In a move some will consider daring, and others desperate, the Arizona-based electronics company Go-Video has introduced a new $850 version of its dual-deck VCR-2 that allows consumers to duplicate any and all videocassettes - even those encoded with special anti-copying signals.
Already on sale in New York, the Go-Video GV-2010D double-mouth VCR doesn't defeat, per se, the Macrovision scrambling signals now encoded on most hot video-tape titles available at your rental shop."Rather, what it does is make a perfect copy of the source material, preserving everything, including the copy-protection encoding on the tape," explains Go-Video marketing vice president Kevin Sullivan. The second tape will play back fine on any VCR, he says, but you can't get another viewable copy of that second tape unless you use a Go-Video machine again.
Sullivan says Go-Video is not stabbing the Motion Picture Association of America in the back. While the trade association had vehemently opposed the import of dual-deck VCRs by other manufacturers, the MPAA gave tacit approval to the original U.S.-developed VCR-2 precisely because it was designed to support, and not impede, Macrovision encoding of movie tapes.
To date, Sullivan says he "hasn't gotten any negative feedback from the MPAA" and suggests that Go-Video is on safe legal ground regarding possible copyright infringement charges from software producers and Macrovision.
"We view the dual-deck video machine in the same category as an audio double-dubbing deck or, more currently . . . audio systems that give you close instructions on dubbing from CD to tape in the same structure," says Sullivan. "It's a question of the use of the copy. Ours are designed for personal use in the home, not for commercial use. We're not trying to undermine anybody's business."
MPAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Barnes responds that "while we haven't said anything negative, we also haven't said anything positive about this product. It's going to take some time to iron out the issue. We haven't seen the machine. And we're just starting to talk to our member companies and our attorneys."
To date, Go-Video has won only modest sales and fairly negative reviews for its dual-deck VCRs, which are U.S.-designed but built by the Korean company Samsung. While the VCR-2's ease of use has been applauded, the company's claims that the product makes a "perfect copy" have been strongly denied by Consumer Reports and Video magazine.
Like its two predecessor models, the GV-2010D offers only low-fi linear stereo sound recording, not true Hi-Fi recording.
"But someone who's looking to make a fast dub of a hit movie probably won't care," says Steven Apple, editor of the trade magazine Video Insider. "If they wanted the real thing, they'd go out and buy it."VIDEO QUESTIONS
Q: If I'm allowed to copy a CD onto an audiocassette, why shouldn't I be allowed to copy a movie from one VCR to another?
A: Strictly speaking, you're not "allowed" to do either. The copying of any copyrighted material without permission of the copyright holder is illegal. But copying audio material is so easy to do - and so encouraged by tape manufacturers - that trying to prevent it would be foolhardy. Copying a videocassette for personal use is more difficult mechanically. Hollywood makes a big deal of condemning the practice, but it remains a gray area of the law.
Q: On tapes recorded at the four-hour speed , my friend's VCR can do a visible search. But my own VCR just gives me a black screen. Why? Can it be fixed?
A: The LP speed was not designated as part of the VHS specifications by JVC, the company that developed VHS. The company's units and some others still will not record at this speed, but will play tapes recorded at LP. However, a few other manufacturers decided to offer LP recording as a compromise speed between the quality of SP and the economy of EP. On some units that are play-only for LP, the picture is muted out during scan in the apparent belief that the image break-up is too unpleasant to watch. - Andy Wickstrom (Knight-Ridder)NEW VIDEOS
ON THE BLOCK - Low-budget movies being precisely that, their creators are always seeking economizing measures - sets that can be used over and over again, action footage that can be spliced into several sequences (like when you see the same explosion three times during a movie's battle scenes). Which explains why so many exploitation movies center on the murders of strippers and-or prostitutes; it's a two-for-the-price-of-one (sex and violence) scenario. This one follows the gutsy struggle of stripper Libby (Marilyn Jones), who is caught in a murderous power struggle between a distressingly intense vice cop and a tyrannical real estate developer. Vidmark. Tom Maurstad (Dallas Morning News)
AMERICAN TIGER - It's not easy being a young man on the make these days, especially if you are a brutally handsome rickshaw puller in a Florida tourist city. Gymnast Mitch Gaylord plays a likable fellow paying his way through school by toting tourists in his primitive cart. One night he goes to a houseboat with a beautiful woman who turns out to be a hooker who lures men back to be photographed unknowingly by the porno-dealer son of a rich evangelist. Our hero roughs up the dealer and takes off; the next morning said dealer is found dead and Gaylord is running from the cops and the real killer. And people say Hollywood doesn't make realistic movies any more. Academy Entertainment. 93 minutes. Rated R. - By Mike Pearson (Scripps Howard)