On Tue, 2007-03-13 at 19:35 +1030, Tim wrote: ...snip... > DRM - Deny Replaying of Material... > ...snip... It can actually be worse than that, some HBO shows also include Macrovision in the broadcast signal. Windows XP Media Centre detects the signal and will refuse to allow you to watch the show once it has seen the signal. The Macrovision is not removed from the commercials, so if I am recording a non copy protected show, for my later personal viewing, and "The Sopranos" commercial comes on, the program stops recording. If I am watching the show real time, I have to change the channel until the commercial is over then switch back. My point is, you can not even watch the program trough some PVR devices and it even wrecks the viewing experience when watching other shows, so why bother producing the show if you don't want people to be able to watch it? It has gotten out of hand, I am going to have to build a video stabilizer, to put between my cable box and my Media Centre, just so I can watch TV uninterrupted. I have a oscilloscope and developed a device that allows me to view any specific line of video on it, and have seen first hand what the macrovision protection is. There is no doubt in my mind now why some movies would not track properly on some VCRs. The signal varies in amplitude over a few seconds which is what throws the AGC amuck, and when at full brightness it has a higher "brighteness" that a pure bright white signal "whiter than white" and the signal pulses "blacker than black" even lower than the sync pulses, which trows VHS tracking into conniptions. It is indeed an evil system that wrecked the viewing and audio on many VHS movies and now continues to wreck the viewing of HBO television shows, and any show with HBO commercials. I may build one of these projects listed, but had already started developing my own project that would just "black" the video portion of the single line that macrovision uses, ensuring the least degradation of the rest of the video signal. Unfortunately, due to the simplicity of what I am designing it will only be suitable for the removal of a single line of video data, and since it will be the line occupied by macrovision it may be in contravention of copyright laws, so I will not be publishing my design. Best of luck, for the rest of you, some of the suggestions in this tread appear to be good choices.
