TBC to correct distorted colour via Macrovison?
 

I'm trying to capture some VHS videos to my computer which were made at a production studio and I believe have macrovision protection on them.

When I plug the VCR directly into the TV, the videos play just fine but when I plug them into a USB capture device, the colour goes in and out randomly (from colour to black and white and back and forth). This only happens on these specific VHS tapes, others play just fine which leads me to think its macrovision.

So my question is, does this indeed sound like macrovision? and if so, if I was to use a TBC such as Hotronic AP-41, would this fix the problem? I just don't want to spend the money if there is likely some other issue at play.

While the main function of Macrovision is to corrupt luma levels not chroma, there were variations of Macrovisions schemes that worked differently, so it could well be, Unfortunately no one can say for sure if a device can remove or ignore MV unless it has been tried, There were some consumer devices designed for MV removal that work in the analog domain, There are some studio grade analog to digital converters that can capture analog video and ignore or remove MV as part of the digital processing after conversion from analog to digital but they are hard to find and expensive.

Most of those "pizza box" type TBCs, and specifically Hotronic AP-41, were not made for VHS, nor do those work all that well with it. Artificial VHS errors like anti-copy (Macrovision, etc) just confuse those units.

Generally speaking, only units made for consumer analog sources will remove anti-copy.

What you're seeing is 99% likely anti-copy.

Thank you both very much for the info!

So would you say a device like "RXII Digital Video Stabilizer" be better since it specifically says it removes macrovision? When I looked this up, I was getting conflicting results about the colour issue which might be level 2 of macrovision and this device might only do level 1?

Or is there a specific device you would recomend?

Those "stabilizers" are all garbage, waste of money. Those screw with image quality, it's not at all transparency.

"stabilizers" are not TBCs whatsoever.

I see that you've gotten into the bad habit of searching eBay for video gear. But what you'll find there is junk. It's turned into a video gear dumping ground. TBCs are the worst items to buy there.

I also have a feeling you're approaching this with an unrealistic budget, $50 to $300. That's not the cost of a good TBC. It's not even the cost of a bad or broken TBC. Good TBCs are at least $2k+, and TBC(ish) items are about ~$1k. Which would you prefer?

Thanks again for the info!

I've only been search eBay based on items I've seen recommend on other website/forums, but I am a complete novice to this.

Let's say a budget around $1k, what would you recommend?

I know this may sound like an odd solution but if these titles are available on digital formats such as DVD/Blu-ray just get them on these formats, it is not worth going in the rabbit hole trying to digitize them if someone has done it from the original film strip for you.

Just throwing it out an example. There a few Peanuts specials that never came out on DVD. Only VHS. I plan on doing two of them myself.

One of the specials that only came out on VHS in the US was "Snoopy The Musical"

Was going to buy a VHS copy then rip that, but I found out it did have a PAL DVD release. I'd rather rip the PAL DVD then slow it down to NTSC standard than bother with the probably lower quality VHS release.

Thanks! But unfortunately the videos are not available on any other media format. They were from a somewhat obscure TV show a family member was featured in for a few episodes. To my knowledge the show itself was never released to the public on VHS either, we just have a couple production copies from the studio which I am trying to archive.

How many tapes/episodes are you talking? I'm always looking for harder to find stuff to post to YouTube. Could always get taken down for copyright, but worth a shot. If you're willing to mail me the tapes (I'm in the USA), I can capture them to ProRes422 or whatever format you'd like. Would just need the tapes themselves and either SD card or SSD to put the captured files onto for you. The unique thing here is that they aren't one-of-a-kind tapes that would be the only copies if somehow lost in the mail.

PM me if interested.

In that case I can assure you 100% those tapes don't have Macrovision, MV was expensive to license, only big studios and production companies used it for multi million dollar releases.

Even that much work isn't needed in the 2020s. Most HDTVs and media players understand what PAL is. Just rip with MakeMKV, then encode with Hybrid for local LAN or flash/thumb drive.

The goal of this site is to educate for DIY. :wink2:

I don't think those are mutually exclusive statements. Let's assume you're correct @latreche34, and it's not actual anti-copy. It can still be false detections, due to quality issues with the signal. In both cases, frame TBC is needed, to purify the signal for capture.

The only real variable here is capture card in use. GameMan370, what card are you using? An upgrade may be required there as well.

The show was actually produced in collaboration with HGTV which I would assume would be a large enough studio to incorporate Macrovision?

Thank you for offer! I think at the moment, I'm going to pass since these are my father's tapes and he would not want them out of his possession, just in case something would happen to them. But I do very much appreciate the offer!

I'm using a USB capture device which I got from Bestbuy, I don't have it in front of me at the moment to get the name of it. The device has managed to capture all my other items which I have thrown at it, old 1990s cameras, DVD players, other old VHS tapes, etc.

I use a Mac, so if there is a better alternative available for it, then am all ears.

Potential risk of piracy is very low for such a content, You do need some sort of stabilization though to overcome the problem, A VCR with TBC or a passthrough device, Your capture card alone is not going to handle the high jitter sources from low end VCRs and camcorders.

Having experience in that industry, I can confirm even small-run tapes can have anti-copy. Maybe not the costly Macrovision, but some of the other injection methods.

False detections are also possible (even likely), due to malformed tape signal. Regardless, tape signal purification required, meaning TBCs.

However, you are correct: we need to see if a quality VCR (with line TBC) is also in use. The frame TBC can only do so much. VHS capturing needs a proper line+frame TBC pairing, not just one or the other.

So @GameMan370, what VCR are you trying to use for this? :hmm:

Back in the day (we're talking over 25 years ago) I was looking into Macrovision removal, and I seem to recall basic devices that just add a black border around the edges of the frame, which was enough to "defeat" it.

Again, this is so long ago, I'm reaching into parts of my brain that are corrupted from time, so I'm not sure how "off the shelf" something like that was in 2000, but I seem to recall it being a thing?

Someone who was more involved and older in 2000 want to chime in and tell me if this is nonsense?

As for OP, I haven't had any tapes kick in macro vision protection on the capture card I used a few years back to digitise a ton of tapes, however they where mostly home made stuff, so I may have just got lucky.

Before you go spending a fortune on stabilisers or whatever, have you tried just using another capture device? You haven't even listed the one you're using, it's fairly possible the tapes are just poor and the capture device shite.

It was semi-nonsense. The devices "worked", but not without affecting image quality. There was also sometimes delay in the removal, so you'd get little glitchy/jerky seconds throughout the tape.

Homemade stuff won't have anti-copy, just false detections at most.

Is there anyway to tell if something absolutely *has* macrovision? I'd buy a tape off eBay if I knew for sure the retail copy had it, just for testing.
The only commerical tapes I have to hand is a season of the Friends TV show (I genuinely can't remember why).

EDIT: Just remembered, they where cheaper than blanks.

Many big-name movies have anti-copy, specifically Macrovision. For example, Star Wars, Mortal Kombat, Batman, Liar Liar, all tapes I tend to use for certain basic TBC testing.

Some VHS tapes are so bad that it corrupts the image even with TBCs! The Tick cartoon and Young Indiana Jones Chronicles tend to be nasty.

Do you know the year the tapes are from? MacroVision was generally not used, even on major Hollywood movies, until the late 1980s, when Go Video released their dual-deck VCR and the entire motion picture and TV industry freaked out about it.

And "video stabilizers" are effective at stripping off enough of MacroVision and other copy protection schemes to allow a VCR to make a copy of a tape without objectionable degradation. But to get a good capture of the tape, you will still need a TBC:


Mystery video stabilizer teardown & test