I've got a Canon ZR60 camcorder.. trying to capture a clip from a DVD to my computer. Because I'm lacking a capture card, I decided to set up a contraption -- DVD player to AV-in on camcorder, camcorder to computer via FireWire. The connection from the DVD player to the camcorder is analog (RCA). When everything was setup and I clicked play/record, the camcorder started beeping saying "COPYRIGHT PROTECTED. DUBBING RESTRICTED." How the hell does the camcorder know what the source is?? It's driving me nuts..

More than likely it's the DVD player thats detecting the camcorder and stopping it
LOL that is a contraption though, nice try

The camcorder may recognize a DVD copy protection signal over the analog video cable. Copy protection signals over an analog video signal is not new. Macrovision was a copy protection scheme for VHS video tapes.

Interesting stuff.. thanks.

Without the time to research some software that would do the trick, I tried a different contraption.. and thankfully this time it worked. I've got a Casablanca editor (basically a computer that uses proprietary software for video editing). I plugged the DVD player into the Casablanca, captured the scene, exported it to DV tape, and captured the DV tape to Windows XP. Sort of cheesy, but hey, it worked!