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Disabling Auto-Stop?

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I mentioned elsewhere that my grandmother recently acquired a Magnavox VCR/DVD+RW combo (Model MWR20V6). I've been using this to dub my favorite movies onto DVD--most of these movies have not had an official DVD release and, indeed, aren't even well-known. Others are old recordings from the 1980s/early 1990s that I want to backup for nostalgia's sake.

But, it turns out the player has one annoying little flaw: Occasionally it will just stop recording, for no reason, and at completely random times. One time it recorded an entire six-hour tape with no problems, but on another six-hour tape, of the exact same brand, it kept stopping every five minutes or so. For these backups of recordings I didn't mind so much--I just rewound the tape a bit and began anew. But recently it happened while I was trying to dub off a VHS movie that wasn't a recording.

Anyway, according to the manual, the dubbing process will automatically cease if the device does not detect an image on the source medium for three minutes. Okay, something's wrong here, because it quite obviously IS detecting images (otherwise there'd be blank spots on the produced DVD, no?) but it keeps auto-stopping anyway. And I've looked all over the setup menus and have seen nothing resembling a "disable auto-stop" function.

So, does anyone who has this exact player, or one similar to it, know how to disable this particular "feature" or otherwise get around it?

Thanks in advance.
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It could be a problem with the hardware. Is it too late to return for a replacement?

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: Sadly, I believe the prequels are beyond repair.
<span class=“Bold”>JediRandy: They’re certainly beyond any repair you’re capable of making.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>MeBeJedi: You aren’t one of us.
<span class=“Bold”>Go-Mer-Tonic: I can’t say I find that very disappointing.</span></span>

<span class=“Italics”>JediRandy: I won’t suck as much as a fan edit.</span>

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We got it as a present. No receit, no replacement.

Right now I'm looking to see if there's any sort of consistent pattern to this stoppyness, or if I could get around it by plugging another VCR into it instead of using it's built-in VCR.
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It's probably detecting Macrovision. Even if it is a tape you made, if there was some Macrovision protection on the source, it'll be on your copy. And so the combo player is programmed to stop if it detects that.

I'm just guessing here. I have a dual-deck VCR that does the same thing when going from deck to deck. Strangely my Nth generation bootleg copy of Pink Floyd The Wall Live had some sort of copy protection on it (which is probably why a pristine copy of that has never surfaced). To copy it I would connect RCA cables from the video out to the video in. The I would assign the the video out source to be Deck A and the record source for Deck B to be the video in that I had plugged into. This defeated the copy-protection detection and prevented the auto-stop.

Pink Floyd -- First in Space

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Heh. Just saw your other post where you described that the player had copy protection. You should have put 2 and 2 together!

I saw mention of those little "video clarifier" boxes at the other thread. Those *do* work in my experience and you may need to include one in the middle of the video component connection. You should try it without first and then check the results. You'll be able to tell if you need it or not.

Pink Floyd -- First in Space

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I bought the MWR20V6 unit last week at Walmart. I have noticed similar problem as you regarding the mysterious interruption during VCR->DVD dubbing. All the tapes I am dubbing are 5+ years old and are SLP and SP recordings of broadcasts of MST3K, Duckman, etc. from USA network, Comedy Central, and Scifi channel.

I had no problems whatsoever when I dubbed over 25 SP tapes of MST3K recorded off the Scifi channel. I had a number of interruptions when I tried dubbing ELP tapes. Sometimes it will go for an hour- sometimes 5 minutes with no apparent rhyme or reason. I can back up the tape and try again and it will work beyond the point where it failed the first time. I was idly speculating that maybe there is some kind of bit error counter that triggers the interruptions...

I believe +RW DVDs are the way to go here because you can reclaim the space when it goofs up. Also, you can't delete Titles or divide Titles using the +R DVDs. At least the ones I've been using (Maxell). So there's a lot more flexibility for a little more money.

Unfortunately, I expect this mysterious interruption deal will be a problem when I try to dub my 6-hour SLP MST3K tapes with 3 movies per tape.

I haven't tried any timer recordings yet.
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It sounds like the problem is caused by over-sensitive macrovision detection.

Macrovision is an artificial video error injected into tape signals that prevents copying. Since many normal video errors exist on old home recordings, sometimes over-sensitive macrovision detection on a DVD recorder will make the unit think the tape is protected, and it will stop recording.

You should search to see if there is a firmware hack to disable macrovision detection for that model. Video stabilizer boxes should help, too. Alternatively swap the recorder for a different model if you can.

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