Quote Originally Posted by Resident Loser
...I know close to zip re: teevee, VCRs and DVDs...once in a while when playing a DVD(I own some which seem OK, borrowed ones seem the problematic ones) the brightness level shifts on a cyclic basis...I did some surfin' and discovered, almost by accident, that my problem isn't with the disc OR the player, it's due to my hook-up...

Now, this ain't home theater(which I hate for what it has done to plain ol' stereo), it's simply an older 20in. Philips/Magnavox teevee, a slightly older Sony Hi-Fi stereo VCR and a fairly-recent JVC single-disc DVDP worth around a hunnert bucks...

I did a search for "DVD brightness shift" and wound up at a site which referred me to a link to Apple(hence "accident")...it was at the Apple site I was made aware that this was not a "trouble" per se, but it was due to the fact that the encoding on the disc was triggering Macrovision copy protection in the VCR...a follow-up search to a video FAQ site gave me more details, and among the solutions were the two I find to be somewhat viable ones.

The first(which I will try when I can) is to bypass the VCR, which I am currently using as a switching center to feed the output of the DVDP, since my teevee only has one set of a/v inputs. This will not be a permanent fix(if it works) since I don't like the idea of playing switchboard operator every time I want to change sources. A video source switch is a possible answer, but being the lazy summnab!tch that I is and having all the remotes I do, the prospect of even pressing another button is anathema to me...soooo...

This bring us to the second choice, getting a...err...video enhancer, stabilizer...aaa...you know copyguard defeater...Now I don't copy stuff, in fact I've gotten into dialogs with some here at this site re: the morality of doing so...so all I wanna' do is do a "plug'n'play" routine...set it and forget it...

Obviously, the decision is mine...the price diff tain't all that much, so here comes the question:

Has anyone used either of these two devices...pro's...con's...any alternative ideas my tiny, little mind has yet to devise or otherwise stumble across? BTW, I'm not keen on usin' an RF thingie and the channel choice cr@p, so that's way down there.

Thanx in advance for any and all input...

jimHJJ(...please help me with my output!...)

My oh my Jim - you certainly have one helluva dilemma here don't you? To confound the issue(s), I have trouble understanding just where you're "coming from" (or going to - for that matter). You've bad-mouthed the very idea of home theater on numerous threads here at A-R (for no good reason, IMO) ... almost like you want no part of television or video, but just plain old 2-channel stereo fer crissakes! Now, you post a query about a "video" problem - but you don't sound like you really care much about the solution - unless it's super cheap, and geared toward a super lazy summnabich of an attitude. You've already gotten 2 different (and both worthy and viable) solutions from the replies already given by F-1 and Bryan here, yet you send out an SOS to me to come up with a "better" solution for you.

The idea of buying a Macrovision-eliminator is something that I wouldn't really recommend, since the viability of such a device over more than a short term is a factor that cannot be predicted. The movie industry is hell-bent on "protecting" their intellectual property, and although a device such as the Sima Color Corrector will do what you want done today, there's no guarantee that the movie moguls will find a more robust (and therefore not so defeatable) copy-protect somewhere down the line.

My solution? Get an audio/video selector switch. You can go cheap, like the one Bryan suggested, or, you can go more expensive for a remotely controlled one. But that brings up the problem of a coffee table filled with remote controls, which can only be solved with a good "learning remote" such as the HomeTheaterMaster MX-500 (around $125).

Sorry, Jim ... that's the best I can do for you