Not as Easy as I'd Thought

There are advantages and disadvantages to being at home, the advantages generally outweigh the disadvantages but sometimes the disadvantages seem more important. The main advantages come from things like an expansive tool kit and a loft full of computer components, cables and various other only very occasionally useful bits of technology that have been accumulated and kept from years of electronics. The disadvantages come from those things that have been replaced by modern equivalents that I have gone out and purchased and left in Sheffield.

This video conversion project has seen the case where a disadvantage has been remedied by an advantage. I was more than happy to take on this task because I knew that I had access to a TV card - somewhat better than mine as it works on Windows Vista and 7. What I didn't know was that the software bundled with this TV card was a little too clever for it's own good. I only found this out when I tried to convert the first video. After just one minute and thirty six seconds, the recording stopped and told me that the programme being broadcast was for viewing only. Presumably a feature used to stop you recording copy protected broadcasts - something I'm not even sure exists in the UK. Anyway, after a bit of research I think I've found that it is finding Macrovision which is a signal attached to the broadcast for this precise reason. It is undetectable to the eye but clearly the computer and related electronics can see it. It might also be to do with the VCR which is quite a posh one as far as these things go. Anyway basically this means that if I am going to transfer all of the videos in this manner, I will need to sit in front of the laptop the whole time and re-click record whenever this message appears. I was half considering writing a Java program to do it for me but realised that I would likely end up spending several weeks trying to work out how to do this and end up with it not working.

Instead, I put to use the advantages of being at home. I decided to try using one of the other outputs on the VCR to input into the graphics card - except the only output is SCART or aerial. I had already tried aerial and the TV card doesn't have a SCART input socket. It does however have S-Video and composite connections and I remembered reading a while ago (on Wikipedia) that SCART carried these signals on some of it's pins. I also found (whilst rummaging around in the 'cable draw') a SCART to composite cable designed for extracting the left and right audio. If I could rewire the cable to carry composite and mono audio then I might be able to circumvent the copy protection as it isn't being transmitted via aerial. It was actually much easier than I thought with SCART cables being very well designed for this exact purpose (okay maybe not this exact purpose but you get what I mean).

To cut an already fairly long story somewhat short, it didn't work and the computer still detected Macrovision. I even tried installing the card on my laptop and using Windows Media Center (it makes me cringe to spell it that way) to record it hoping that they wouldn't have the same problem despite being famous for their use of DRM. Turns out, WMC is so badly designed that if you want to access the other ports on the TV card, you have to claim to be using a cable box for which you must have an infra-red receiver for the remote. There is no technical reason why this must be so but you cannot progress with the setup without one. Now seething with frustration, I try one last thing. I dug out the old DVD recorder we had no longer in use (what a waste of money that was - it was only used about twice!) and gave that a go. I have now turned half of my bedroom into a mini AV rack (see photo). That is a laptop, a DVD HDD recorder, a VCR, a DVD and USB player and a freeview box. Oh, and a TV. Out of sight are the aerial and TV Card which provides the vital link in the chain.

In the end the solution required all of the videos to be transferred onto the DVD recorder and then onto the laptop via S-Video and composite audio. Thankfully the expensive DVD recorder has all of these outputs - and more - readily available at the back so no SCART hacking required. At the rate it is going, each video will take nearly seven hours to transfer as everything has to be done twice and in real time. There is also only a small amount of space left on the recorders HDD so I have to get this right first time to avoid having to do it all again!

Thankfully, as a reward for my patience and ingenuity today, I get to go to the pub tonight and catch up with my Sutton friends. As has become almost customary at the end of these evenings, we ended up at Big Johns and then sitting in the car delving into a 20" pizza. A perfect end to a great evening.