#VCR VIDEO PLUS HOW TO#

Start with the code number 3316 from May, 1991. Here’s how it worked, based on the Cryptologia article:ġ. It seems to have become scarce of late, perhaps because VCR Plus+’s lawyers have been on the case. Somebody else used this as the basis for a VCR Plus+ encoding/decoding program called VCRPLS.ZIP that for a time was posted on computer bulletin boards and such. Three of them, Ken Shirriff, Curt Welch, and Andrew Kinsman, got together via the Internet computer network, broke the code (most of it, anyway), and published the result in the journal Cryptologia last July. Since the codes are encrypted, competitors can’t bootleg the boxes and newspapers can’t figure out the codes on their own.īut Gemstar didn’t reckon with the nation’s tireless computer geniuses. Gemstar is cagey about its business strategy, but presumably profits from VCR Plus+ in two ways: by selling the control box to you and the TV listing codes to newspapers. VCR Plus+ can even record shows on two different cable channels when you’re not home, something a VCR alone can’t do. At the right time VCR Plus+ beams out the proper pulses to turn on the VCR, switch to the right channel, start recording, then shut the VCR off when the show is over. You punch in the number(s) for the programs(s) you want to record, put a blank tape in the VCR, and leave the VCR Plus+ box pointed at the TV. The VCR Plus+ control box, which is sold by Gemstar Development, can be set up to emulate the remote controls for your VCR and/or cable box. Either way we are stretching the limit of what human ingenuity can accomplish in a 600-word column.

#VCR VIDEO PLUS HOW TO#

Maybe you’d also like to know how to perform brain surgery with a can opener. But no, I can see you want to know what the algorithm is. If we had any sense we would leave it at that.

Vcr video plus