DVD Recorder - Copy Protection on TCM? (1 Viewer)

A friend is telling me that she is unable to record TCM programming from her DirecTV DVR.

She says "I play the movie and hit 'record' on my DVD recorder, and I get a message that 'you can't record a copy protected movie.'"

I haven't experienced any problems recording DVDs of TCM movies from my DirecTV DVR. Does anyone here have any idea what might be causing her problem? She says that she is running a direct connection from the DVR to the DVD recorder.

I know that a couple of years ago they copy-protected some movies (or maybe the whole channel), but it was only for a couple of months (this was in December/January - I don't remember the year). However I hadn't noticed a problem recently, although I haven't tried anything for a while.It wasn't the connection. And it was AT&T U-Verse in Chicagoland. I don't think Comcast in the same area protected theirs.

Its possible they are trying it again.

I had Direct TV for about 15 yrs, never had a problem burning DVD's from the DVR. Made the switch to AT&T Uverse, now can't burn anything from their DVR. ATT obviously copy protects, possibly Direct TV does now too.

Last I knew(I worked for one of the distributors of DirecTV)...

You had to take the DVR "copy", transfer that to your hard drive* on a computer...then you could burns discs.

And yes, you can thank HDCP for that. However, since this is DVD recordings...change the output on the DVR to 480 and it should work off the analog connections. And, by the way, the HD DVRs are "smart" now. They can tell when you've doubled up your connections. And, when you do, it wants to force 480.

*The software to do all this is free on DirecTV's website. Also the "smart HD DVR" showed up around 2009. The DVRs "put in service" before 2007 are immune from being "firmware upgraded" to be smart. It has nothing to do with actual model number of the DVR, to a point. As once the "new ones" in 2010 were available...those showed up "already smart".

A side "problem" with the newer "smart" DVR...
Those "free HBO/Cinemax/Showtime" weekends we all love so much. On today's(since 2010), the recordings you make to watch later. Get to it quick, they disappear in 30-45 days.

Thanks for the input. I have no trouble making DVDs from my DVR, but my video connection to the DVD recorder is S-video, which of course is only capable of outputting 480. I'll have to check with my friend and see if she is connected to her DVD recorder with an HDMI cable. If she is, I'll tell her to change her DVR's resolution when she wants to record and see if that fixes it.