tv tuner / vcr issues

[Steven Wabik]

i am using my media center PC to record vhs tapes to dvd. i have an external
tv tuner. it is connected to my vcr properly but i seem to get the issue
"vcr lock activated". does anyone know how to fix this? please help. the vcr
worked just fine the last time it was hooked up to my notebook and when it
was hooked up to my tv.

 

[bud]

i am using my media center PC to record vhs tapes to dvd. i have an
external tv tuner. it is connected to my vcr properly but i seem to get the
issue "vcr lock activated". does anyone know how to fix this? please help.
the vcr worked just fine the last time it was hooked up to my notebook and
when it was hooked up to my tv.

If it worked ok last time I don't know how it would be activated but that
would be referring to a parental lock like a password was set up so kids
couldn't watch tapes or a certain TV channel without putting in a password.

 

[Steven Wabik]

this is an old vcr and there is no password options r anything. i'm the only
one who knows how to program it and stuff. i am the only one who touched it
in the last year and a half. its a panasonic pv-7400.

well, i googled it and this it what i found on fixing the damn issue....
http://experts.about.com/q/TV-VCR-Stereo-1749/Panasonic-VCR-lock.htm

 

[bud]

i am using my media center PC to record vhs tapes to dvd. i have an
external tv tuner. it is connected to my vcr properly but i seem to get the
issue "vcr lock activated". does anyone know how to fix this? please help.
the vcr worked just fine the last time it was hooked up to my notebook and
when it was hooked up to my tv.

Check out this page. Tells you how to deactivate the lock feature.
http://www.fixya.com/support/p231346-panasonic_pv_7200_vcr/manual-7786/page-26

 

[Steven Wabik]

well, thank you very much. i'll try it to see if it works or not.

 

[Steven Wabik]

now that i fixed the vcr issue, i got another one. for some reason media
center will not record this one vhs tape. it has some sort of protection on
it that media center detects that stops it from recording the media. do you
know how to disable the protection on the tape? before today i did not even
know that there was any protection on vhs tapes at all. please help.

 

[bud]

now that i fixed the vcr issue, i got another one. for some reason media
center will not record this one vhs tape. it has some sort of protection
on it that media center detects that stops it from recording the media. do
you know how to disable the protection on the tape? before today i did not
even know that there was any protection on vhs tapes at all. please help.

That's not so easy.
Some tapes use macrovision to prevent them being copied. There are some
software hacks that would disable it on some graphics cards. You could try
to google your card for macrovision hacks. Most newer graphics card have a
chip built into them that looks for copy protection schemes on tapes and
DVD's. Other then that you would need to buy a video stabilizer box that
hooks up in line between the VCR and your capture device. Or a analog
capture card. It might not be worth it for a few tapes. I had a bunch of VCR
tapes I wanted to convert so I tried them both. The analog capture card was
the best.