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Did copy protection really help? In the early-mid 90s my dad was dead set against copying VHS tapes. A neighbor down the street had no problem copying anything
by wil421 5y ago
Did copy protection really help? In the early-mid 90s my dad was dead set against copying VHS tapes. A neighbor down the street had no problem copying anything from live TV to Blockbuster rentals. Their library was a massive mess of tapes from various sources.
I don’t recall them having any special setup except 2 VCRs. They also weren’t the type to be able to bypass copy right.
- randombits0 5y agoMacroVision worked by messing with the automatic gain control by fluctuating white bars in the horizontal blanking interval. Cheap, low end VCRs didn’t have automatic gain control and made much better copies.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- wil421 5y agoThat’s probably why they could make copies. They definitely weren’t perfect copies but I figured they reused tapes and recorded over stuff.
- alar44 5y agoThat makes sense, all this talk of VHS copy protection in this thread, I never knew this existed. Apparently my parents had cheaper VCRs because I never had any issues copying a tape.
- acomjean 5y agoI was in high school mid 80s. I brought my VHS over to a friends to try and copy a tape. It didn't work. We couldn't figure out why and an internet search to discover work arounds wasn't yet available. So I guess it kinda worked. Honestly though most movies we were watching were rented anyway, we weren't buying very many. we would tape some shows off TV too.