_________ SWAT MAGAZINE ISSUE TWENTY NINE MAY 2000 __________ / \___________________________________________/ \ / VIDEO PIRACY \ / By Richard \ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay guys this is my first article for S.W.A.T. magazine (and, may I add, I am not a member of the team so if you like my article email them on swateam@swateam.org and tell them what a good investment I would be if I was. UNLIKE other members of the team (why do I say OTHER? Unlike MEMBERS of the team-get my point?) I don't use slang, well, I mean I don't use "H/\CK3RZ 57/\NG", get my drift? My article should be as easy as pie to understand, so lets get started! Do you fancy making a bit of money? Well lets go through how you could do it, get a job. Well I'm only 14 so whoopee a paper rounds just about all I can get. Okay, so say your'e 16, oh wow you get to work at McDonalds and wear a poncey uniform that just gets laughs out of other anarchists, but now you have a 'yuppie' job so you're not an anarchist any more. Nah, those jobs are just a pile of shite! No, really, they are. So, you gotta keep your anarchists reputation up by doing something on the underground, so what can you do? You don't want to shell out for a CD-R drive (about £250!!!) to pirate your CD's (which none of your yuppie friends like anyway-how many yuppies do you know into Green Day, the Sex Pistols etc etc etc)? Not many Anarchists are! So, we're still looking for something to do...Ahah! Video Piracy!!! Okay, lets go through the equipment you need... 1 X Television 2 X VCR's 1 X Male to Male Coax Cable 2 X Female to Male Coax Cable Okay, so maybe your yuppie friends aren't into Green Day, but how many people do you know who wouldn't prefer to buy a video for £5 rather than 12? I certainly would... Okay, so now your thinking, a telly and two video's, that'll be a fortune! No, my friend, that is where you are mistaken! In our house, we have all that already! Downstairs we have a NICAM video (the impor- tance of this will become apparent later) and in my room I have a mono Video, hence 2 videos (and countless porn films...). I also have a 14" TV in my room, that will do fine. Now, if you only have ONE video in your house, you can copy from DVD if you're luck enough to have a DVD player, or, Granada and Radio Rentals, Vision X etc, about every 6 months sell off ex rental stock so you could buy some of those, Vision X has just had a sell off, and was selling PYE VCR's for £40 each, and thats cheap. These are NICAM STEREO Video's we're talking about here. Now, you MUST have an aerial SOCKET, not a loop antenna that sits on top of your telly. Now, when your parents are out, connect this as follows. In your TV aerial socket, put a MALE to FEMALE in and put this in VCR 1. (if one of your videos is stereo and one mono, this should be the mono video). Then put the other MALE to FEMALE from VCR1 to VCR2. Now put the Male to Male from your VCR to the aerial socket. Easy, so far. Now, on VCR 1, you should have all your channels tuned as normal, for example, BBC1 in PROGRAM 1, BBC2 in PROGRAM 2, etc etc. VCR2 does not need to have this information. Now, what you need to do is tune all this equipment together. Put a video (pre recorded) into VCR2 and press play. Now, tune your TELLY into that video, i.e. when you see the video playing, for example, if the video is cool runnings, when you see cool runnings on your screen, set video into Channel 8. Your TV should already have the first video (VCR1) tuned in, on my tv it is tuned into Channel 9. So, VCR1 is on CH9, VCR2 is on CH8. Now, you have to tune VCR1 into VCR2. Put the tape into VCR1 and press play. Put the telly on CH8 so you are in effect watching VCR2 (although there will be no picture because no channels are tuned in yet). In CH1, tune in VCR1, i.e. when Cool Runnings comes on the screen, store it in CH1. You have now sucessfully set up your copying system. Now wasn't that easy? Now, the reason the stereo vcr has to be VCR2 is because it will then record in STEREO, but if the MONO VCR was VCR2 it would only record in MONO. Okay then, you have the VCR's set up after about an hours worth of hard work (which, may I add, "I" had to work out how to do). Now what you gotta do (seeing as you are not yet 18 and need to copy 18 rated Video's because no one wants to buy Post Man Pat) is get yourself an ID. A fake one, that is. Download one free from www.phatism.com or http://facility.8m.com, print it out and pop down to the video store. MAKE SURE THEY WILL GIVE YOU YOUR CARD BECAUSE YOU ARE GOING TO BE USING A FAKE NAME AND ADDRESS. On the way, note down the number of the fone box down the street, and an address in a block of flats. HERE ARE SOME FONE BOX NO's IN BRADFORD Idle Village: 01274 612364 Windhill Old Road: 01274 612558 Bottom Town Lane: 01274 612477 Top Town Lane: 01274 612207 Top Highfield Road: 01274 612188 Bottom Leeds Road: 01274 532095 Middle Leeds Road: 01274 581244 Opposite Thorpe School: 01274 611534 Wibsey: 01274 677227 Wibsey: 01274 679051 Wyke: 01274 612300 HERE IS A FONE BOX IN GLOUCESTER 0776 9562984 (Its a InterPhone box so it is a 'mobile' no. HERE IS ONE IN SCUNTHORPE 01482 226222 HERE IS ONE IN LIVERPOOL 07899 793563 (Another InterPhone...) HERE IS ONE IN LEEDS 0113 2457676 If you live in any of these areas, don't bother looking, if you don't, it only takes 5 secs to look at it and jot it down. Anyway, you've got an 'identity', an address and a phone no., enough for a video club card I should think. Now, the key is, get a film thats really popular but is only available for rent, not for sale yet, so they will think they are getting something no-one else is. Oh yeah, On the way home pop by Dixons and get a 10-pack of cheap video cassettes, I personally can't tell the difference between those and the expensive ones, so you might as well spend a quid each on cheap ones than a fiver on dear ones, when a fiver is really all you can get away with charging anyway. So, you got home now with your spanking new video card, a horror or porn film to flog to your friends and a 10-pack of videos. Now to get taping, you'll be selling 'em at school tomorrow. Put the tape you just rented in VCR1. Put the tape you want to record onto in VCR2. Press RECORD on VCR2. Press PLAY on VCR1. Wait until the taping has finished, take the Cassette out of VCR2, rewind the one in VCR1, put a new one in VCR2 and repeat the process again. Do this until ALL of the tapes are full. Now, put your telly on CH9 (or whatever VCR1 is on) and put a tape that YOU recorded in it (VCR1). Rewind it, and play it to check that the quality is ok. If it is, then your ok. If not you're buggered. Presuming you're ok, stuff em all into your schoolbag, take em to school, flog em for a fiver each (baring in mind they only COST a quid-thats £40's profit in one evening) and take orders for tommorow. When you get seriously into the biz (and if your into serious money you will) you'll later invest in more VCR's (Just tune em in the same way as before) and then you can tape 2 or more at once. -Richard