Macrovision-free VCRs - Page 2

I believe the SL-5400 is the entry model for the year 1980. I have a SL-5600 and top of the line SL-5800 and both not only will modulate a MV'd signal but if you put them in-line (camera input to line output) they will actually remove MV. They won't remove DVD CP but VHS MV is stripped by those older machines.
As you may know the one drawback with these models is their size and weight The size of several DVDRs and weigh close to 40 pounds! They sure as heck don't make 'em like that anymore, and our shelving is probably happy

Oh, no: no hate. Don't mistake passion for gear as hate: I don't think anyone has been negative toward you? Just trying to relate how we feel about the various solutions we've tried to your question. Everyone has a slightly different priority, so not all solutions will interest you, but thats what makes a forum useful.


Bingo: this is a confusing point to some of *us*, which may be why you feel we got off on the wrong foot. For instance, I've had more VCRs than I can remember, Beta and VHS, since 1981- and aside from the old Betas I have *never* encountered a VCR that would "pass thru" MV video to a TV without showing the tell tale flashing and distortions, UNLESS that VCR was completely blind to MV and would also record it without those symptoms.

This is why I responded with surprise to Super Eye's post about his JVCs: I misunderstood both yours and his definition of "MV resistance." I really am truly amazed to hear there were some VCRs that would cleanly pass thru the playback of MV video from another VCR or DVD player thru their line inputs to a TV, while still being unable to make a clean recording. It seems counterintuitive, since with 99 out of 100 vcrs the MV issue kills both passthru and recording functionality (because the outputs show the effect of AGC tampering). Other than the "GoVideo" dual dubbing VCRs, the only VHS models I personally tried that cleaned MV were the very first JVC "HQ" decks and an old Minolta/Hitachi (but they were totally blind to MV and would also make good dubs of MV tapes).


This is understandable, but the VHS VCRs with the oddball MV response you're looking for are all pretty old, some are pretty scarce, and you really don't want to make an old second-hand VCR your primary VCR because it can act up unexpectedly and ruin your tapes. While its annoying to have the little RF modulator box, its a lot safer. You can buy a little two way video switchbox to connect both your DVD player and your current VCR into the RF modulator, both pieces are no bigger than a cigarette pack and cost maybe $35 total. Having the separate modulator means you're also not dependent on one single oddball old VCR for the function: it can be reconnected to any VCR or DVD player you buy later.



To jjeff and Super Eye, yes, I was confused and didn't realize there was a third in-between MV VCR response of "pass-thru" along with "immune" or "not immune."


Naw, I'm a big fan of Canadians and usually understand them: SCTV, Kids In The Hall, all those tarty historical melodramas you produce for Showtime...


The SL-5400 would work to filter MV on passthru, I had one and it was immune to MV altogether if I remember correctly. The SL-25 may or may not be good for passthru: at some point the front load Betas became vulnerable to MV. The SL-25 is circa 1984, so perhaps old enough to be immune: you could try both. However, either weighs a TON compared to modern VCRs and unless you have lots of Beta tapes its kind of pointless to have the big heavy hot-running Betamax taking up space on your shelf and eating as much electricity as a 150 watt bulb in standby mode.

I get that you're REALLY averse to the separate modulator, we all have certain bits of gear we just don't like for some reason, but its by far the easiest way to go and a sure bet to work as you want. Keep it in mind if you fail to turn up one of the "MV passthru" VHS decks in decent condition.

Well if you want a VCR for VHS playback and also for pass-through from composite DVD-out to composite VCR-in from VCR RF out to TV RF in then I recommend you buy one of the SVHS HR-S5902U for $15.94 or the SVHS HR-S5901U for $14.94 while they’re still available. Go to ebay and search for HR-S5902U and HR-S5901U and you will find a Texan selling these with many happy customers – act fast as these are selling very quickly.

I guarantee that these decks will pass a macrovision encrypted DVD signal to the VCR and pass the signal out via RF to the TV. They will not record the macrovision infected signal though.

This is another example were JVC abided (this time by the macrovision specs) to allow the pass through for daisy-chain purposes while some other manufactures cheapened out, did not abide and bastardized VHS one step further.

Straight from Rovi corp. whom owns macrovision.
http://www.rovicorp.com/webdocuments...protection.pdf


CityBear I’m surprised that your JVC HR-S9911U did not abide by this rule.

The SL-5400 came out in late 1979, as I recall, and was the first home VCR (either Beta or VHS) to offer visible fast scan in the forward and reverse directions. Pretty impressive if a VCR from that era is still functional.

I would just get cheap TBC or a $25 black box to remove the macrovision and then feed that into a RF modulator and then into your TV that only has the RF in? or just get away with just RF modulator i am sure that would work fine.

Well, let's see... I had a late 80s Quasar Stereo Hifi VHS deck that would play back commercial VHS tapes, and filter out the Macrovision, so they could be duped. I could also run the composite out from another unit to it, and record what it passed through with no trouble. I also had a 90s Philips SVHS deck that would copy anything commercial fed to it, DVDs, or VHS, without a problem. I never had one, but I believe that Go Video's dubbing decks didn't pass on Macrovision. Sorry I don't have model numbers for you. You sure must love that antique TV...

