I could swear I posted a reply a few days ago, but it never showed up at
either of my subscriptions, so sorry if this is a duplication.
Jeanmougin followed up,
| If I play a digitally recorded MD on a deck and I use a SCMS stripper
| between the optical out of the deck and the optical in of a recorder, I'll
| pass-by the SCMS interdiction. But what will be the SCMS status of this new
| digital copy (unlimited copy or one generation allowed?)?
That depends on the particulars of the stripping firmware. Let's rule out
the possibility that the recording device is professional grade, because with
a pro-grade recorder you wouldn't need nor be using a stripper. Let's also
rule out the possibility that the destination unit will refuse to record
because of SCMS, because then the stripper isn't working and the question
requires that the copy came to be. So we have a digital signal being ac-
cepted and recorded by a consumer-grade MD recorder.
Either the output of the stripper is SCMS-unlimited, the copy should also be
SCMS-unlimited, and further generations can be made without a stripper; or
the output of the stripper is SCMS-penultimate, the copy is SCMS-final, and
making another generation would require a stripper again.
[I'm tempted to say that the copy can't be SCMS-penultimate, that a consumer-
grade recorder will never generate an SCMS-penultimate recording from a di-
gital signal; but there still is the mystery of DBS tuners, which no one
here (Ralf Kuchenhart looked into it pretty deeply and came to no hard con-
clusions) has ever solved. I suppose that if the stripper sent out the same
settings (not just of SCMS but also of whatever else it takes) to make the
signal seem to the recorder like one from that kind of DBS tuner, it could
happen.]
The Prospec MSP730 has two settings: pass the SCMS bits as they are or set
them for unlimited recopying. So when I use my stripper, the copy is SCMS-
unlimited and further generations can be made by digital transfer without
SCMS problems. On the other hand (though there is no in-line stripper in
this example), according to Derek Streeter, when an early ROM version of the
MZ-R50 is set to "SCMS OFF," if it receives an SCMS-final signal it makes an
SCMS-final recording (in contrast to refusing to record it at all), so copy-
ing the copy requires circumventing SCMS all over again. (It also makes
SCMS-final copies from SCMS-penultimate input with the "SCMS OFF" setting,
just as with "SCMS ON.")
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