Sony MD recorder manuals, in describing SCMS, have always said that signals
from digital satellite broadcasts can be either SCMS-penultimate (you can
record them but you can't copy the recording digitally) or mysteriously
SCMS-antepenultimate (you can record them and copy that recording digitally
but SCMS prevents making a third generation digitally). We've never found
an answer to what distinguishes the latter from the former, or how the latter
can even happen (unless the source medium code tells an MD recorder to mark
the recording as SCMS-penultimate).
Now the waters are muddied further. Chris Browne just provided the manual
from the Yamaha MDX-793 to the MDCP, including this passage about SCMS on
digital satellite broadcasts, emphasis mine:
You can record a digital signal input from a digital satellite broadcast
onto a DAT tape or recordable MD via the digital input jack on the DAT or
MD recorder. ... If the broadcast does not contain a copyright protection
code, you can then record the contents of this recorded DAT tape or MD
(first generation) onto another DAT tape or recordable MD via a digital
input jack on the DAT or MD recorder to create a second generation digital
copy (these copies may also be copied digitally).
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Note, however, that if the broadcast contains a copy protection code,
second-generation digital copying will not be possible.
So, per Yamaha, when a second generation is possible, so is a third. The
tuner output includes SCMS status bits, and they work like those of any other
source, and there's no anomalous antepenultimate setting. That completely
disagrees with Sony, according to whom it's possible sometimes to make a
second generation within SCMS but never a third.
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