Copyguard on homemade VHS tapes?

[Ghoste]

More accurately, how can I bypass it to make a dvd copy.  Before anyone lectures me about cheating Steven Spielberg or Tom Cruise out of a $1.27, this tape is a compilation of home movies from my cousins bike club.  It has some sort of copy protection on it but they can't remember which one of them made the VHS.  The club only has the one copy and they wanted to burn it onto dvd.  I have the burner but the VHS won't let me copy it.  I can copy it from VHS to VHS but that doesn't really serve the purpose.  Anyone know much about this stuff?

[elacruze]

IIRC there is a break-off tab on the side of the tape. If you removed the tab, it allowed a peg to disengage the copy head. Look for the hole (actually about .5" square) and put two layers of scotch tape over it.

[Ghoste]

Nope, that is covered.  This is a signal of some form that has been placed on the recorded program itself. (I didn't even realize there were home VHS recorders that could do this)

[elacruze]

Holy Crap.

I had no idea. Apparently, you have to be competent with component-level electronics to defeat it;

http://www.hackerscatalog.com/Services/TECH_Notes/nineteen.html

[451-74Charger]

try using the analogue antenna cable from the VCR to DVD, not component.
The copy protection is usually hidden in the audio side.

[Aero426]

I have had the same problem on VHS tapes that came from my camcorder.

[2Gunz]

Like was said before use the Antenna (coax) out to a tv tuner and record that.

Or VCR connected to VCR via Antenna then on the second VCR use the RCA outs to whatever.


Anyway keep in mind the more stuff you use the worse its going to look.

[BigRed66]

What's this VHS thing you speak of? VCR? What's that? 

A few years ago my mother-in-law bought us a VHS-to-DVD recorder, and there hasn't been one I haven't been able to copy. Downside: takes the length of the tape to record to DVD, so either watch as you record, or set it before bed or leaving the house.