in most North American cities people can't even give away CRT TVs with composite in. Just the other day I saw an add on Craigslist someone willing to pay $25 for someone to haul away a perfectly working 35 inch CRT with composite, s-video and component inputs. I would dump the OP's ancient TV and pick up a newer set for free from CL.

As to the macrovision and various VCRs and DVD recorders it can be a crap-shoot. I have one tape from 1986 that I recorded from VHS to my 1985 beta deck and the MV didn't affect it. Trying to record that same beta copy back to VHS OR DVD is impossible because the MV is clearly there. All other tapes encoded with MV I tried to record from VHS to my beta decks were a no-go.

I recorded some DVDs to my SVHS with no problem but those same SVHS recordings will not record back to DVD due to MV. Most of my commercial VHS tapes record without a problem to my DVD recorder but would not copy to another VHS deck.

As to greaser's question I never heard of this. My two SVHS decks have the exact same AGC circuitry and I can't record MV encoded tapes from one deck to another. Although I suppose it could be possible with some AGC chips as the auto gain control on the player could gain down the same amount at the same time as the recorder's AGC gains up. As that is how the early simple macrovision worked. bright / dark / bright / dark. But I never heard anyone else experience this, not saying the guy made the story up though.

I see no reason this should work, in fact I've had several "twin" VCRs going back to the early 80s and never noticed this. The first twin was the RCA VFT-650 which was a twin to the Panasonic PV-1770 which was also the twin to a Magnavox(can't remember it's model number). They were all made in Japan by Matsushita Electric and other than cosmetics they were identical. None would copy each others tapes if they were MV'd(I had all 3, in fact I had a couple of the RCA's).
After those machines I got into several twin Samsungs in the late 90's and again had no better luck copying MV'd tapes. Other than a filter my only other success was using one of my old Sony Beta machines inline which as I said allowed me to copy the original tape but didn't remove the MV enough to allow me to later dub the VHS copies to DVD, that required a real filter.
While I don't think your neighbor was necessarily shining you on(I think he believed it himself) I believe the information is false none the less.

Very few overall that weren't old BetaMaxes. MacroVision was extremely effective with just about all VHS decks: I'm astounded to hear SuperEye say his lower-end JVCs are immune, thats very interesting and the first I've heard of any JVC resisting MV. I've also never heard the rumor you picked up about the Panasonic PV-4962: that must have been a fluke. The problem with looking for such a VCR is they're needle in a haystack, and variations in production runs mean even if you bought that PV-4962 or SuperEye's exact JVC models, your particular sample of it may not be MV resistant.


Not really, you have it backwards: the modulator is much easier and completely avoids the MV issue. Its tiny, uses little power, and can be bought brand new. For 23 years, I owned a Proton CRT tv/monitor whose line input PQ I never liked: it was much lighter than the RF input. Most of those years I used one of my several VCRs as RF modulator, but this becomes really difficult when patching MV-protected tapes or DVDs thru it. I finally gave up and bought a $20 modulator, and it made my life so much easier I kicked myself every day for not buying one sooner.

If you don't want to follow Super Eye's tip to get another cheap used TV, get the modulator. Its the easiest, most guaranteed way to go. (And if you're pulling our leg, and this is really about wanting to make VHS copies of protected content: forget it. "MV-free" vcr ain't gonna cut it, even if you found one. You'll need a $100 filter box to do that reliably).

the rumor is not a fluke I have 3 of these units, they do not have macro for some strange reason. these where a somewhat high end machine picture is very very good.

Actually if the OP is only concerned with VHS then one of the $30 VHS filters that you link to once in a while(sold by MCM) would work just fine. I believe Wajo also has a link to it in his sticky thread.

By "fluke" I merely meant that it was highly unusual and a lucky design mistake in that one model PV-4962, not that I didn't believe the rumor. Most Panasonics are affected by MV, and as jjeff attests even the really old models that he and I both had in 1981 are not immune. Also, in the case of huge OEM suppliers like Panasonic (who made thousands of VCRs under ten other brand names), they tended to use most of the same chassis components across nearly the entire model lineup year to year, so chances of a "fluke" like the PV-4962 were pretty rare. BTW this PV-4962 sounds like a deck I would absolutely have bought in 1989, don't know how I missed it: that must have been one of the years I fell down the JVC rabbit hole.

