The geniuses that make DVD players decided that U.S. copyright law and the F.B.I. aren't effective enough to prevent people from making illegal copies of movies, so they, themselves, did an illegal thing by incorporating copy protection "features" in all DVD players - which is illegal because you, the consumer, are allowed by law to make a legal backup copy of any media you purchase (in this case most commonly a VHS copy of a DVD), but their copy protection prevents you from making *any* copies via a VCR whatsoever, thus illegally preventing you from not only making a copy, but in our case (and the case of millions of households across the nation) even viewing the movie at all!
We finally solved our problem with a most excellent and highly recommended product from Video Ware, Inc. in Wyoming, called the S-Video to VCR conversion package. Since our TV (a Sanyo DS19380) only has one input, an RF coaxial connector (see specs on Sanyo's website), our only option for hooking up the DVD player was through the VCR. Well, guess what? You're apparently not supposed to even think about doing that. When certain DVDs see a VCR as the output destination, they decide that you're trying to copy them, so the picture goes all funky and you can't even view it. I guess they never even conceived that half of all Americans would need to hook up their DVD players this way. Of course, even the TV manufacturers will tell you this (even ours does), but who thinks to go to their website when it's the DVD that won't play! For the record, one of the reasons it was so hard to troubleshoot this problem (and why no one I asked could) was because some DVDs played just fine, while others clearly didn't. For instance, "Monty Python's Flying Circus" (Set 4, Season 2) worked, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" worked, "Uncorked" worked, "Baraka" worked, and just about anything you burn onto DVD yourself should work (I tried 5 different DVDs from work that were custom made, and they all worked). None of the rest that we tried would work, however, including "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring", "Unbreakable", "Gattaca", "Shallow Hal", "Iron Monkey", and a goofy karate movie about a guy beating up a cow Matrix-style, but I can't remember the name of it, mainly because we rented it, but couldn't watch it.
At Brad's suggestion, I'm going to keep a little log of which media companies are the "good guys" and which are the "bad guys" (i.e., which ones include this illegal macrovision scheme on their DVD releases). That way, you'll know which companies' DVDs will work on your player if you're forced to hook up your DVD through your VCR like we were. Of course, if you're in the same boat that we were until today, I highly recommend the product we purchased - even though it is a bit pricey. So far, the list stands thus:
| Good Companies | Bad Companies |
|---|---|
| A&E Television Networks Warner Brothers Pictures Vidmark/Trimark MPI Media | New Line Home Entertainment Miramax Home Entertainment Columbia Pictures Touchstone Home Video |
So, now that we can view all DVDs without incident, does this negate my previous post? Not even. I still notice banding and other DVD compression artifacts all the time, and I still think the compatibility issues (and the stupid macrosplat "feature") are ruining the marketplace, and they still don't hold enough data, and an optical medium is always going to be inherently flawed when it comes to playback obstruction due to dust, fingerprints, scratches, etc. There are still some real issues that need to be addressed until I'll be completely happy with DVDs. But until then, I guess I'll just have to suffer with the higher horizontal lines of resolution and extra features of DVDs like the rest of y'all. =)
Also in today's news, I saw my first double-yolked egg - Misti ate it for breakfast, yucka! Also, we went to the Nevada State Fair, which, sadly, gets more lame with each passing year. The petting zoo was the highlight, as I got to squeeze the zebu's hump. We also had two lemonades, one very lame, and one very tasty. The one outside in the food court was the yucky, overpriced one, whereas the one on the second floor inside the Livestock Events Center in the southeast corner was the very tasty and reasonably priced one. The Church also had a booth there, and it looked pretty good. Interestingly, Yucca Mountain nuclear waste proponents also had a booth there trying to soften people up. (See my previous Yucca Mountain post for my opinion on this issue.)
Got $2.00 off ($1.00 twice off mine and Misti's tickets) by using the coupon on the back of Model Dairy milk cartons. Took the shaft on parking, though, as it was $6.00 if you came in via the main entrances, but the parking lot wasn't even manned on the south entrance (the Washoe County Complex main entrance - on 9th St) so that would've been free, I guess, had we discovered it on the way in instead of whilst exiting. =(
Watched "Unbreakable", starring Samuel L. Jackson and Bruce Willis - a great film based around the concept of comic books. Yes, it was a DVD - that I borrowed from Brad, and, for the record, that didn't work until after we installed our new little gadget.
Since it appears that the RIAA, MPAA, et al are now suing individual users of peer-to-peer file sharing programs (most noticeably for trading MP3s), I think it's rather convenient that my computer died awhile back and has been thus far uncooperative during several attempts at resurrection. Ironically, many fellow employees at work don't understand the favor I'm really doing them by having blocked file sharing at work via the proxy server. One guy said to me, "Well, they can't arrest everyone" - which is true, but like I told him, "They don't have to, all they need to do is arrest one or two people in each state and everyone will be crapping their pants". Thus, for the record, I don't use any peer-to-peer file sharing programs. My computer at home doesn't even function, and I lost any previously stored music while reformatting the hard drive, and it's all blocked at work. =)
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