I respect that. In any case the RF mod. will be more eco-friendly.


Wasn't Quasar a trademark for some refurbished Panasonic equipment, like Norelco was for Phillips?

Hmmm...haven't checked to see what of my remaining decks will pass macrovision. I'll have to check with a friend who has a Liteon dual deck and see if the macrovision can be turned off like in the 5000 series DVD recorders. Hidden menu and all you remember. Might be the way to go. Also might work with the old Guitarman altered firmware. Haven't checked on something like this in a long time...

Macrovision is done only to the analog signal derived from DVD. It is not really on the disk so to speak. There is a flag or code on the disk that tells the player to turn the Macrovision on. Tape OTOH has Macrovision burned in with the analog signal.

The DVD CGMS is supposed to take care of any unauthorized digital copying via a computer. But we all know that has miserably failed!

Macrovision works by placing very high amplitude pulses in the vertical blanking area. These pulses drive the VCR AGC into a deep clamping that does not recover by the time field starts. This makes the image un-watchable. What Macrovision strippers do is to blank out these pulses which is quite easy to do with minimal analog electronic circuits.

No, it was something else entirely.

Quasar began as a brand name for television sets mfrd by Motorola in the USA. Those of us old enough might remember the advertisements highlighting the "Quasar by Motorola' TV with "works in a drawer" design (in those days TVs needed frequent repair: this Motorola feature made most of the electronics easily replaceable without dismantling the TV or dragging it to a repair shop).

The mid-1970s was the beginning of steep decline in USA consumer products mfring. One of the key turning points was Matsushita (Panasonic) buyout of unprofitable Quasar from Motorola, as a clever ploy to get around USA import restrictions on Japanese televisions (which were gutting the US brands). Quasar quickly became just a slightly discounted twin sister of Panasonic, with the same product line in slightly different cosmetic styles. Panasonic & Quasar TVs would be comparable to Buick & Chevy automobiles. By the early 1980s, Quasar was primarily used to sell discounted versions of Panasonic VHS VCRs, along with the Magnavox brand which Panasonic also used for VCRs.

^^^yes thats how I remember it too Was RCA also bought out by Panasonic? The VCRs of the 80s were basically clones of Panasonic although I seem to remember RCA TVs of the same time weren't of the quality of similar Panasonics. Then of course at some time the RCA name was purchased by Funai where they are today, along with Magnavox, Sylvania, etc.

technics/panasonic were sister co's. in u.s. national/panasonic in japan.

By the time DVD players came out RF only TVs were limited to only the most basic of TVs. If you had such a TV you'd either need a RF modulator(which were quite common and many times sold near DVD players) or purchase a DVD/VHS player which generally contained a built in RF modulator. Others like myself were lucky enough to have VCRs that allowed a CP'd tape to be modulated without pulsing.

The National Panasonic thing was odd: early Panasonic products sold in USA had both logos, with the National branding slowly removed as the 70s progressed. The National branding lasted longest in USA on tape recorder accessories like microphones. By 1980 National had vanished in USA.

The Technics brand was spun off by Matsushita as a way to break into the then-lucrative midrange stereo component market dominated by Pioneer, Sansui, Onkyo and Marantz. In early 1970s North America, the Panasonic brand carried connotations of "discount consumer junk," so the Technics sub-brand was created to market more high-end gear to stereo component dealers. It was a very successful plan, leading to legendary pieces like the SL1200MkII direct-drive turntable (which remained in production for nearly thirty years unchanged). Toyota pulled a similar stunt when it created the Lexus brand to sell luxury cars to people who wouldn't set foot in a "lowly" Toyota showroom.

Curiously, Technics never offered a Panasonic-based VHS HiFi model to compete with VCRs made by JVC for Sansui, Marantz, TEAC, etc. In retrospect, this was wise, because the audio-branded VCRs all bombed at retail.

Panasonic bought Quasar from Motorola lock, stock, & barrel, so they own it completely and fully control its fate (i.e., using the Quasar sub-brand to test the waters with a third early VCR format known as "The VX1000 Great Time Machine"). All the other "Panasonic" lookalikes (RCA, Magnavox, etc) were made under OEM license for those brand names.

Back in the early superheated VCR days, Panasonic was "hired" by a great number of famous TV brands to make their VHS VCRs for them, while those brands continued making their own TVs (or had other OEM arrangements in place). As jjeff and I and others have discussed here several times, none of this would have happened had Sony not told RCA to go scratch when RCA requested 120 minute and extended recording speeds be added to the 1-hour Beta standard as a condition of offering an RCA BetaMax. When Sony said no, Panasonic jumped on the opportunity and offered RCA a 4-hour (LP) recording speed, in defiance of VHS inventor JVC. The rest is history: in the late 1970s RCA was *the* TV brand in USA, so whatever tape format RCA licensed would become the de facto standard no matter who got there "first" (much like the first IBM PC pulled the rug out from under early leader the Apple II within a matter of months). Beta was as good as dead from the moment Sony arrogantly showed RCA the door instead of negotiating intelligently.