While researching the elusive PV-4962, I came across this older similar AVS thread topic where mckinct confirms its MV resistance- mckinct is one of our top AVS Panasonic experts, so if he says his PV4962s are MV-resistant rest assured its more than just a rumor, its fact:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1062354

The price might have scared alot of people from buying, I believe I spent 500.00 on it , my first vcr was a jvc hrd-725u hi-fi unit that was 900.00 and that's what I paid, list was 1200.

I remember the $400-$500 price range for my VCRs back in the early-to-mid 90s, all had to be at least Flying-Erase editing decks. I still have one working Sony.

Thanks Gastrof,Super Eye,and jjeff,for your thoughts,i guess i'll never really know what my old neighbor was thinking/doing,maybe by some quirk of the machinery he was able to do what he wasn't supposed to be able to do.

No, no, no, no - my newer model JVC decks are NOT immune to MV, I did not say they are. I said they pass-thou a signal all right as long as not in record mode. They will not record MV infected signals, just pass-thru so you can have decks daisy chained but as soon as you hit record you get the dreaded macrovision effects. This is almost the same as to what my RDR-HX780 DVD recorder will do -you can run macro infected signals into the line inputs OK but as soon as you hit record a message will pop up copy protected - can not record.

Here is my original quote.

I even made it clear in my second post that my identical AGC JVC decks will not record MV tapes from each other.

Yes I think the topic took a different direction when we started talking about which VCRs would record MV'd tapes. AFA using a VCR strictly as a RF modulator of a MV'd source, it's my belief that all older(pre 2000) would do that but of course very few would actually record a MV'd source without problems. As I said before my pre 00' Samsung would modulate any source but if it was CP'd the signal would go dark and bright if I pushed REC, my post '00 Samsung would go dark and bright just trying to modulate a CP'd signal. If the OP wants to modulate a CP'd signal then I'd suggest a older(and older the better) VCR

Actually jjeff with my VHS decks it was the other way around. My older decks would not even pass thru MV infected signals - whether in record mode or not they would go bright/ dark but my 2002 and 2003 decks pass the signal OK - as long as not recording.

I think my funny accent through off the bear.

Maybe he own a pair of early Betamaxes? Or was he a VHS guy?

^^^ dunno,there were several Beta Max die hards living around me,don't know about his VCR's though.After the opinions i got from gastrof,super eye,and jjeff,i figure that he just(somehow)got lucky.He was able to do something he shouldn't have been able to do.Or it was a load of crap,but he was not known to be a liar.He was an ok guy.

I think I found my own answer to this.

My theory is that certain DVDs aren't encoded with macrovision but are encoded with CGMS-A and CGMS-D. Those DVDs will dub to analog VCRs because analog VCRs record but ignore CGMS. Apparently CGMS-A is encoded in line-21 of the VBI. In other words analog VCRs do not react to CGMS but will pass CGMS to DVD recorders. So DVD recorders will not record from an analog signal that has CGMS-A present in line 21 - whether from a VCR, a cable box or another DVD recorder. So analog VCRs do not react to CGMS but will pass CGMS to DVD recorders.

Can anyone confirm or deny the above?

As for this

I can't figure that out. Anyone?

I agree with your first assessment and like you have no idea whats going on in your second quote.
While not related to VCRs I've noticed a similar CP issue when using my SMS DVD duplicator. DVDs with encryption will not copy in the duplicator. DVDs with just Macrovision and not encryption will copy in the duplicator but will not copy in my standalones. The funny thing is if I try and copy in my standalones a DVD that contained MV but was copied in the duplicator, it will copy So not only does the duplicator ignore MV it literately ignores it and doesn't copy it over to the target, cool!
Note the vast majority of DVDs I've ran across contain both MV and encryption but I do run across the occasional one with just encryption, I've never seen one with just encryption and no MV although maybe thats whats happening with the tapes we're talking about? VHS ignores(but copies over) encryption but will not copy MV. If you copy such a source with VHS it works but later won't copy to DVD?

Wow a duplicator that ignores MV and doesn't copy it over to the target. That's very strange. I though a duplicator would copy all data over bit-for bit. I wonder what the theory is behind that?

As to my commercial DVD (even VHS) collection - it is not made up of your average Hollywood type content as many of my discs come from small distributors, the majority aren't even region specific and are region-free NTSC. So maybe that's why many of them have CGMS but lack MV.

I can't check the ones I recorded onto SVHS because those were borrowed and returned long ago, before I had my stand alone DVDr.