Saturday, January 24, 2009

The Magnet is Mightier than the DVD Case

First, a disclaimer: I did not in this post do anything illegal or even un-ethical. If you plan on using the information contained in this post to do anything illegal or un-ethical, shame on you - I hope you get caught. "Pirates, ye be warned."

I love the library. I like to read and I like to do it for free. I also like to watch movies. When I was a kid, the library had a video section, but it was full of old black and white movies that didn't appeal to people under the age of 40. (though they did have some Marx Brothers movies that entertained on occasion...) Nowadays, libraries stock up on the movies that people actually want to watch - a revolutionary idea, to be sure - and I delight in checking them out. But getting good movies from the library is an art unto itself. If you just waltz in and browse the shelves, you still aren't going to get anything better than "The Ten Commandments." The trick is to use the library's website to reserve the movies.

Every couple of months or so I will go onto some movie rental website like Redbox or DVDPlay and browse their latest movies. I will make a list of all of the movies that I want to see, then go to the library's web page and reserve them all. Sure, there are some long waits for the good movies. The key is to reserve movies regularly, so that you get a steady stream of them coming in - even if you have to wait a few months for some. Apart from being free, the library has some key benefits over video rental kiosks. For one thing, the library here lets you keep movies for three weeks. For another thing, if you do happen to be in the mood for some Charlton Heston - the library's got you covered. My geek lesson for today involves another classic, though not as old as Heston: Disney's "The Three Musketeers." ("Come, D'Artagnan! We're saving the king!")

Many libraries (and every video rental store) use Clear-Vu locking DVD cases to prevent the theft of their DVDs. These cases are characterized by the yellow locking bar that promises to damage the DVD if the case is forced open. My library uses these cases, but the locking bars have all been removed so that patrons can use the self-checkout kiosks instead of waiting in line for a librarian to unlock our movies. For some reason, the locking bar in my copy of "The Three Musketeers" had been left in - a fact I discovered last night when I went to watch the movie. Well, no little yellow bar was going to keep me from some swashbuckling action, so I googled my problem. I came across this tutorial. Apparently the technology works by using the tabs (see picture below) to lock the bar in place. The tabs have to be pulled to the center of the bar in order for it to slide free.

The tabs have a metal core. The 'magical' un-lockers are actually just magnets that pull the tabs in from the opposite side of the bar so that it can be slid out. Now, not just any magnet will do. The magnets have to be pretty strong. You could build a pretty honkin' electro magnet if you had an iron core and lots of wire, or you could take apart a spare hard drive and use the head seeker motor magnets, or if your dad is a nerd too and he happened to have given you some super-strong neodymium magnets, you could use those too. (thanks, dad!)

The rest is just proper positioning of the magnets so that they pull the pins in and presto! Now you can watch your legitimately acquired DVD and you can feel like you beat the system without having actually done anything wrong.

PS You'd think that accomplishing the above mentioned rare feat would get you some serious kudos from your wife. Maybe if I hadn't tried to explain it, she would have been more impressed...

5 comments:

Karen C. said...

I'm completely astonished! This is an amazing feat of engineering skills. Are you sure you didn't do anything illegal? I, myself, find great enjoyment in thinking that I have gotten away with something--especially when I haven't actually done anything wrong. Kudo's to you...

Katie said...

Awesome! And it's about time you updated your blog. I checked it probably everyday, despite the fact that it had exactly the same thing for like 6 months, so it was nice to see something besides your derby car today. The question is, did you put the yellow thing back on so the next person has to figure out how to get it off too?

neil said...

Actually, I really wanted to see the look on the librarian's face when I handed the DVD case and the locking bar to her, telling her that since they forgot to take it out I just did it myself. I think Ashley just put it in the drop box, though. :(

I did notice that you were checking my blog every day, Katie. I get a weekly report and I thought it was funny that I averaged one visit a day, and usually at around the same time. It almost made me feel bad for not posting.

Anonymous said...

Good engineering skills. You make a geek father proud. It is a good thing that the DVDs are optical instead of magnetic recording. Do not try this with VHS.

Sheri E. said...

Good thing Dad made you those awesome magnets. Otherwise you wouldn't have been able to watch the best movie ever!