Once RCA bought into VHS, everyone else lined up and subcontracted Panasonic to make their VCRs as well, including Magnavox, Sylvania, Curtis Mathes, etc. The only American TV brand stupid enough to go with Sony instead was Zenith, which came to its senses a few years later and became one of the first spinoffs of the separate JVC VHS design. By the mid-1980s, portable "convertible" VHS became the rage, and the OEM market splintered into a confusing mess. At one point RCA's "convertible" was the hottest video product on the planet, but was made for RCA by Hitachi instead of Panasonic, for a time making RCA a brand divided. The success of the "convertible" eventually led RCA to abandon Panasonic for all models and move to Hitachi. When RCA went to hell in a handbasket some years later, all its TVs and VCRs were made by Funai (which had also bought Magnavox/Sylvania).

At the peak of the VCR business, Panasonic had the OEM VHS contracts for all the TV and dept store brands except RCA (which moved to Hitachi) and Zenith (who went with JVC). Panasonic also had photography brand Canon, while Hitachi took Minolta. The famous stereo audio brands all went with JVC as VHS supplier, except Fisher which had been bought by Sanyo, and Akai & Aiwa who went rogue (Pioneer went with Sony SuperBeta). NEC and Toshiba made their own distinct VCRs and for awhile offered both formats simultaneously until settling on VHS. The Toshiba and NEC "HiFi BetaMaxes" were really interesting, offering a definite alternative to Sony for discerning video hobbyists. Sharp & Mitsubishi went to the extremes of the VHS market, Sanyo tried Beta and its own V-Cord before concentrating on its Fisher VHS.

Hi Glimmie I know and understand what you said and I quoted above. I think I even tried explaining why I can record CGMS-A on my VCR but can't transfer that same recording back to DVD. I also tried to explain macro-vision and VCR AGC circuitry.

What I can't explain and if you can - please do, is how jjeff can copy a bit for bit DVD on his duplicator - yet that copy will not abide by the flag.


Glimmie this is the specific point I can't understand.
it[the SMS DVD duplicator] literately ignores it [the macrovision flag that DVD recorders and duplicaters are supposed to pick up] and doesn't copy it over to the target, cool!"

Glimmie, how does the duplicator not copy (or copy but not abide by) the flag to the target is what I can't understand

Just to reiterate, the duplicator will not copy a DVD if it's encrypted(encrypted is the term Shrink reports) but even DVDs aren't encrypted they can sometimes stop a DVDR from copying them, it's those DVDs that after a copy in the duplicator allow me to do a DVDR copy of the duplicators copy
AFAIK Shrink doesn't report whether a DVD has MV(at least I've never seen it) but my DVDRs sure know
Sometimes I like to make compilation DVDs of select songs or scenes, in this case it's nice to be able to omit using my video filter(which raises the black level) so it's handy to be able to copy my copy with my DVDRs. Of course Shrink removes MV as well as encryption but my duplicator takes only 1/4th the time as my PC

Thanks for the info!

When you consider that my "cheap" RCA RC5220P (sitting in it's box right here) cost me $437.87 + tax in 1999, there was no inexpensive DVD players. If you bought anything, it was considered to be high end and (I imagine) the feeling was that you had high end gear to attach it to. So, probabaly no Rf in only TV would have been what you attached your new player to.

Many thanks for this! There are things in here that I never knew. Made my day...

Mintek DVD-1600 and DVD-2110 models had an RF jack, but you had to use a adapter plug for it. The connection looks like an S-video. I never used those connections, but was kind of surprised they were there. It's the lower left connection that reads "CONNECT WITH RF"

I think that jack is where an outboard modulator accessory would plug in. So it's not just a pin adaptor.

Four pins = video, audio, power, ground.

RF modulators have been around for years. If you still had a RF only TV in 1997 and wanted to use DVD player you could have bought a RF modulator or feed the DVD players output to a VCR's input and then use the modulator in the VCR to pass through the DVD output to TV. The quality would not have been as good as going straight via component to TV if you had a TV with component though.

Also in reference to brands above, Blaupunkt put their name on Panasonic NV-FS200 (AG1980) in Europe.

When I read this, I suddenly remembered that I actually have one of these outboard modulators in my random parts drawer! You are exactly right: it kind of looks like a small "wall wart" AC adapter, except it has a 4-pin plug and a little 3" tail cord with a RG59 screw connector. I think it came with the Pioneer LaserDisc player I had for about a year, the model that amazingly used the same tray for either one video laserdisc or 5 audio CDs as a changer mechanism.

That makes sense. They are powering the modulator with the DVD player, as opposed to another receptacle being used up on the wall or power strip.
Now I'm curious, gonna dig one out and follow the circuits to see where they pulled the video and audio from.