I want to do away with VHS. VHS tapes take up too much space compared to say DVDs or a Linux server with a single hard drive.
Trouble is, those darn Disney tapes seem to be copy protected. I believe it is legal to make a backup copy of a commercial VHS tape for personal use, but how does one get past the copy protection? The LiteOn DVD burner / VHS tape deck my Dad bought years ago works for going from VHS to DVD when a camcorder is involved, but forget copying any commercial tapes. The minute you pop in a VHS tape of say Aladdin and hit the copy button, copy protection flashes on the television screen. The copier obviously knows somehow that the source VHS tape is copy protected material. I having nothing against Disney per se trying to make it impossible to copy Disney VHS tapes, but Disney should offer a send in your VHS tape and we will give you a rebate on a replacement DVD copy program. What do people know about going from VHS to a local area network file server legality wise and technologically speaking? What works and what doesn't work? Is it legal to stream commercial videos from a local area file server for private home use? Is it legal to copy the VHS case pictures to put on a private local area network titles web page? I'm thinking a thin client can connect to the actual television and use that television as the monitor so to speak. Streaming would involve pulling so many minutes into a large memory buffer off of the network before that many minutes is played so that there is no jitter. The thin client would run NFS root off of the network. Once the commercial videos are copied to say DVD discs, is it necessary law wise to keep the original VHS copies? Are there companies that convert commercial VHS tapes to DVDs for you legally? I'd happily pay $10 plus the VHS tape to trade up to a legal DVD copy. The only problem with replacing VHS tapes with DVDs is that even DVDs take up a lot of space and you end up with a my DVD library is too big problem. If it isn't legal to even back up commercial VHS tapes, just say so. _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug