One of the questions that we get asked every day is "is it possible to copy my VHS videos onto DVD using one of your DVD recorders"?

The simple answer is yes and no! In order to stop being able to pirate copies of commercial DVD's and VHS tapes, a technology known as Macrovision is implemented.

A VHS video tape or DVD that has been encoded with Macrovision will cause any VCR or DVD recorder, that is trying to make a copy, to fail. This is usually visible as a scrambled picture as if the tracking was incorrect or the picture will fade between overly light and dark or even a message on screen saying "Copy Protected Content".

Macrovision inserts pulses into the non-displayed area of the screen, and these signals cause the tracking and gain control on the recorder to move and thus makes the recorded picture wildly change brightness and unmatchable.

If your tapes are home videos that you have taken yourself, or they do not have macrovision encoding, then it should be possible to copy them to DVD. Please bear in mind that the copying of commercial video content may be considered illegal without the permission of the owner of the content.

Some DVD players have the option of disabling the Macrovision technology. This is possible as the signal is not stored on the DVD itself. Commercial DVDs just contain an instruction to the player to generate the copy protection signal during playback. Some DVD players can be "hacked" to ignore Macrovision.

There are also cheap devices called stabilizers for sale that filter out the Macrovision signal. We don't sell them, and Macrovision (the company that owns the technology) have been successful suing a number of companies that manufacture stabilizers.

It has also been reported to us that Sky Box Office programming has Macrovision enabled, thus making it very difficult to record (unless you have a Sky+ box!).

So what's the summary? If you feel that you are legally within your rights to copy a VHS tape to DVD to preserve it, or you want to record from Sky Box Office, you need to disable Macrovision copy protection. There are a number of companies that are currently marketing devices that disable Macrovision and ebay is a good place to look for such a device. For further information we suggest that you go to google.co.uk and do a search!