DVD ROM / DVD Playback Issue

[Justin]

Ok, I just bought a DVD player for my media machine, a BTC 16x DVDROM

The media machine has only 1 display - A 27" Television. Now, the display itself is perfect. I play games, watch ripped movies, listen to music, et cetera just fine on it.

I bought a few DVDs for the DVD player. Now, when I play the DVD, it looks fine at first, but every few seconds the display will get really dark, the image with flicker, and then eventually it goes back to normal. It does this endlessly.. a few seconds of normal, a few seconds of messed up picture.

I used both PowerDVD and Windows Media Player to play the DVD, it still did this.

I tried multiple DVDs with it, it does this to all of them.

I am assuming this is some form of copy protection.

The video card is an 8mb ATI Rage Pro II that has a composite out, which goes into the Video IN on my VCR, the VCR then is plugged into the TV via coaxial cable.

It kinda irks me that I can't play my own dvds on my own player. Does anyone know what causes this, and how to stop it / avoid it / get around it? Thanks in advance!

 

[Justin]

Problem solved!


It was Macrovision, as I sort of suspected, and other people confirmed. I must pass the signal through a VCR, and don't have a choice in this... my video card is too old to disable macrovision and my DVD player doesn't support it. However, a piece of software called "REMOTE SELECTOR" in conjuction with powerDVD can disable macrovision via software. It works great.

Thank you tarkus and other IRC for helping me with this.