ATI hacks, Macrovision/anti-copy and TBCs

[admin]

Macrovision is an artificial video error injected into an analog video stream, to prevent analog copying of the video. Even though capture cards are digital, the capture is still analog in nature. Only the captured file is digital.

There also exists an unfortunate side effect where real errors can also set off copy protection measures. This is not the fault of the card, but rather an overzealous, uncaring movie industry, led by the dogs of MPAA. Rather than use a copy protection method that ONLY affects commercial movie, they implore this sloppy one, and are uncaring about its side effect.

There are TWO ways to combat this, both the real and fake anti-copy measures (Macrovision being the most popular one):

1. On ATI AIW cards, you can try to download and install the hacks found on the ATI guides on digitalFAQ.com. These are not guaranteed to work. Each capture drivers, each capture card, and each version of ATI MMC is slightly different. The number of combinations is too great to keep track of. In general, these hacks work better on older drivers and older cards, but any MMC version. And even then, they are not foolproof. (Some other brand cards have the same kinds of hacks, equally as unreliable.)

2. TBC. Short for timebase corrector. The DataVideo TBC-1000 ($300) is one very good model. It must be a FULL FRAME version, a separate unit. TBCs built into VCRs will not suffice. Anti-copy is heavily based on blitzing out timing and sync info in the video. A full-frame TBC removes all of this information, and replaces it with pure data. The signal error, real or artificial, is completely removed.

Almost all new devices come equipped with copy protection methods. Generally, the few that overlook it are not high quality video devices (and usually based on old technology), so replacing the card... the usual consumer knee-jerk idea... is therefore baseless and not advised. The problem lies with a corrupt signal, and a society/government that values corporate dollars over common sense and consumer rights.

Good luck.