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In response to Susan's transfer questions....
 
Panasonic makes a fairly affordable "world standard" VHS VCR. This will play
any format (Pal, SECAM, NTSC) and give you a NTSC output (US Standard). You
can then dub from this deck onto a regular VHS VCR. The unit costs about $3k.
Most video facilities around the country also offer this service, at a
per-minute rate, which do add up, so be careful!
 
As to the legalities, well, vagueness rears it's ugly head again. I always
thought that dubbing for "personal" use or even "educational" purposes was ok
under the copyright laws, but I'm not really the expert. 2 semesters of
broadcast/media law several years ago seem to have failed me...anyone else
have insight?
 
Mike the techie....