I’ve been reading a lot of stuff on Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki (one thing about this blog is that I’m never shy about my geeky leanings). I read quite a few articles dealing with Star Trek Nemesis, and decided I wanted to watch it. Since Carrie and I are up in Kalispell, (which apparently has no equivalent of Crazy Mike’s), we could only find a copy on VHS (gasp, horror, horror! What antediluvean technology!).
This was only the beginning of our troubles, however. It turned out our VCR only had RCA composite outputs, while our TV only had a coax input. But not to fear — her brother’s new PC was a ‘Media Center PC’ with RCA inputs. So I had to go through the grueling Microsoft Media Center setup (my favorite part — Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program), because apparently there is no simple ‘play video input’ program.
So I get it all set up, including picking a fake brand for the TV and remote codes. We put the tape in, get ready to watch (on a smaller display, LOL), and see the beautiful picture of — Macrovision. That’s right. Because obviously, why rip a DVD with DVD Decryptor to get a perfect (or near-perfect, if I don’t want to be buggered with a dual-layer DVD) copy of the movie when I can record an analogy copy I rented from a video store.
Give up on the copy protection for videotapes, guys. There are easier ways for us to pirate stuff.
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