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Posts with tag macrovision

Study finds that one-third of consumers copy DVDs

by Darren Murph, posted Jul 9th 2008 at 10:33AM


'Round these parts, we prefer to read the fine print first, so it should be noted that none other than Macrovision -- you know, the firm that purchased the now-cracked BD+ DRM scheme for $45 million last year -- financed this here study. According to poll results from US and UK consumers, around 1 in 3 individuals admitted to "making copies of pre-recorded DVDs in the past 6 months, up over a quarter from the previous year's study." Predictably, males aged 18 to 24 were most likely to wear an eye patch and own a DVD burner (if you catch our drift), and while revenue loss due to illegal copying is certainly a valid concern, researchers did find that 62% of American respondents (and 49% in the UK) were duping flicks they already owned. Arrr!

[Image courtesy of George Dillon]

Macrovision to scrutinize Sunflower Broadband in-guide advertising

by Darren Murph, posted May 21st 2008 at 1:25PM


With Disney creating a dedicated lair for biometric testing of advertisements and Backchannelmedia pushing its own TV-to-internet ad platform, we aren't too surprised to see Macrovision teaming up with Sunflower Broadband to gauge the effectiveness of yet another advertising alternative. As part of the collaborative effort, EPG usage patterns of an "anonymous sample of Sunflower customers" will be collected and scrutinized in order to "gain insight into how consumers use i-Guide and interact with their DVR, on-demand services and in-guide advertising." In essence, the data will be used to "develop more effective consumer marketing tactics" and understand how subscribers "engage with interactive guide advertising." In-guide advertising? We hate to even think it, but really, what's next?

The real reason it took so long to crack BD+

by Ben Drawbaugh, posted Mar 30th 2008 at 8:57AM

Down with DRMWhen SlySoft announced last week that it'd finally unlocked BD+ content, it got a lot of news coverage -- even some in the mainstream media. But what didn't get discussed was the fact that SlySoft didn't get it done by the end of 2007, as previously promised. Well Ars took the story one step closer and among other things uncovered the real reason -- no it wasn't because it was so 'hard' -- it took so long. Peer van Heuen, SlySoft head of HD technologies said in a post that "it was decided for strategic reasons to wait a bit for the outcome of the 'format war' between HD DVD and Blu-ray." We bet Macrovision wished it'd waited a bit longer before dropping $45 Million purchase on another piece of useless DRM.

Macrovision purchases BD+ DRM for $45 million

by Richard Lawler, posted Nov 19th 2007 at 3:08PM

Macrovision just announced it has purchased the Self-Protecting Digital Content technology that forms the basis of Blu-ray's BD+ DRM system. If you're wondering, that would be the same BD+ technology that went from "impenetrable for 10 years" to "cracked" just last week. 18 months ago, Macrovision hoped to avoid becoming irrelevant by including its analog content protection in the AACS spec used by both formats, but is taking over Blu-ray's digital content protection with the $45 million purchase from Cryptography Research. We're wondering how these latest vulnerabilities will affect Macrovision's plans to commercialize the technology through licensing, since one of BD+'s strengths is an ability to address "emerging" security threats.

Macrovision inks deal to put ACP in AACS

by Richard Lawler, posted May 30th 2006 at 2:22PM

After at one point it seemed like Macrovision would be rendered irrelevant by AACS, they are now a part of it. Perhaps in a move to justify stalling the implementation of ICT, AACS LA will include Macrovision's analog content protection technology in their next update. This isn't that surprising as ICT or no, the analog hole is still a major concern for content providers, in fact Macrovision VP Adam Gervin predicted this back in 2004 (he also predicted that high definition DVD formats would be very slow to take off, DVDs had 5 years of growth left in them and that AACS would be cracked). Of course, one has to wonder how this will affect Toshiba's HD DVD player and PC Blu-ray drives that are already on the market.




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