Fred
Guest
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 Posted:
Sun Nov 07, 2004 2:02 am Post subject:
Is Fox embedding a signal to prevent captures of new Simpson |
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Has anyone had problems capturing Sunday night Simpsons episodes on a
Fox affiliate channel through a mini DV camcorder?
A friend told me in the past he had been able to do this, but starting
this summer his capture software and camcorder would keep aborting at
random times during the episode never making it more than 10 minutes
straight. He also said no other channels he tried, including the same
Fox channel at different times of the day, had any capture problems.
Since we both have the same Fox affiliate and he knew I recently got a
mini DV camcorder for home movies, he asked me to try capturing the
Simpsons on a Sunday night to see if the same thing happened.
I was skeptical, but he was right. The same problems occurred during
my tests for him. We both live in the same area and have Canon
camcorders, but mine is a different (newer) model.
At first my friend thought his camcorder was going bad, but when I
confirmed his results, he theorized someone must be embedding a signal
to prevent camcorder captures on Sunday night Simpsons episodes. This
made me curious if this a protection scheme as he suggested or if it's
an issue specific to a particular camcorder brand or capture software.
I figured this forum would be a good place to ask if anyone else has
experienced this and knows the full story?
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andre
Guest
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| Posted:
Sun Nov 07, 2004 4:36 am Post subject:
Re: Is Fox embedding a signal to prevent captures of new Sim |
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Fred wrote:
| Quote: | Has anyone had problems capturing Sunday night Simpsons episodes on a
Fox affiliate channel through a mini DV camcorder?
A friend told me in the past he had been able to do this, but starting
this summer his capture software and camcorder would keep aborting at
random times during the episode never making it more than 10 minutes
straight. He also said no other channels he tried, including the same
Fox channel at different times of the day, had any capture problems.
Since we both have the same Fox affiliate and he knew I recently got a
mini DV camcorder for home movies, he asked me to try capturing the
Simpsons on a Sunday night to see if the same thing happened.
I was skeptical, but he was right. The same problems occurred during
my tests for him. We both live in the same area and have Canon
camcorders, but mine is a different (newer) model.
At first my friend thought his camcorder was going bad, but when I
confirmed his results, he theorized someone must be embedding a signal
to prevent camcorder captures on Sunday night Simpsons episodes. This
made me curious if this a protection scheme as he suggested or if it's
an issue specific to a particular camcorder brand or capture software.
I figured this forum would be a good place to ask if anyone else has
experienced this and knows the full story?
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I didn't even know that was technically possible without the appropriate
hardware in your camcorder (DRM chip). YOu might want to try DVIO.exe.
Thats what I am using, it streams the MiniDV directly to my HDD. Good luck.
--
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http://www.aguntherphotography.com |
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Anonymous
Guest
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| Posted:
Sun Nov 07, 2004 8:04 am Post subject:
Re: Is Fox embedding a signal to prevent captures of new Sim |
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Fred wrote:
| Quote: | Has anyone had problems capturing Sunday night Simpsons episodes on a
Fox affiliate channel through a mini DV camcorder?
A friend told me in the past he had been able to do this, but starting
this summer his capture software and camcorder would keep aborting at
random times during the episode never making it more than 10 minutes
straight. He also said no other channels he tried, including the same
Fox channel at different times of the day, had any capture problems.
Since we both have the same Fox affiliate and he knew I recently got a
mini DV camcorder for home movies, he asked me to try capturing the
Simpsons on a Sunday night to see if the same thing happened.
I was skeptical, but he was right. The same problems occurred during
my tests for him. We both live in the same area and have Canon
camcorders, but mine is a different (newer) model.
At first my friend thought his camcorder was going bad, but when I
confirmed his results, he theorized someone must be embedding a signal
to prevent camcorder captures on Sunday night Simpsons episodes. This
made me curious if this a protection scheme as he suggested or if it's
an issue specific to a particular camcorder brand or capture software.
I figured this forum would be a good place to ask if anyone else has
experienced this and knows the full story?
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Can you provide more details about your setup?
What is the source for the Sunday night episodes? Antenna reception,
cable service, or satellite (DirecTV/Dish Network)?
In what format do you feed the signal to your Canon MiniDV camcorder?
Analog (RCA/phono cables or S-video cables)? Or some digital format?
Am I correct that you are using the Canon MiniDV camcorder as a "pass-
through encoder" (i.e. live analog input to the camera, and then the
camcorder's live 1394/firewire/etc. encoded digital output sent to the
capturing software on your computer)?
Does the camcorder's viewscreen, or the software, SAY anything about
why they have aborted (i.e. "copyrighted material detected")?
For now, without further information, I can only rattle off the two
possibilities I'm aware of when it comes to analog input signals:
1) Macrovision. This would only be possible, however, if you were
using a DirecTV/Dish Network satellite decoder, or a modern cable box,
which have Macrovision generators built into them. (The modulation
method used for analog over-the-air broadcasts makes it impossible to
include Macrovision in antenna reception.) But even with cable and
satellite receivers, I doubt that anybody would be activating these
Macrovision generators at this point in time. The industry has gone
to great lengths to keep their presence in them quiet, at least until
all non-copy-protected alternatives (like analog antenna reception
and analog cable) have been replaced with copy-protected HDTV. If
they began activating those Macrovision generators now, while people
still had alternatives, well ... you get the idea.
2) CGMS-A. This garbage can be present in any analog signal, whether
over-the-air broadcasting, analog cable, or the analog outputs of
digital cable and satellite decoders. It can survive VHS (i.e. when
recording CGMS-A protected material on a VCR that doesn't recognize
and obey CGMS-A, the CGMS-A will still be present if you then attempt
to dub from the VCR to a modern device that does obey it). CGMS-A is
basically a signal in the vertical blanking interval (just like
closed captioning) which can be set to various modes: "all recording
allowed", "one recording (but no copies) allowed," or "no recording
at all allowed."
The problem with these possibile explanations is that you're saying
your camcorders (and PC capturing softwares) run for up to 10 minutes
before aborting. Well, Macrovision and CGMS-A are continuous signals:
if either of these were the cause, my *belief* is that your camcorders
or capturing softwares wouldn't wait so long -- they most likely would
refuse to record/capture from the moment (or within seconds of when)
you began recording/capturing.
Another possibility would be a defect in the camcorders -- although,
as you pointed out, that's very unlikely, considering that you have
two different units, different PCs, and that you say it only happens
during Fox's Sunday night Simpsons broadcasts.
So without further info, I for one am stumped. Another thing that
comes to mind is watermarking technology meant to prohibit recording.
In theory, a watermark could appear occasionally (unlike Macrovision
or CGMS-A, which are continuous), and that could explain the random
abort times. However, a watermark could also be perpetually present.
Moreover, I usually stay on top of these damned DRM issues, and have
never heard of any watermarking technology for television video in
the first place. The closest thing is watermarking for films shown
in theatres (to prevent camcorder bootlegging), but those, AFAIK, are
based upon light modulation techniques that distort the image to the
CCD, not which shut the camcorders down. |
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