This will not aply to everyone but I have a Zenith DVD Recorder (straight to disc--no HDD) from about 2 years ago where if I pressed "Record" first recording on the DVD disc then quickly pressed Play on the VCR, I could record a Movie copyguarded with Macrovision.
However, on my Panasonic DMR E85H DVD Recorder, doing so would stop the recording within about 15 seconds with the "Sorry Copyguarded" notice popping up.
Well, discs made from my Zenith recorder does not play on some of the other DVD Players in the house (which is unusual) to where recordings from the Panasonic plays on almost any Player. Plus, with the Zenith I am stuck with putting a 90 minute movie in the SP mode only, to where with the Panasonic I can record to HDD then copy it in the FR (Fixed Rate mode) which is like a SP+ mode resulting in slightly better quality than the SP mode.
Last night, I conducted an experiment. Having all the dubbing wires properly hooked up from vcr to Zenith to Panasonic, I pressed Record on the Zenith which began recording onto a DVD-R disc, then pressed Record on the Panasonic DMR hard drive, then pressed play on the Macrovisioned vcr tape.
Since the Zenith Recorder was busting through the Macrovision, it allowed the Panasonic DMR E85H to accept the vhs transfer onto the hard drive (in which I was later able to edit out all the beginning trash out).
(This, of course left me with a useless disc from Zenith recorder--but DVD-R's don't cost much anyway. You can record the movie on the Zenith disc (or whatever brand recorder you have that allows this) in the worst mode anyway getting more usage out of the disc and it will have absolutely no effect on the Panasonic's recording anyway.)
Then I was able to record the movie from the Panasonic Hard drive onto disc in the FR mode.
This may be of some help to those in similar situations. I was considering buying one of those Copyguard/Macrovision busters but it looks like I don't need one.
