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From: alle@ihuxb.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.video
Subject: Problem Recording Star Wars
Message-ID: <303@ihuxb.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19-Aug-83 16:53:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxb.303
Posted: Fri Aug 19 16:53:33 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 19-Aug-83 23:10:48 EDT
Organization: BTL Naperville, Il.
Lines: 26

I recently recorded "Star Wars" on my Sharp VHS VCR when it was
shown on Showtime (cable).  I didn't play it back.  I loaned
it to a friend (no charge, so I did not commit any crimes???)
and he returned it to me saying that it would not play back
properly.  I tried the tape on my machine and indeed, it would
not play back properly.

The symptoms were as follows:

  1) Approx. 10 distinct flashing lines dividing up the picture
  2) The recorder seemed to be having trouble synching to the proper
     playback speed as the movie was not playing properly.  But
     the picture and sound were there, it just did not play *quite*
     right.  (BTW, my recorder's playback speed is determined auto-
     matically by the recording speed.  The VCR synchs up to the
     recording somehow.)

Anyone have any idea what is going on here?  I have recorded at
least a dozen other movies off of various cable channels (network->
HBO->showtime) without this problem.

Is it possible that the cable companies have a method for preventing
the recording of particular movies?

Allen England at Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
ihnp4!ihuxb!alle