DVD: Digital Copying to MD

[Benny]

Now most people are aware you can't make a direct digital copy of a Dolby Digital or DTS soundtrack, however there are DVD players such as mine that are capable of converting DD & DTS to 16/48 PCM. Also there are also quite a few DVD discs (mostly music) with PCM soundtracks; like the latest video collection from U2. I have found in my experience that the majority of DVDs seem to have SCMS or something similar encoded into the soundtracks (be they DD, DTS or PCM) which prohibits digital recording to MD. I've only been successful once in making a digital copy of a DVD (via the DD to PCM conversion in this case); it was the Sarah McLachlan Mirrorball DVD. So I have established that it is possible to make a digital copy of a DVD but it is highly dependent on the particular DVD title.

Does anybody know exactly what form of audio copy protection is utilized by the DVD format? My MD recorders (JB940 & R-909) seem to think it's SCMS as they display NO COPY. I know the majority of DVDs have Macrovision but to my knowledge that only effects the video. Is there another form of copy protection for audio that is beinig utilized by DVD producers that I don't know about? What ever it is the MD recorders recognise it. Better yet has anybody discovered a way around this problem so I can make digital copies od DVDs?

Interestingly I recently had a play with the new Pioneer DV-S733 DVD-Audio/SACD player. I discovered that the player would actually down-convert DVD-Audio 24/96 MLP soundtracks to 16/48 PCM through the digital output. Naturally I had to just had to try an MD recording and much to my suprise it actually works! You can make a digital copy of DVD-Audio 24/96 MLP and I assume 24/192 MLP but not of most DVD-Video discs. Strange huh? No luck with SACD though, no digital output at all, but that was expected.