gwyn | Die, macrovision, die! (Reply)

Today seems to be my stupid LJ post day, I guess. The very day I was "laid off" at work, during my lunch hour I'd bought a multiregion DVD player with the macrovision hack (called, so sublimely euphemistically, "VCR friendly") for vidding. If any of you vidder types need a player that plays other region discs, as well as a macrovision hack, I would definitely recommend this player and the company I bought it from, World Gift Center. They're a little goofy in that if you pay with PayPal, they send you a confirmation of payment, but they never tell you when/if your product has shipped or give you the tracking number, but damn if it doesn't just arrive as they said it would. The player itself is a very slim, nice little Daewoo unit, the DVD-5800, and World Gift Center hacks the anticopy code for you, so you don't have to pay extra, as I've seen at most places. At first I thought the macrovision hack wasn't working, because I had it hooked up to my TV and was trying to copy a disc onto a digital tape just to see if it'd work without dragging the unit into my vidding area, yet the camera wouldn't copy; once I did drag it in and hooked it up through the passthrough camera, it imported clips to the computer just fine. It says on the info that it doesn't play DVD-Rs, but I found it does indeed play some, just depends on the media you use and what was used to record it. It also plays VCDs and other types of discs, including audio.

I found it a lot harder to get a decent hacked player than I'd expected -- a lot of places are no longer advertising the VCR friendly players, and many of the places online are so shady they made me laugh out loud. So I looked for a place that would have the online BBB and VeriSign seals, etc., so that I'd feel a little better about buying from them. One of the few other places that offers all those things really ragged on the Daewoo and Sampo players, but honestly, outside of the usual goofy low-end Asian player problems (random barfs where it gets paralyzed, finicky remotes that barely seem to work), I think this thing is nice, myself. It's played everything I've thrown at it so far, even really complex discs, and it's been a blast watching the Professionals DVDs that

alexfandra loaned me. I know not all of us are competent enough to rip clips, or can download shows and movies, on our computers, so this is a pretty inexpensive alternative and easy to use.

Speaking of vidses, the Miracles vid that

feochadn and I showed at Vividcon is up at

morgandawn's site. She is being so unbelievably generous with her space. If you're interested in seeing it, and you don't have her info and password yet, e-mail me at gwyn_r@livejournal.com and I can give it to you, again as long as you agree to abide by her terms.

And lastly, I promise, promise, promise that tomorrow I'm working on the semi-experimental BtVS fanfic, and will also try to get down some of the bones of the next chapter of Measure of a Man. I promise!